In a debrief to Revelstoke City Council on April 4, Vice President of Operations for Revelstoke Mountain Resort (RMR) Peter Nielsen said one consistent concern the resort heard at an open house on March 28 from residents was about short term rentals in their future developments in the Arrow Heights.

"We would be supportive of a future moratorium on short term rentals in the entire Arrow Heights neighbourhood," Nielsen said.

He mentioned British Columbia's consideration of new enforcement standards for short term rentals and said, "we want to be part of that conversation."

RMR is before council because Northland Properties, the owner of RMR and principal developer of resort lands, applied in August 2022 for a text amendment to the zoning bylaw that governs their land.

According to the original master development agreement between the resort and the province, signed in 2003, RMR is allowed to develop in total 16,600 bed units on its land, which is divided into 10 development areas. So far, it has developed around 1,000 bed units, most of them concentrated on parcel 1, core resort land, around the base of the ski hill.

Parcel 1 is allocated the most density, and the resort wants to move up to 30 per cent of the allowance from parcel 1 to parcels 4 and 5. They're on the intersection of Airport Way and Nicol Rd., and were originally envisioned as part of the golf course.

In each parcel that would look like over 3,000 square metres of commercial development, 213 hotel bed units, 135 apartment bed units, 56 row house or duplex bed units and eight single family dwelling bed units.

Currently, parcel 4 is allocated 10 apartment units, and parcel 5 is allocated 20 row house or duplex bed units and 20 single family dwelling bed units.

This text amendment request first came before council in October, it was given first reading and further decision was deferred until February. Council then defeated the motion, and it was brought back to the table with the stipulation that the resort hold the public hearing.

Nielsen said over 200 people came to learn about the resort's development request and to ask questions.

At the public hearing yesterday regarding this request, the gallery at council chambers was full and the audience spilled across the street to a room in city hall. But only four people spoke on the record.

Three of them spoke in favour of the text amendment, saying the MDA is a long term vision, written 20 years ago, that is meant to be molded to current realities. Mark McKee was the mayor between 2002 and 2008 when the MDA was being negotiated.

"Let's support and help develop the best resort we can," he said, saying RMR will benefit from this, but so will the community.

Robert Powadiuk lives on Camozzi Rd. and owns a development parcel on the ski hill. He said that short term rentals are the biggest scourge on Revelstoke in 100 years. He encouraged the resort to do what it can to limit them.

Another person, who lives across from the parcels on Airport Way and Nicol Rd, spoke at the meeting. He's against development potential being moved to this area, saying he didn't know it would be the case when he bought five years ago.

Evan Parliament, the city's chief administrative officer, addressed council after the public hearing was closed. He said the text amendment proposed by RMR does fit into the Official City Plan, adopted last summer. Typically after a plan is updated, zoning bylaws would be correspondingly updated, Parliament said. That is part of the reason this request has been so complicated.

Another is that development on resort lands also has to fit into the MDA.

Legal opinion sought by the city said once council approves the density allocation, it loses the right to revisit density transfers.

"This is a decision council has to make," Parliament said, saying there is a concerted effort to make it a win-win scenario for the resort and the city.

Nielson said the open house was eye opening for him. Another thing he learned is that the resort needs to communicate better with the community, and said it would start holding two open houses a year in September and March, and release quarterly reports. It said it would improve transparency, work with the city of Revelstoke, and make sure its decisions align with the Official City Plan.

Mayor Gary Sulz proposed a motion to further defer a decision on the text amendment to the zoning bylaw. The city and resort will work together to amend the bylaw, taking into consideration what they heard about short term rentals and other feedback from the public.

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