Friday, February 17, 2017

February 21, 2017 Regular Council Agenda DISTRICT OF TOFINO REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Feb. 21 10:00 am

https://tofino.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/60342?preview=62280

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does that say that the resolution that the South Chesterman application be denied was defeated? What does all that doublespeak mean, exactly? Will their re-zoning be considered? Will they be permitted short term rentals? Why isn't the meeting conducted in plain English language?

Anonymous said...

If there were six votes present, three for and three against the South Chesterman application, then was or was not the application approved for further readings? How do you spell "Gobbledegook"?

Anonymous said...

For those who may be unaware, this council meeting also contains a second reading of an amendment to the bylaws regarding STRs.
The amendment reads "SHORT TERM RENTAL means the commercial use of a dwelling unit by a permanent resident of another dwelling unit on the same lot, to provide temporary accommodation to the traveling public"
This is a big change from the present "SHORT TERM RENTAL means the commercial use of a dwelling unit by a permanent resident of the dwelling unit or another dwelling unit on the same lot, to provide temporary accommodation to the travelling public".
This seems to mean that you can no longer combine say a 1 bedroom cabin and a room in your primary residence as part of a short term rental, even if it is less than the 3 room limit as you cannot have any rooms offered as a short term rental in your primary residence if you are living in it.
This seems to be aimed directly at local folks supplementing their income and not at the absentee owners.
This is a second reading and you can still comment or contact Councillors with your concerns, but I think that once it is read a second time no more comment is allowed. If this affects you now or might in the future it would be a good idea to say something. Everyone would like to see the absentee stuff stop, but this seems to be something that could really affect local home owners who use STR for supplementary income.

Anonymous said...

I notice to make the above discussion clearer to everyone, there is no video of the last meeting available where you might have been able to figure it all out.
I wonder if that was done on purpose and who was behind that decision and why?

Anonymous said...


Council is no longer supporting locals but have now gone over the top with their personal agendas. Is it not possible to put together a petition asking for the council to step down for lack of safeguarding our rights to derive an income from our own houses?

Anonymous said...

4:29 Please detail which Councillors have personal agendas. You sound like the Tofino 1% that is seeing the end of your gravy train!

Love said...

A House is Not A Motel

Ralph Tieleman said...

Yo La Tengo !

Anonymous said...

4:29 You have the right to do what you want with your house as long as you obey the Tofino bylaws. Try getting a job or creating a business and start treating your house as a home. Raise a family and be part of the community.

Anonymous said...

Gee thanks 8:42 for your guidance and advice on how someone else should live. Could you also tell us which God we should pray to, what clothing is considered socially appropriate, and whether the females in our families are permitted to use birth control or , heaven forbid, have an abortion....... you self-righteous p***k.

Anonymous said...

Dear 8:48 I am not 8:42 there are laws everywhere governing our lives and social responsibilities along with government punishments for those who break those laws.

Tofino's bylaws restricting certain activities have been decided by our elected officials after looking at what they think are the best interests of the community.

So yes the community does say how its members should live and I believe the community is coming together along with its council to say that collectively we would like to have homes used as homes. If you don't like the bylaws of the town you can always sell and move to another location. However be warned if you think things are bad here for your desire to run your home as a short term rental, some of the other regional districts in the province have more restrictions on what can be done with a piece of land than here in Tofino.

Anonymous said...

Haha this town is backwards. Do you think have a job in Tofino is enough to buy a house? Do you know where we live?! Tofino, one of the great tourist me as in the world. And it's on a peninsula where land is limited. If property isn't expensive now it sure as heck will be so if we want to have real people (not silver spoon fed yuppies) who are home owners then create affordable housing and allow creative commercial endeavours like str based out of a residence so they can afford the only houses currently available. I feel like many of the people complaining are 2-3 yr young locals that feel they are entitled to Accomodation in this little town of Tofino

Anonymous said...

There are many who feel entitled. A large false sense of entitlement seems to belong to the illegal VCR operators, who think they cam thumb their nose at municipal regulation because they deserve their profits doing whatever they please, and social responsibility is what other people do.

I have no praise for councils that feel lax enforcement of important bylaws is acceptable, this has become a serious problem, but to you, 6:43, the main creativity of a lot of STR's is simply their flouting of the law. Some kind of entrepeneur, your creativity is illegality, and your MO is criminality.

And, by the way, I have lived here, in Tofino, all my life. I did not help build this the community over the course of many decades, so some interlopers and opportunists, like yourself, could come and destroy it....So stop trying to wedge to the periphery, young people, who are trying to make a life here. It is easy to tell, by your lack of regard for others in your various diatribes that you actually care little for this place.

Anonymous said...

It's much worse than that 9:22. I just saw this in the bylaw amendments getting second reading this Tuesday:
District of Tofino Zoning Bylaw No. 770, 1997
is further amended as follows:
(a)
by deleting “Short Term Rental Operations” from Sections 8.2, 14.2, 15.2, 16.2, 17.2, 18.2,
19.2 and 20.2
Secondary Uses for the R1, A1, A2, A3, A4, RA1, RA2 and RA3 Districts;

If you see your property in there (and most of us are) and you are already operating or planning to operate any kind of str on your property you had better make some time to attend the council meeting this Tuesday morning. Why are these changes not being done openly so that people know what is going on? I speak as a long time resident, not as an out of town owner! Please make an effort to be there and to speak up so that council knows how we are being affected!

Anonymous said...

