Peaceful protest or intimidation?
A peaceful protest wasn’t able to persuade Naramata’s politician to halt AirB&Bs, but it did intimidate the Mayor of Summerland.
Short-term rental bans of non-primary residence suites will automatically apply to Penticton and Summerland because they have populations above 10,000, as per the provincial government’s new legislation. But every other community throughout the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen is small enough to have autonomy over whether or not they want to follow suit.
Naramata residents who don’t want short term rentals in their village peacefully demonstrated their position by collecting more than 960 signatures on a petition called “Opt-in for Area E (Naramata) to Provincial Short Term Rental Regulations,” and by flashing handmade signs while decisions were being made at Thursday’s regular meeting.
The placards were considered intimidation by Doug Holmes, Summerland’s mayor who sits on the RDOS board.
“We have a lot of signs in the audience and I don’t think that’s appropriate, I don’t think the signs should be here,” Holmes said.
“It’s a form of intimidation.”
He asked the director Rick Knodel – who was chairing the meeting remotely -- to have the signs removed.
“I’ve never seen the protocol for stopping anything like this, we’ve never had anything like this in the past,” Knodel said.
Demonstrators asked which rules they were breaking.
Staff advised there is no protocol for signs in the gallery.
Director Matt Taylor of Okanagan Falls had a brief and simple message for the demonstrators: their signs had been read and their point had been made.
Director James Miller, a Penticton city coucnillor, related them to citizens who wear t-shirts with messages at meetings such as Save Skaha Park.
“Where do we draw the line, do we ask people to take their shirts off if they have something like that?”
Had the signs included profanity or medical misinformation, Miller says that would have crossed a line.
Holmes acknowledged there was little that could be done about the demonstration.
“I just find it disrespectful to the institution and this board,” the mayor said.
The silent protest and the meeting both continued.
But the crowd didn’t stay silent after hearing from Area E director Adrienne Fedrigo, who represents Naramata.
Fedrigo declares the temporary use permit process is not strong -- just last month the same process ruined her plans to have a tiny home without a sewer connection -- yet she trusts the process.
“We will have business licences and they will be there to protect our housing, and they will be there to protect these businesses going forward,” she said.
“My feeling is to not have extra restriction and extra paws and hands in there by the province until we can really work through this and see how it’s gong to impact the community.”
Fedrigo suggests gathering more information through a “vacation rental review and strengthening of our policies.”
The demonstrators broke their silence to jeers when Fedrigo said Naramata wouldn’t be restricting short term rentals.
They were hoping to speak at the meeting, but two requests from the delegation filed in advance were denied.
“So we felt this was our only option to ensure our message was heard most broadly,” resident Miranda Halladay said.
“We’re trying to protect our school and our community and Adrienne is not helping,” another woman interjected.
Fedrigo did not respond to an email from the Herald requesting comment.