Rentals – be they short- and/or long-term – have caught the attention of a Vernon councillor.
Kari Gares put forth a pair of motions that – with council’s unanimous blessing (though councillors Brian Quiring and Kelly Fehr were absent from the regular meeting Monday, Jan. 26) – will make their way in the spring to the Southern Interior Local Government Association’s (SILGA) annual convention.
SILGA is slated for April 29 to May 2 in Revelstoke.
Gares’ first motion was a request for the province to provide municipalities with clear, consistent, and verifiable data to evaluate the local impacts of provincial short-term rental (STR) legislation.
She also called for the tools needed to confirm outcome and mitigate unitended consequences.
“Right now, some communities are having an issue with short-term rental legislation and how it has affected their economy,” said Gares. “This (motion) is just saying we need to have data to make sure we’re getting, or how we’re doing, long-range planning that is consistent with that data.”
The STR legislation was enacted by Victoria to reduce housing speculations, increase long-term rental supply, and improve affordability.
Municipal governments are the ones in charge of long-range land-use planning, housing needs, assessments, infrastucture investment, and municipalities such as Vernon provide economic development and tourism management.
“The absence of transparent outcome-based reporting makes it difficult for local governments to evaluate if there are unintended consequences that affect community sustainability and economic resilience that require imminent action,” states Gares’ motion, which passed.
Her second motion also requests verifiable data, this one on long-term rental outcomes attributed to the Speculation and Vacancy Tax (SVT), which the province implemented to increase long-term rental supply and improve housing availability.
“Municipal governments require clear, verifiable, and community-level data in order to assess the effectiveness of provincial housing policies and to inform local land-use, housing, and affordability strategies,” said Gares.
The province has said that approximately 20,000 homes province-wide have been returned to the long-term rental market as a result of the SVT. Yet despite its implementation, said Gares, many communities continue to experience persistently low rental vacancy rates and/or rising rental costs.
In Vernon, Gares said of the homes charged the SVT in 2024, 602 homes were not exempt from the tax, of which 181 were B.C. residents; 353 were other Canadians; 17 were foreign-owned; and 29 were untaxed worldwide. Her numbers come from the report circulated by Victoria.
“Effectively, Canadians make up almost two/thirds of the properties taxed despite the foreign ownership paying the vast mount of the tax,” said Gares, who also noted that developable land is also subject to the tax under the contract to be developed.
“Effective this month, the tax is set to increase for all categories.”
Gares’ second motion, passed unanimously, calls for municipalities to be provided the methodology used to collect and interpret the data, the total SVT revenue collected within each community, and a detailed accounting of how much of that revenue has been reinvested locally in both affordable and supportive housing.
She will present both motions in person at SILGA. Should Gares’ motions be approved in Revelstoke, they will be forwarded to the annual Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) convention, slated for Sept. 14-18 in Vancouver.
All members of council expressed interest in attending the spring gathering in Revelstoke, but attendance will be confirmed when councillors Quiring and Fehr have a chance to express their intentions on going.
Vernon hosted the SILGA convention in 2023.