By Steve Hubrecht
The Columbia Valley, like the rest of British Columbia and indeed the rest of Canada, has grappled with a growing housing crisis over the past several years. At the same time the number of short-term rentals (STR) has expanded explosively.
Many residents put the blame for the former squarely on the latter. The Pioneer has certainly heard from many former long-term renters kicked out by landlords seeking to turning their properties into STRs. But, on the other hand, some officials, including local officials here in the Columbia Valley, have suggested it may not be a black and white case of cause and effect.
Academics from McGill University’s Urban Politics and Governance (UPGO) research group have studied the issue in detail, focusing on STR impact on housing availability and affordability across all B.C.’s regions, including the Kootenay Rockies, on a municipality-by-municipality basis.
The results were published in a report released in January 2023 entitled ‘The Housing Impacts of Short-Term Rentals in British Columbia’s Regions.’ A second report — a ‘summer update’ to the first — was then released in July 2023.
The Pioneer attempted to contact the report’s lead author — McGill associate professor David Wachsmuth — to find out if a further 2024 update is underway, now that new province-wide STR regulations have come into effect in B.C (and Invermere’s own STR regulation have been adopted) — but was unable to reach him prior to press deadline.
The summer 2023 report, despite now being a year out of date, still provides interesting insights about the effect of STRs on the housing market in Invermere and other Kootenay communities.
The report’s findings are not great news for Invermere, which is the municipality most impacted by STRs in the entire Kootenay Rockies region, according to several of the report’s metrics. Indeed in a few measurements, the report ranks STR impacts in Invermere as not only the most pronounced in the Kootenay, but also among the most acute in the whole province.
In terms of sheer number of STRs, Invermere had 180 active STR listings in June 2023, outlined the report, the most of any Kootenay municipality by a considerable margin. The next closest were Kimberley and Revelstoke, each with 140 active STR listings. That’s all the more eye-catching when you consider that Invermere’s population of 3,900 is less than half that of both Kimberley (population 8,100) and Revelstoke (population 8,300).
Invermere’s STR tally was also substantially higher than other Kootenay communities with noticeably larger populations than Invermere, such as Nelson (130 active STR listings; population 11,000), Cranbrook (19 active STR listings; population 20,000), Castlegar (nine active STR listings; population 8,300), and Trail (18 active STR listings; population 7,900).
Not surprisingly, the number of STRs in Invermere is also much higher than in other Kootenay communities with roughly similar populations as Invermere, such as Golden (90 active STR listings; population 3,900), Rossland (90 active STR listings; population 4,100), and Creston (six active STR listings; population 5,500).
Looking outside the Kootenay region, the total number of active STR listings in Invermere is more even than the cities of Kamloops (160 active STR listings; population 98,000), Chilliwack (140 active STR listings; population 93,000), Prince George, (120 active STR listings; population 76,000) and equivalent to the city of Abbotsford (180 active STR listings; population 153,000) — all four of which rank among the nine most populous municipalities in B.C.
The report broke B.C. down into six regions, for comparison sake, and somewhat incredibly tiny old Invermere has nearly as many active STR listings (180) as the entire Cariboo-Chilcotin Coast region (190 active STR listing), which aside from being geographically vast, also includes two municipalities with populations of 10,000 (Williams Lake and Quesnel).
The report outlines that in Invemere, 8.1 per cent of dwellings are used as active STR listings. This is far and away the highest such rate in any Kootenay communities‚ nearly twice as much as the second highest and third percentages (4.7 per cent in Golden; and 4.3 per cent in Rossland). It’s miles ahead of other Kootenay municipalities that have thriving tourism destination industries, such as Kimberley (3.4 per cent), Revelstoke (3.8 per cent) and Nelson (2.4 per cent); and is even further ahead of Kootenay municipalities that function more as regional hubs, such as Cranbrook (0.2 per cent), Creston (0.2 per cent), Castlegar (0.2 per cent), and Trail (0.5 per cent).
In fact, there are only five municipalities in all of B.C., including Invermere (8.1 per cent), that have percentages of dwellings use as active STR listing greater than 5 per cent: Ucluelet, Tofino, Whistler and Sun Peaks Mountain. Optimists can take heart that Invermere, although fifth worst in the province, is still quite a bit below Ucluelet’s staggering 28.2 per cent of dwellings used as active STR listings. Pessimists will point out that this also means there is plenty of scope for the situation to get much worse.
The report estimated that 90 units of housing in Invermere were being lost to STRs in June 2022, and that this figure had risen to 100 units of housing lost to STRs in June 2023. That is again the highest such figure among Kootenay communities by a strong margin, and represents an 8.6 per increase in housing loss to STRs in one year.
Invermere has 14.6 commercial STRs per 100 rental units, outlined the report. This is, once again, easily the highest rate anywhere in the Kootenay Rockies region. Golden comes second at 11.3 commercial STRs per 100 rental units; and Rossland third at 10.2.
Across the Kootenay Rockies region there are 8.3 commercial STRs per 100 rental units, which the report emphasized is “by far the highest rate of commercial STRs among the six tourism regions in the province.”
The report estimated that increases in STRs in Invermere between 2021 and 2022 resulted in the average Invermere renter household’s rent rate increasing by $170 per month over the course of 2022. This translates to an extra 1.3 million paid in total rent in Invermere in 2022.
there is a need to to get this under control. first all str’s legally need to be registered, paying TAXES and insured, these businesses also should be required to post signage as an STR. Also needed in this valley is the SPECULATION TAX on vacation houses.