City seeks data on Airbnb rentals
TOURISM: Mayor promises support for motion to accelerate study on how industry affects community
Carolina Camargo recently experienced one of the downsides of Airbnb’s exploding popularity in Vancouver.
In January, she signed a fixed-term lease for $620 per month on a room in a shared house on East Broadway. But she soon learned her landlord planned to evict her and all of her roommates at the end of April to rent out the house on Airbnb for the summer tourist season.
“It’s not fair that it’s happening,” said Camargo, who moved into a new rental in February.
“It’s something that might be happening to more people. I want to contribute to some sort of policy change.”
That policy change may be in the works. Next week, Vancouver city council will consider a motion from Coun. Geoff Meggs asking for data on the short-term rental industry’s impact on the city and Mayor Gregor Robertson has promised his support.
The idea is to accelerate a staff study of how Airbnb and its competitors are affecting the city’s rental-housing stock and how other cities are tackling the issue.
“(Short-term rentals) may be lucrative for the people who are doing them, but they’re not helping the sustainability of our city or the sustainability of the community,” Meggs said.
Independent estimates suggest Airbnb’s popularity in Vancouver is growing quickly, with more than 4,700 listings in December. That’s despite the fact city bylaws make it illegal for anyone who doesn’t have a bed and breakfast licence to rent out housing for less than 30 days.
As things stand in Vancouver, the incentive for flouting the rule can be very enticing. Someone like Camargo’s landlord, for example, could potentially make more than triple the rental income by renting out individual rooms to tourists at a rate of $70 per night.
The company has promised to provide data to cities, but won’t offer up the names or addresses of hosts, citing privacy concerns. Spokesman Christopher Nulty said Airbnb welcomes the chance to work on policy with Vancouver lawmakers.
“We look forward to continuing a productive dialogue with Vancouver policy-makers and providing insight into the makeup of our community — the vast majority of whom are regular people sharing their primary residences — to develop smart, clear and fair home-sharing rules,” Nulty wrote in an email.
Meggs is hopeful Airbnb will offer up useful data, describing the company as “quite forthcoming” in other cities. But independent data likely will also be part of the process — and the city may have to gather data of its own.
The end result of gathering all these numbers may be to follow the path of American cities like Portland that have opted to regulate the short-term rental industry by requiring hosts to obtain licences and pay lodging taxes, an approach that may work for Vancouver as well, according to Meggs.
“My view is we will need to regulate in this area, just as we’ve always regulated beds and breakfasts,” he said.