By Steve Hubrecht
The consultants hired by the District of Invermere to help monitor and enforce its short-term rentals (STRs) have completed their initial assessment of the STR situation here.
Local residents have frequently wondered just how many STRS there are in Invermere — both aloud to district officials and to the Pioneer. District staff checked STR listing platforms several times during the nearly two years spent creating Invermere’s new STR regulations, but that was more to give a big picture idea of the situation than any sort of officially tally. The only other quasi-official count (on an independent third-party basis) was a report on STRs across B.C. from McGill University’s Urban Politics and Governance (UPGO), which outlined that Invermere had 180 active STR listings in June 2023. But this too was just a snapshot rather than an in-depth count.
When Invermere hired Granicus Consulting Ltd. earlier this year to help it deal with STRs, the company’s first big step was to spend several weeks running through the data of at least 30 major STR platforms and find out how many STRs operate here. Granicus recently completed this assessment, giving the district some official numbers for the first time.
The results? In total, there are 263 STRs in Invermere, including five listed in the past month. In terms of sheer number of listings, there are 427 active STR listings in the district. But many STRs list on multiple platforms at the same time (in other words, one STR can result in several STR listings). These figures are only within District of Invermere boundaries, and do not include STRs on the east side of Lake Windermere; the west side of Lake Windermere south of the Westside Road cattle guard; or nearby areas such as Panorama Mountain Resort, the Toby Benches, the crossroads, and Juniper Heights.
Invermere development coordinator Catherine Charchun explained that the district has already issued 67 STR business licences and 27 temporary use permits (TUPs) for STRs, that there are currently 17 open STR business licence applications, and that 13 additional STR business licence applications have come in recently. So in total, there are 114 STR permit applications that have either gone through or are still in some part of the district’s application process.
All STRs that operate in the district need business licences; those that are in parts of town zoned for short-term tourist accommodation (i.e. most single family residential neighbourhoods) need TUPs in addition to business licences.
The numbers mean there are 97 different STRs in Invermere that have received or are trying to get permits to operate. It also means there are 166 STRs in Invermere that have not yet bothered to apply for either business licences or TUPs.
District staff and Granicus are aware of these unlicenced STRs, have identified where they are, and are beginning to deal with them. A process for dealing with them was laid out in the STR regulations Invermere put in place last May. The first step is to send letters to the owners of the illegally operating STRs. From there consequences escalate: online platforms (such as AirBnB and VRBO) will de-list all unlicenced Invermere STRs, and the STR owners will face fines of $500 per day. Each day an unlicenced STR operates is considered a separate offence. This translates to a $3,500 penalty for operating an unlicenced STR for a week, or between $14,000 and $15,500 for a month.
Charchun has already drafted letters to be sent to unlicenced STR owners, but has been hamstrung by the ongoing Canada Post strike. The letters must be sent in hard copy, not just digitally, and the strike means they can’t. So the first step in the enforcement process is temporarily paused.
In light of these numbers, local resident John Rouse asked Invermere council “will we reach a point where we say, ‘there’s enough STRs in Invermere?’ Is there a limit?”
In response, Invermere mayor Al Miller noted that the number of STRs in Invermere has actually decreased slightly since the district implemented its regulations in May.
Rouse also asked about clustering of STRs, and whether or not there are limits on how many can be in a given neighbourhood.
Invermere councillor Kayja Becker explained that looking at the concentration of STRs in a neighbourhood is “definitely part of the process” when considering TUPs.
Several other B.C. municipalities have also hired Granicus to deal with STRs, including Kimberley. Invermere pays Granicus slightly less than $10,000, and uses the fees it charges for STR permit applications to pay the company.
Granicus has also set up a hotline for Invermere residents with complaints about STRs. The hotline is now active, and the number is 778-601-9306.
