rentalregulations
V
ancouver City Council recently
voted to ban the listing of sec-
ondary residences on short-term
rental platforms such as Airbnb.
e hope is that this will make
more units available for long-term renters.
With a vacancy rate below one per cent,
it's understandable that the council is worried
about the availability of rental units. But
rather than Band-Aid approaches, it should
focus on removing barriers to constructing
more housing units rather than policing
rental properties.
Ultimately, a tight rental market is the result
of a lagging supply of rental units. Long lineups
at apartment open-houses raise more questions
about what's preventing units from coming onto
the market than why some units are available
for shorter terms than others.
In fact, city hall is responsible for one of the
main drivers of the imbalance between supply
and demand in Vancouver. According to a
recent survey of homebuilders and developers,
it takes the better part of two years, on average,
to obtain a residential building permit in the
city. Add to this the time required to actually
build new units and it's almost impossible for
the housing market to adequately respond to
growing demand.
Just across Boundary Road in Burnaby, it
takes only a third the time it does in Vancou-
ver to obtain a permit. Across the Lower Main-
land, the average is 10 months. If Vancouver
City Hall is serious about boosting the housing
supply, there's clearly room to streamline its
approvals process.
Hampering homebuilding doesn't just affect
the number of new units entering the market,
but also the number of old units that remain
occupied because people can't move out and up
the property ladder. In short, a tight housing
supply becomes everyone's problem.
Preventing Vancouverites from renting out
secondary units may seem politically appealing
in the short term, but it does nothing to address
the city's long-term problem – a lagging housing
supply. Until this fundamental imbalance is ad-
dressed – starting with more efficient land-use
regulations – low vacancies and high rents
won't go away anytime soon.
Bio: Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada,
the Fraser Institute has regional offices in Calgary,
Toronto and Montreal. We produce research
about government actions in areas that deeply
affect Canadians' quality of life such as taxation,
health care, aboriginal issues, education,
economic freedom, energy, natural resources
and the environment.
Reprinted with permission of the Fraser Institute.
Regulating short-term
rentals in Vancouver – a
Band-Aid that ignores key
driver of rental crunch
By Josef filipowicz & steve lafleur, fraser institute
CMB MAGAZINE cmba-achc.ca winter 2018 | 23
