Attorney General and Housing Secretary David Abby says it makes sense to require companies that promote short-term leases through online platforms to share information with local governments. If such a regulation were introduced by the province, it would see such companies face mandatory reporting requirements to ensure that data is shared — for location, for example — on municipal rentals. Local governments will be able to scrutinize information related to the list of short-term rental permits and enforce the law, Abby said in an interview. “THE [short-term rental] The shareholders would get permission from the city and the city could compare their license list with the data provided by the companies to determine which were licensed and which were not, and proceed accordingly. “That makes a lot of sense to me.” The ongoing policy project from the county is updated by a November report on short-term rentals from the BC Association of Municipalities, Abby said. A joint UBCM-Provincial Advisory Advisory Group made 13 recommendations for the county to consider, including the requirement for online platforms to share data. There are challenges in this project, as companies may be international and there may be questions about jurisdiction, but “I think we will eventually be successful,” he said. A short term rental is a reservation of less than 30 consecutive days. A homeowner who rents out his entire home may occasionally rent out his entire home unit on a short-term basis. Stays longer than 30 days rental are considered long. Cities can issue short-term rental permits and control the program, Eby said. But, “the challenge they have is that it ‘s really hard to enforce – it basically requires the work of a private detective from neighbors or law enforcement officers and they just do not have the ability to do it.” Many short-term rental offers are not licensed by the city and do not disclose their addresses, burdening the city of Victoria with law enforcement. As of Thursday, the city of Victoria has 585 short-term rentals on leave or pending approval. The airdna website (airdna.co), which analyzes data on short-term rentals, shows a much larger number of short-term rentals. He says there are 1,063 listings available in Victoria, indicating that hundreds are unlicensed. Victoria moved on Thursday to add three people to its four-person short-term rental team, which is paid with a license fee. The issue of short-term rentals is related to neighbors who may find the activity annoying. Unlicensed units or dwellings may not pay the required municipal fees for their operation, avoiding a levy paid by other commercial activities. Most critical is the question of how the number of short-term rentals, some concentrated in apartment buildings in the city, affects the availability of affordable housing at a time when many residents are finding it difficult to find a place to live. Victoria, along with other communities in the province, is facing a housing crisis. Despite the ongoing construction of apartment buildings in the area of the capital, many people are desperately looking for a place to live. Social media posts highlight the despair of individuals and families. In its February rent report, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation set Victoria’s vacancy rate extremely low at one percent. The city has been struggling with low vacancy rates for decades. Victoria Coun. Stephen Andrew reiterated calls for provincial rules that insist short-term rental sites must publish a copy of a municipal permit. There are hundreds of short-term rental units that could be vacated if they came out of this pool, Andrew said. Andrew said there is nothing wrong with wanting to make extra money. “We are in a housing crisis and we have to deal with it and that is only part of it.” The province needs to evaluate the issue, Andrew said. “As much as they plan to be regulators for zoning, they need to be regulators in this matter and help us ensure that we can open these units for families to live on,” he said. In February, Eby announced that the county was considering legislation that would take some of the licensing powers now available to local governments to see more homes being built in the county. This could lead to the removal of the final decision on the approval of housing permits by the municipalities. Not enough housing has been approved to meet the needs of the growing population, Abby said, adding that the BC may need to be tightened because the status quo is not acceptable. The Victoria housing market is so tight that Andrew said there were people who signed deals to work for the city but then were forced to retire because they could not find a home. Municipalities in the area should work together to adopt similar legislation governing short-term leases, he said. Otherwise, short-term leases will be promoted to neighboring municipalities, such as Esquimalt and Saanich. Eby said that during the pandemic, some operators withdrew their short-term rentals from this pool. “We had little relief from the impact of short-term rentals on long-term rentals, and that was because tourists disappeared and a lot of people turned previous short-term rentals into long-term ones and it had a really positive, obvious impact on housing availability.” He believes that careful policing of short-term rentals could improve the availability of long-term rental housing. In terms of limiting the number of short-term rentals, Eby said municipalities are in the best position to receive this designation. It will vary by city. “Some cities are largely holiday destinations and short-term rentals are a key part of their economic strategy,” he said. “They also have to balance this with housing for workers and the tourism industry, and they have really struggled with that.” The province has funded municipalities throughout BC. for the study of housing needs, he said. 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