Lobby group pushes B.C. party leaders to repeal rent restrictions

An Airbnb listing for a microloft located in the heart of downtown Victoria advertises a rooftop garden, an in-building gym — and guidance on how to vote in the upcoming B.C. election.

The "TINY Microloft" is "certainly a challenge for a 90-day stay, thanks to our B.C. NDP gov't," the listing reads. "Please vote for B.C. Conservatives in the October 2024 election, thank you."

While it's not the average listing visitors might expect, it's one manifestation of a broader pushback by property owners against short-term rental restrictions.

Sparked by frustrations over the recently introduced restrictions, a lobby group of owners is attempting to influence B.C. Conservative and B.C. United party leaders' housing policies.

The push comes in advance of a fall election with the NDP facing a growing challenge from the B.C. Conservative Party, which has been enjoying a surge in popularity in recent opinion polls. 

The Property Rights Association of B.C., a pro-short-term rental lobby group, has held online town halls this month – one with B.C. United Leader Kevin Falcon and another this week with B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad. 

The group says the meetings were forums for its members to grill both leaders on their stance on short-term rentals and, according to an email sent last week to those registered to attend the Rustad event, find out how to "get involved and make sure the NDP doesn't form government this fall."

The NDP says reversing short-term rental restrictions could further drive up home prices and scarcity.

Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said he was not surprised to hear the opposition leaders "campaigning for investor votes" or that some short-term rental listings had appeared with overtly political messaging.

"Airbnb and some of these investors are well funded. They're a pretty powerful group. They're going to leverage that to maximize their profits," he said.

"John Rustad and Kevin Falcon have always been on the side of investors. This is not new."

Leaders grilled at town hall meeting

A recording of the Falcon event on Aug. 6 was shared with the CBC by another journalist who attended the event. The CBC was told the Rustad town hall on Aug. 22 was for members only, and repeated requests for an interview with event organizers did not receive a response.

Rustad says that he would prioritize repealing provincial restrictions on short-term rentals if elected. 

"What I believe very strongly is that local governments are the ones that need to make those decisions. They're the ones who do the business licences. They're the ones who do the zoning," he said. "And I think, quite frankly, what the provincial government did has been an overstep."

In a crackdown described by industry experts as among the most comprehensive in North America, the current regulations, which came into effect May 1, banned most short-term rentals that are not the owner's principal residence.

Paul Kershaw, a professor at the University of British Columbia and founder of the think tank Generation Squeeze, said he feels that the B.C. Conservatives' hands-off approach would do nothing to address sky-high housing prices and record low rental vacancy rates.

"They're being seduced by the idea that we're going to get some people voting for us because they're wanting to continue to use housing as a business strategy, to commodify it as an investment strategy," said Kershaw. "That is just out of touch with the scale of the problem facing us."

B.C. United MLA Todd Stone, in an unrelated news conference in Victoria on Thursday, said that his party would bring in changes to allow people to operate one or two short-term rentals outside of their primary residence.

He says the short-term rental restrictions have yet to ease the housing shortages felt by many communities.

"People were forced to take their short-term rentals off the market, and those short-term rentals are not all turning into long-term rentals as the NDP said they magically would," he said.

Earlier this month, a report from StatsCan identified more than 100,000 short-term rentals that could be homes. In July, data from the B.C. Ministry of Housing found that nearly half of the 22,405 short-term rental listings reviewed by the province were operating illegally.  

Andy Yan, director of the city program at Simon Fraser University, says that any reversal of short-term rental restrictions would come at a cost for renters.

"I think we'd probably see a further erosion of our rental housing stock [and] rents would further increase," he said.

"I think that this would further commodify residential real estate … It would lead renters into a deeper level of vulnerability."