The City of Nanaimo plans to wait until the provincial legislation around short-term rentals is fully rolled out before making any major changes locally. (File photo/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Jordan Davidson

changes coming

Nanaimo set to double short-term rental fines while waiting on provincial data

Mar 20, 2024 | 5:23 AM

NANAIMO — While waiting for the provincial government to fully flesh out its short-term rental regulations, Council is beefing up their own enforcement.

Councillors, on Monday, March 18, approved a doubling of fines for short-term rental (STR) owners who don’t operate in accordance with established bylaws, from $250 to $500 per day.

Kasia Biegun, City community planner, told councillors 62 complaints have been made since spring 2022, when local regulations were adopted. A vast majority were for STR’s operating without the required business license.

“[In October], the Province increased fines and tickets…from $1,000 to $3,000. However that increase is for the municipal ticketing system that the City does not currently use,” said Biegun. “We use the Local Government Bylaw Notice Enforcement Act at this time, and the maximum fines set for that is currently at $250 per infraction per day, but could be at $500, which is the maximum.”

Only two per cent of complaints were for too many rooms and guests, with less than one per cent relating to parking or noise concerns.

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Only two violation tickets were handed out, one for operating without a license, the other for failing to comply with the license terms and conditions, like renting too many rooms.

Biegun said most STR operators came into compliance by obtaining a business license after being informed of the complaint.

While communities like Parksville are less than thrilled about the new provincial regulations around short-term rental (STR) units, Nanaimo is waiting to see before moving further.

The province is implementing their program in a phased approach and has yet to form an enforcement board, according to Biegun.

“There’s quite a suite of tools that will be made available. When Staff came to Council when the program was first implemented, these were the kind of tools that we were hoping to get from the province and they’ve actually come forward with it and provided them to municipalities.”

The motion to direct Staff to review a number of bylaws to improve STR compliance and enforcement tools, including increasing fines to $500, was approved unanimously. The amended bylaws will be presented for final approval at a future council meeting.

Mayor Leonard Krog and coun. Janice Perrino did not vote, declaring conflicts, while coun. Paul Manly and Ian Thorpe were absent from the meeting.

Data for decisions
Councillors heard in detail on Monday how challenging it can be to get an accurate total of STRs currently operating in Nanaimo, as some companies won’t share their data.

They rely on an STR data analytics site, AirDNA, which Biegun said represents the lowest number of possible listings operating at any given time locally through sites like Airbnb and Vrbo.

“Other platforms, private property management websites, high-season listings or other social media advertising are not included in this number. If we compare the potential number of STR’s operating in Nanaimo with the number of business licences that were taken out, we’re looking at a potential compliance rate of approximately 30 per cent.”

She said as of March 1, 980 active listings within Nanaimo were available online.

At the same time, only 291 STR’s had an approved business licence, with 60 per cent located within a primary residence, 35 per cent in secondary suites, and five per cent in a detached suite.

In October 2023, the B.C. government unveiled their own STR regulations, which included only allowing STR units to be available on the principal property of the host in places with 10,000 or more people.

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jordan@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @JordanDHeyNow