Email from Miles Homer and Christa Zacharias-Homer regarding Short Term Rental

To Mayor and Council, Town of View Royal

For Your Consideration

As longtime 20-year residents and homeowners in the Town of View Royal, we are writing Mayor and Council with a request to review and reconsider the current short term rental prohibition contained in Bylaw 900.

We understand and support the need for promoting affordable housing opportunities for Township residents and the community at large, however, there is also a need to support affordability for existing homeowners. We are encouraging Mayor and Council to review this need with a balanced perspective that considers both the needs of rental opportunity and homeowner affordability. While Bylaw 900 puts in place protections for rental of secondary suites, it minimizes the concern for nor considers the feasibility of existing homeowners who continue to reside in their current homes and encounter increasing affordability pressures along with the rising costs of goods and services directly related to home ownership.

As homeowners, we have renovated our property in accordance with the secondary suite requirements (including the building permit process) to provide ourselves flexibility and options moving forward and through our retirement. This secondary suite provides us flexibility to accommodate and host our aging parents, extended family and friends who visit throughout the year and provides opportunities to generate additional income to assist in offsetting ongoing affordability pressures.

Bylaw 900 aligns with the Residential Tenancy Act and allows long term rental; however, strict adherence to this act and Bylaw 900 is prescriptive, restrictive and limits flexibility to accommodate our specific needs. In addition, Bylaw 900 is more stringent than the Provincial Short Term Rental Accommodation Act (STRAA) and does not permit View Royal Residents to rent to those that are exempted from the STRAA (STRA Regulation, Section 4). This severely limits our options to bring our secondary suite onto the rental market and increases the burden of affordability at a time of increasing costs for basic expenses.

Moreover, short term rental opportunities, and the platforms that facilitate them, have transformed beyond providing only opportunities for vacationers or recreational users. While still the primary use, these platforms now enable “temporary accommodation” needs and should be considered by the Town of View Royal. These accommodation needs include individuals and/or families who are:

• immigrating to Canada from foreign countries and require initial housing to facilitate this process
• considering moving to the CRD region and require a base to explore while seeking permanent housing
• employed on a short term work opportunity/contract (e.g. nurse at Victoria general hospital)
• attending a technical training course for educational or work purposes (e.g. Justice institute, Camosun Interurban, Royal Roads, etc)
• requiring temporary accommodation while a principal residence is undergoing emergency renovations or remediations (e.g. condo unit flooded, etc)
• undertaking a practicum at one of the community businesses (i.e. UBC Pharmacy student)
• attending “special or marquee events” (e.g. FIFA)

These are missed opportunities which are presently prohibited under the existing bylaw provision. If allowed, these types of non-vacation/recreational short term “temporary accommodation” needs would inject economic benefits to both the Township, its business and residents.

With the current increases in purpose built rental accommodation and higher rental vacancy rates in the Township, along with the continued decrease in rental prices, all indicators point to a continued path to achieve affordable housing for Township residents.

On an aside, while we appreciate the intent of the current Amnesty initiative to accommodate the ‘temporary accommodation’ needs in support of FIFA, the inability of the Township to provide short term rental business license in turn prohibits the ability of a homeowner to register under the STRAA, direct resulting in the inability to legally rent their property in support of this amnesty. The intent is honorable but is legally unattainable. The homeowner would not only be in contravention of the local bylaw (although amnesty alleviates that) they are in contravention of Provincial regulations punishable by fines up to $5000 per infraction.

We would like Mayor and Council to amend and/or introduce a temporary accommodation or short term rental business license (e.g. 4 or 6 month duration in one calendar year) that would continue to support housing affordability, facilitate community and Township economic benefits and provide flexibility in application to support special events such as FIFA as well as other temporary accommodation needs that exist.

We hope that Mayor and Council will deliberate the merits of and give due consideration to, the goal of affordable housing, the impacts of the affordability pressures on Townships residents and the varying degree of short term or temporary accommodation needs in the community.

Sincerely,

Miles Homer and Christa Zacharias-Homer