Tighter rules for boarding and lodging establishments in Richmond will be the subject of a public hearing at 7 p.m. on Monday.
The proposed bylaw changes would require those running boarding and lodging businesses to have a license and to live in the home being rented out.
While Richmond city staff say these changes will help with enforcement, some councillors tried to get changes to take away the ability for corporations and renters to run these short-term rentals.
The concern was that if corporations own homes, they can install a renter in them who then runs the boarding and lodging business.
These amendments were at first adopted, but at a subsequent meeting were removed from the proposed bylaw changes.
In a letter to council and to the Richmond News, Niti Sharma, a Richmond resident who has run for council, argued for a buffer zone between boarding and lodging businesses like bed-and-breakfast establishments have whereby there must be 500 metres between them.
Sharma added the proposed rules around boarding and lodging rules are more “permissive” than B&Bs.
These proposed changes would allow a “second mechanism for STRs whose maximum benefits are to housing speculators and to tourists at the cost of full-time residents.”
“Allowing short term rentals in every dwelling type and neighbourhood also has the capacity to distort our expectations from housing as a moneymaking venture first rather than a place to call home,” she added.
Kerry Starchuk, who has been vocal in her opposition to short-term rentals and birth tourism, would also like to see a buffer zone between boarding and lodging establishments.
In a submission to council, she said the proposed changes won’t solve the housing crisis and won’t encourage people to “work, live and play in Richmond.”
According to the city’s data, the rental vacancy rate in the private sector was .7 per cent in 2018, while a minimum three per cent is needed to be “a balanced or healthy rental market.”
