Strathcona Regional District (SRD) regional directors recently had a chance to explore the impacts of new housing rules that will take effect throughout the province in May 2024.<\/p>\n
The new rules intend to limit short-term rentals on residential properties, require AirBnb operators to register as a business, and increase the density of single-family residential zoning lots. The SRD held their monthly meetings on Nov. 8, discussing some of the new pieces of provincial legislation announced on <\/span>Oct. 20<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Nov. 2<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Regional Director for Cortes Island (Area B) Mark Vonesch commented at the general meeting that he \"welcomed\" the new rules.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI welcome this legislation,\" he said. \"I think it's a good solid move by the province to just think about housing as homes rather than investments, especially in small communities like our own.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Robyn Mawhinney, Regional Director for Quadra Island (Area C), had several questions on the interpretation of the current rules during the regional area's committee meeting the same day.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe report, which said that short term rental use is essentially illegal on Quadra Island, and that all of them should be on a commercially zoned land. And it seems to me that a short term rental use, which is incidental to the residential use lands within the description of the home based business definition.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think it seems strange to me that you would consider that a commercial use rather than an incidental to the residential character of the building, which is containing the home occupation, which is in the definition of home occupations,\" Mawhinney continued. \"\u2026 So I'm concerned that staff is choosing to consider that a commercial tourism definition.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n SRD staff clarified during that meeting that local governance must be followed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey still need to comply with the local government. Our next step for one of those would be surveys like we did with Cortes. We had a really good response rate from the surveys that we did on short term rentals, which will inform the zoning bylaw review process.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n