As winter winds down prior to the demand for increased visitor accommodation in our towns ramping up, one wonders in which direction the situation is headed.
Sure, online booking hosts like Airbnb and VRBO are popular and becoming more so. Sure, the Outlook has printed letters from those who love Airbnb and other online booking options for the unique experience some hosts offer.
However, we’d bet the letter writing Airbnb supporters don’t live next door to one in their hometown – and have to put up with a popup pseudo hotel in their neighbourhood on any given weekend.
So, while some homeowners in our towns are giving online bookings of their homes a whirl, to help cover mortgage payments possibly, or just to hop on board with the latest in trendy web applications, there’s no arguing that such bookings are not allowed in our mountain towns.
In our towns, zoning pretty clearly spells out what’s allowed as far as renting out homes goes. In Banff, bed and breakfast permits outline how many rooms, etc. can be rented out, so it’s no wonder owners who have gone beyond have been getting their wrists slapped at permit renewal time.
Like in Canmore, where longtime B&B owners have paid extra taxes as part of owning a visitor accommodation property, there are policies and bylaws in place. To wander outside these is to take a chance on becoming an enforcement statistic.
Without a doubt, issues relating to online bookings will continue to crop up (after all, if a national park campsite can be illegally booked and rented out online, what does that leave?), but we side with Canmore’s Gareth Thomson on his being fined $2,500 for an illegal tourist home (page 26). He was fined based on the fact his home had been advertised as a vacation home, while claiming a listing used against him was posted long ago and only recently re-appeared on a website without his knowing of it.
Despite the fact Thomson had neighbours write letters stating he has not been renting his home, Canmore’s planning department handed him a stop order (stop what?) and a fine.
So, while we agree with Canmore council that enforcement must continue, we question Thomson’s fine. Is it likely that he, and his neighbours, are all in collusion regarding a covert vacation home rental?
We agree with Thomson when he suggests the Town’s handling of the situation is heavy handed; in his case. Others who have been busted have clearly been operating an online booking-based vacation home, but it seems clear Thomson has not.
And, as mentioned before in this space, an investigation, issuing of a stop order and $2,500 fine is seemingly not in keeping with other enforcement efforts, including by bylaw enforcement. Witness, if you will, the state of sidewalks in Canmore this winter, or the near-permanent storage of vehicles on Glacier Driver or Seventh Avenue. In these cases, we assume because nobody has complained, people are storing their vehicles on public streets.
Vacation home enforcement is necessary, but only one area where enforcement by Town staff is needed.
