Suzanne Little

Vancouver and BC are about to get a HARD lesson in unintended consequences if this Short Term rental bill goes through as written because it includes a critical change that few have noticed This change will go into Law on May 1st. At that stage, BC will have defined Short term rentals as 90 days and levied a death knell to the Movie & Tech industries, eliminated temporary housing for insurance companies in the event of fires & floods and rendered new immigrants or summer students unable to find accommodation prior to arrival in Vancouver. I would suggest that @Dave_Eby outline how he expects people in the following categories to live in a province where the minimum rental term in defined in law as 90 days at a time. Temporary workers such as those in the Movie industry or those on temporary placement in multinationals like the tech industry. The Circe du Soleil rent apartments for hundreds of staff when they visit every second year on a 3 month term. Deadpool brought in over a thousand staff for 10 weeks of filming in 2020. New immigrants (Mostly tech workers) who rent a place for a month or two while they search for a permanent home. They cannot secure a property over Craiglist / traditional markets because of the risk of scammers so Short Term platforms act as a trusted custodian for those who cannot view a property but still need to pay upfront to secure it. People who have had a fire, flood or are undertaking a renovation project and need to vacate their homes for repairs. This is a massive category of demand. All locals, all in need of shorter but not short term accommodation. Vancouver snowbird emigrants who used to maintain a property here & have rented it due to the EHT, now rent monthly to come home in the summers. There are other categories, like retirees visiting families for an extended term, but these segments are the main ones making up 80% of the demand. None of them are tourist type requirements & removing the option would create hardship for locals that are already struggling or damage the economy. I fear it would prevent the movie industry from considering Vancouver at all as a viable location if they cannot house staff. Vancouver is not a small provincial city, the requirements of our population are different, & Vancouver needs some level of temporary accommodation. The only winners here will be the hotels who already capitalized on the prior restrictions by doubling prices. Those prices are not manageable for extended terms on months on end, in particular for families who need 2 or 3 rooms. A summer two month rental in the Burrard, a 3 star hotel would be priced at $21,000 right now. What will it be when it has to cater for every temporary accomodation need after these regulations go into play? #VanPoli