Eight councillors to determine fate of Airbnb

Perhaps more so than any other city councillor, Maxine DeHart understands the role of Airbnb within Kelowna’s traditional accommodation landscape.

She works at the Ramada and owns properties downtown that she can offer for shortterm rentals.

So her insights might be valuable as council decides whether and how to regulate the fastexploding short-term rental business in Kelowna.

But DeHart is declaring a conflict of interest and excusing herself whenever the topic comes up, as it did on Monday and as it will again on March 12 when the city holds what is sure to be a lively and lengthy public hearing on the proposed regulations.

There are no hard and fast rules as to when councillors must declare a conflict. Mostly, it’s up to them, and DeHart must feel her two somewhat competing income sources put her in an awkward position on the file.

It seems to be me she’s wrong, because she’s in no more position to benefit from whatever council decides than are the tens of thousands of other Kelowna residents who either own rental properties or work in the hospitality industry.

But regardless, it’ll be an eight person council that decides next month whether to press ahead with the proposed short-term regulations that are more complex and restrictive than the approach being taken in other municipalities. If passed, the Kelowna rules will take effect this summer.

Notionally, the March 12 public hearing is a chance for citizens to provide their input to help councillors in hopes of affecting the decision.

Realistically, given by the comments they made Monday, some councillors have already made up their mind and you wonder how open their ears will be at the public hearing. Coun. Gail Given, who seems never to have encountered a proposed city regulation she didn’t immediately fall in love with, is all in favour of the new rules. Coun. Luke Stack is firmly on board.

So is Mayor Colin Basran, who tipped his hand with a sarcastic dismissal of people who have concerns about the regulations by overstating their case to try undermine it. It won’t “kill tourism,” the mayor harumphed.

Nobody seriously believes the city’s traditional hospitality industry, powered by two million annual visitors spending $1 billion, according to Tourism Kelowna, is in mortal peril from short-term rentals.

Not even traditional accommodation providers think this, as evidenced by hotel and motel association president Dale Sivucha’s recent comments to this newspaper that he didn’t think short-term rentals were a big deal.

But it’s clear short-term rentals have gained a not inconsiderable slice of the local tourism market. About 90,000 people stayed at Airbnb properties in Kelowna last year. That’s almost five per cent of all visitors, and the share probably approaches or eclipses double digits when you add in all the other short-term rental firms like VRBO and Home Away.

On Airbnb, about 80 per cent of all Kelowna listings are for entire homes. Most tourists, unsurprisingly, don’t want to stay in other people’s bedrooms.

But it’s precisely this segment of the market that is essentially targeted by the city’s new rules. Homeowners in most areas would have to live in the property they’re offering for short-term rentals. And they couldn’t rent out carriage houses, secondary suites, or investment properties at all.

Many landlords rent to college or university students from September through April, with the suites vacant through the summer months. The city’s proposed rules would not even allow these empty premises to be rented to tourists.

Only in a few special neighbourhoods, like the Sunset Drive area where DeHart owns her rental properties and around Kelowna General Hospital, would unfettered shortterm rentals be allowed.

Basran is right that the proposed regulations won’t kill tourism. But they almost certainly will deliver a knock-out local punch to a form of travel increasingly favoured by visitors and one which allows ordinary people to directly share in the economic benefits of tourism.

Councillors Ryan Donn and Charlie Hodge suggest the proposed rules amount to much regulation, and represent an unwise attempt by the city to hobble what is clearly an increasingly popular form of tourism.

The way the votes are lining up on council, the fate of the short-term rental regulations will probably be decided by Loyal Wooldridge, Brad Sieben and Mohini Singh.

Let’s hope they understand, like their nonvoting colleague Maxine DeHart surely does, that there’s plenty of room in Kelowna for both short-term rentals and the hotel trade.