Photo: Luc Rempel

Some members of CSRD board "very upset," by provincial response to letter expressing concerns about the new short-term rental registry

Some directors at the Columbia Shuswap Regional District were “very upset” about the response from the provincial government to a letter expressing concerns over the new short-term rental registry that came into effect on May 1.

At the May 15 CSRD board meeting the board received a response from the provincial government to a letter the board sent outlining challenges they have had with the new provincial short-term rental registry.

In their letter the CSRD expressed concern over their ability to enforce bylaw compliance with approximately 1500 short-term rentals(STR) in the district as well as concerns over whether STR’s could be issued a provincial registration number without being in compliance with the CSRD’s zoning bylaws.

Currently several areas in the regional district do not have any permitted STR zoning and as such all STR's need to apply for a temporary use permit(TUP) in order to gain bylaw compliance. These TUP requests all come before the board for a vote.

There has been much previous discussion at the board about how to evaluate these TUP requests against neighbours who might object as well as the amount of staff time used for TUP requests considering the huge number of STR's in the regional district.

In their response a registrar from the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs said any enforcement of CSRD’s zoning bylaws would be up to them and STR owners could apply for registration without gaining full compliance.

“During the registration process hosts are not required to provide a copy of their TUP,” said Trevor Lammie, registrar of the Ministry of Housing. “Therefore, all STR hosts that are located in the CSRD can register with the province without a TUP.”

Several directors in attendance expressed their dissatisfaction with the response from the Ministry.

“I think it's interesting,” said Director Jay Simpson, of electoral area F. “At this point, they don't seem to have a particular problem with STR’s that are not compliant with current zoning.”

“Certainly that isn't how we were anticipating,” he added.

Director Marty Gibbons, of electoral area C, said he was upset with the province’s response.

“I was very upset with this letter from the province,” he said. “I mean, it's a huge way to weasel out of it and put it back onto the CSRD.”

“Now we have neighbour battling on neighbour and conflict,” he added. “I think the government should have fixed their own bloody language, rather than telling us, well, you can enforce your bylaws if you want.”

“Pretty sure that's not the legal stance on bylaws.”

He went on to point out that some residents have put a lot of money into outfitting a short-term rental and said he did not like leaving them without clear guidelines about zoning compliance.

The CSRD had previously allowed STR's to operate without a TUP however they recently changed that policy following the news of the upcoming short-term rental registry.

Board chair Natalya Melnychuk told board members there would be further discussion on the topic of STR’s and a staff report at the upcoming electoral area directors meeting on May 27.

She also told the board to expect the issue to come back to a regular board meeting at some point in the next few months.