By Steve Hubrecht
Invermere council approved another temporary use permit (TUP) for a short-term rental (STR) last week.
The STR is one of the Bayshore condos in the Fort Point neighbourhood, and the TUP is for up to seven guests, one below the District of Invermere’s limit of eight. The only reason the TUP application was referred to council (instead of being approved directly by district staff) was that the STR owners wanted to have four guests in one oversized bedroom (more than the two per bedroom allowed under Invermere’s STR rules).
The application drew no complaints, and no comments at all from neighbours, and council gave it a thumbs up without any lengthy discussion during its Tuesday, March 11 meeting.
Local Fort Point residents John and Joan Rouse were also at the meeting. Although they did not have any comments about the Bayshore STR, they had a number of questions and concerns about STRs in Invermere in general.
Joan asked about criteria for district staff to approve TUP applications themselves or whether to bring to council for approval. Invermere planner Catherine Charchun explained that any TUP application seeking more than eight guests total in an STR, or more than two guests in any one bedroom goes to council. But she added “we do evaluate other criteria, such as response from the public and concerns from neighbours.” There are also fire safety, bylaw and RCMP considerations, she said.
Even if a TUP application checks all these boxes “it’s not automatically approved,” said Charchun.
She clarified that would-be STR operators need to apply for a TUP first (if their STR is in a part of town not already zoned for short term tourist accommodation), and then a business licence.
Joan asked if any district staff had outright turned down any TUP applications since Invermere’s STR rules came into effect. “No, we haven’t at this time,” replied Charchun.
Several councillors pointed out that although they hadn’t completely rejected any TUP applications, they have limited several to less than the number of requested guests, including one in the Westridge subdivision in January.
“Are you tracking the clustering effect?” asked Joan, wanting to know if the district is monitoring the density of STRs in each Invermere neighbourhood.
Charchun: “We have an active map.”
Joan asked if there is a certain threshold of letter of complaints or concern about a TUP application that triggers staff to refer that to council.
Charchun explained that there is no specific, hard-and-fast threshold stipulated in Invermere’s STR rules, but that district staff have been using a complaint level of 10 per cent (of neighbours of a given STR) as a general rule of thumb to gauge whether a TUP application should go to council.
