Photo: Colin Dacre

Coun. Helena Konanz speaking about proposed changes to short-term rentals in Penticton

Penticton city council has sent its staff back to the drawing board to rethink proposed changes to its short-term rental regulations.

Building and permitting manager Ken Kunka was before council Tuesday to pitch a “significant evolution” of the city’s vacation rental program, but councillors had some significant concerns.

The city says there are 343 unique units listed on various short-term rental sites such as Airbnb and VRBO, but just 130 are registered with the city.

Kunka suggested the city hire a third-party company, Host Compliance, to help inform property owners of their requirement to register and pay an annual fee if they rent their home out more than 14 days per year.

Coun. Helena Konanz, who is researching short-term rentals while she obtains a Master’s Degree from UBCO, agreed that the city needs some outside help, but should be hesitant to turn the keys over to an outside company.

She said Host Compliance should be brought in to obtain a clearer picture of how many, and where short-term rentals exactly are in Penticton.

“At least you can find out where they are, which is interesting for the city to know, because you can’t do anything about something you don’t really know about,” she said.

Short-term rental websites typically withhold address data until a booking is made. Eighty-five per cent of the units listed in Penticton are entire homes at a median nightly rate of $207.

Konanz cautioned, however, against hiring Host Compliance to send out computer-generated notices of non-compliance to homeowners.

“I know it take a lot of work, but if we are going to do this, we need to be the ones that send the letter of any kind of warning,” she said.

“I want to know what they are doing with their data, when they come up with addresses and information about people,” she added, noting Host Compliance is a Silicon Valley-based company.

The proposed changes would also explore a moratorium on new builds for vacation rentals.

Konanz cautioned staff against regulating the market too tightly and driving it underground, pushing back against a suggestion that vacation rental licenses are “capped” should they continue to grow.

The majority of the other councillors also spoke in opposition of implementing hard caps on vacation rental licenses. With a unanimous vote, the proposal was sent back to staff to be reworked and brought back to council at a later date.