By Steve Hubrecht
[email protected]
The Regional District of East Kootenay (RDEK) board of directors will be making some important decisions on short term rentals (STRs) this week.
The RDEK has been working to address rising public concern on STRs in the area for more than a year, and recently mailed out an update to local residents, detailing its progress so far and the possible next steps to come.
Those next steps will be determined by the RDEK board during its committee meeting on Thursday, Apr. 7 and its board meeting on Friday, Apr. 8.
“It’s been a big undertaking,” RDEK planner Michelle Bates told the Pioneer.
As longtime readers of the Pioneer may recalll, the RDEK conducted a survey on STRs last summer. Since then RDEK staff have conducted quite a bit of research, including purchasing data to figure out how many STRs there are in the RDEK and how much revenue they generate; researching how other regional district and municipalities deal with STRs; discussions with other municipal and regional planners; peer-to-peer meetings and webinars; and consultation with property management companies and community associations representatives.
Stemming for this work, RDEK staff have identified three options to deal with STRs for the RDEK board to consider. These are: amend zoning bylaws to regulate STRs; using temporary use permits (TUPs) to regulate STRs; and requesting an order in council from the provincial government that would give the RDEK the power to issue business licenses, which could then be used to regulate STRs.
As Bates explained to the Pioneer, there are pros and cons to each option.
The zoning bylaw options would allow the RDEK to regulate many aspects of STRs, but it will be a very long bureaucratic process, as pursuing this option would require the RDEK to amend its eight existing zoning bylaws and 15 different official community plans.
Each of these bylaw and official community plan amendments would be required to go through its own planning and public consultation processes.
Each of these bylaw and official community plan amendments would be required to go through its own planning and public consultation processes. The zoning process may encounter difficulties in that, in some respects, it would impose a single solution across a very large geographic area that has markedly different demographics (and likely differing residents opinions on STRs) from one end to the other.
The TUPs would allow the RDEK to permit, on a case by case basis, uses not otherwise allowed within its current zoning bylaws. They would give the board a lot more flexibility when it comes to deal with STRs. But each TUP would require approval from the board. And they may prove to be only a stop-gap measure, since TUPs can only be approved for an initial term of up to three years with the option to renew once for an additional three years.
The order in council for business licences would require extensive paperwork and bureaucratic effort up front between the regional district and various branches of the provincial government, and consequently may take much longer than the other options. If the order in council was granted it would give the RDEK the power (and the responsibility) to license not just STRs, but all sorts of businesses.
Bates emphasized that whatever option the board selects, there is still more consultation, stakeholder engagement and planning to come. “It will still be at least another eight to 12 months before something is in place to deal with STRs,” she said.
