Photo: AirBnB
There were 222 AirBnB listings during September in the Penticton area, but just one per cent of owners rent them for more than half of the year.
Those numbers come from AirBnB itself, and will be delivered in a report to council Tuesday afternoon. Another 333 listings were found on the similar Vacation Rentals By Owner website by city staff in August, although it’s unclear how many of those listings overlap. Staff estimate about two thirds of the postings on both sites are within Penticton city limits.
Council ordered staff to look at vacation rentals in August, with the intention of looking at potential bylaws for those rentals. Councillors expressed concerns that a relatively unregulated market could pose safety issues for renters.
“Although our community of roughly 200 hosts is not large in the context of Penticton’s more than 33,000 residents, home sharing is making a real difference in the lives of our hosts and the well-being of their families,” AirBnB wrote in a letter to council. “The vast majority of our hosts are everyday people and families, friends and neighbours.”
For those “family, friends and neighbours,” the average yearly earnings from their rentals are roughly $3,000, and just over half of the listings rent for under 30 days. The letter notes that vacation rentals bring people to the city – about 4,300 from AirBnB alone last year.
But the staff report also outlines some concerns over the growing market of shared-economy renters. That includes their ability to bypass a hotel room tax that contributes to marketing the city to potential tourists, nuisance complaints like parking and noise and a potential loss of long-term rental space to vacation rentals.
But, if the city were to demand the estimated 150 vacation rentals that don’t already have a business licence with the city to get one, that could give a significant bump to revenues generated for the city and tourism. Currently, the 72 licensed vacation rentals bring about $12,000 to the city and $14,000 to tourism annually, while the remaining units could bring in an additional $25,000 and $30,000 respectively.
The staff report outlines proposed amendments to existing bylaws governing vacation rentals in the city, including tiered licences for the units depending on how many days a year they are rented out. Proposed fees up to $250 annually would be attached to high-occupant major rentals.
“We also believe in paying our fair share of occupancy taxes, and have more than 200 partnerships across North America to collect and remit these taxes to city government on behalf of our hosts and guests,” the AirBnB letter reads.
The new bylaws would also impose a $250 fine for running a vacation rental without a licence and a $500 fine for running a vacation rental without the proper zoning.
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