Victoria will tinker with short-term rentals again

Victoria City Council plans to change short-term rental regulations to make them clearer.

The City Council voted this week to have city staff submit a report on the effects of banning the use of secondary suites for short-term rentals, as well as what impact placing a limit on the maximum number of nights a primary residence can be rented for short-term rentals in a calendar year might have.

Staff are also expected to consider the scale of the licensing fees based on how often the host rents out their primary residence.

Councillor Jeremy Caradonna said one of the most problematic aspects of the provincial rules governing short-term rentals — which limit rentals to a primary residence or a basement, alley or garden suite on the same property — is that they conflict with city regulations that say secondary suites cannot be used for that purpose.

“And I think if we didn’t make that clear in our own regulations, some users might assume that the provincially set baseline takes precedence,” he said.

Caradonna also noted there is confusion about how many nights a Victoria resident can rent out their primary residence.

“We had this vague, unregulated limit of four times (a year) for 30 nights, so theoretically 120 nights total,” he said. “But it was never formalized in law.”

He added that if the situation is not formalized, some people could rent out a room in their home for 360 nights a year.

Caradonna said he didn’t know what number would be appropriate, but suggested considering starting points of 120, 150 or 180 nights total.

Staff were instructed to investigate the impact of these actions and submit a report this year.

The study will not be completed in time to allow city council to pass other amendments to the short-term rental law, which are due to be tabled in the first week of August.

The council is then expected to consider approving amendments to better define terms such as operator, tenant, condo, property manager and landlord.

Other changes to the ordinance include raising fees, increasing fines for non-compliance, limiting occasional rentals of entire homes to four bookings per year and closing a loophole that would have allowed units used for short-term rentals to continue to be rented out by changing their designation from a residential zone to a hotel zone.

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