I don,t think council can retroactively strike uses from the zoning of existing properties without potentially serious consequences. If Council chooses to strike short term rental from the descritions of those zones, that might be a good thing going forward, but those properties that currently "enjoy" those uses would probably have to be considered "legally non conforming" going forward. ie they would be allowed to continue, but newly zoned properties would not automatically gain those uses. Anything else invites a legal shit fight of huge proportions. Can't imagine council is inviting that fight. Maybe best to calm down until more explanation is available.

Anonymous said...

11:12 if STR's occur without any regulation anywhere it won't be worth living here. Thank you council for tightening the regulations. A house is a house is a house not an STR opportunity.

Anonymous said...

Does this mean that I'll finally be able to find an apartment to rent, from May 'til October, for myself and my very two well behaved dogs? I'm a very chill dude who loves surfing and music.

Anonymous said...

my 2 sense wort: councils have long ago abandoned "preserving community values" by abrogating community values with more business and more money as mandated by tourism tofino etc. the OCP is an old time thing to be shoved aside.
so whatever it takes to make more money is good. lie, cheat, break laws, ignore decency and common sense, put both feet in the trough, destroy your neighbours right to quiet enjoyment of their property and so on. greed is so good nothing else matters.
tofino is rapidly becoming a shitty looking town with a beautiful backdrop scene.
re-zone the corner of olsen road so that the first thing you see, besides a traffic mess when entering the gateway to clayoquot sound, is a commercial tourist trap.


Anonymous said...

"Maybe best to calm down until more explanation is available"- exactly.
There were already 2 open houses on this. I attended both. I believe that STRs are being removed as a "secondary use" in those zonings, but ADDED as a "home occupation".

Anonymous said...

From what 9:22 writes I wonder what the definition of "dwelling unit" is. Also does this definition of short term rental affect a B&B since B&B operators are in the same "dwelling unit" as their guests or are B&B's considered something entirely different and separate? Council MUST be very sure they dot their i's and cross their t's with regard to this or the current shit storm will only become a shit hurricane.

Anonymous said...

1014, I do not condone illegal vr's. there have been decent rules in place that if followed are fine, anyone interested in designing a house or building a house with the intention of doing vr's should follow the law or be punished.

It does however, come across that many would rather see those legal vr's converted to monthly rentals to accommodate the growing population that is here for the "work experience" or as we all know, to live to good life on the west coast.

Making more rules I don't believe will not be as good as enforcing current rules.

Anonymous said...

If we had Trump we would stop all tourists at the southern border of Tofino and send them back until we figure all this out.

Anonymous said...

There seems to be a class divide between Vacation Rental owners and resident renters. While Vacation Rental owners compare rates, occupancy levels and the ongoing threat of municipal legislation , renters struggle to make ends meet. While Vacation Rental owners talk about their second and third Vacation Rental homes , renters see home ownership as a more and more distant possibility. Vacation Rentals undermine the community.

Anonymous said...

4:53 is exactly correct! Making new rules (or regulations) will not change anything as the current rules have never been enforced and this is where the problem began. If you look back 10 years these same problems existed, but now maybe we have reached a larger scale.
Having bylaws based on public complaints is wrong, if a bylaw is written it should be enforced, by the municipality not neighbour against neighbour.
That does not build a community.
Its sad we still must feel that leaving a comment must be anonymous, but I do still believe that you will be targeted if you speak out. The same way the bylaw's currently work.

Anonymous said...

It really seems like there is a disconnect here 5:52. Remember, a huge number of vr owners are not from out of town. There are many locals who have vr rooms that they use to help pay their mortgage. There are many young families and some of these folks were literally born here and many have been here for years. They are at the center of our community, involved with everything from the school to the fire department to the soup kitchen. They are building our community. Lumping them in with the out of town owners who rent out whole homes with no-one actually on the property is really unfair. With the ability to rent out rooms nightly locals are being given a chance to own a home when they otherwise would not. I have been told directly and I know from personal experience that without the vr income it is pretty tough to pay the bills.
Many who struggled to find a rental home when they first moved here years ago have stuck it out and now they have bought a home to raise their families and guess what they are doing to afford it? I fully agree with dealing with the illegal, empty house stuff, but we can do that by enforcing the bylaws we already have in place. Doing anything further as the amendments seem to be doing just creates unnecessary collateral damage.

Ralph Tieleman said...

Heard all the same concerns back in 1996 but the demon then was bed and breakfast ! The district sought to limit and licence bnb operations. Then people started renting out the whole house . Sometimes legislation has unintended consequences.

Ralph Tieleman said...

http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/mortgages-real-estate/chasing-the-canadian-dream-the-real-force-behind-the-housing-boom-in-our-big-cities

Ralph Tieleman said...

Homes are fairly priced from $497,000 to $529,000 per home depending on location - GST is included in the purchase price.

Presales will commence in Spring 2017.

Sea Otter Place offers townhouses that are only a short distance from the beach, Tofino town centre and the many dining, shopping and adventure opportunities that Tofino so desirable.

Sea Otter Place is your newest opportunity to own a home in Tofino and enjoy all the region offers.

New-home construction is extremely limited in and around Tofino. The glorious natural coastal environment of ocean, forests and mountains is highly desired but land is very limited.

Ralph Tieleman said...

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, the average BC home is worth $621,000

Ralph Tieleman said...

With a 5% down payment , mortgage payments would be about $2200 a month for one of the new Seaotter condos.

Anonymous said...

This goes to show how the vacay rental thing is only part of the issue. When there are next to no lots available you end up being able to ask 600K for a Condo. This doesn't look too affordable to me.
We really need land developed into building lots at an affordable price for those who want to purchase and we need to get developers interested in building some rental units like the apartments. I know they ain't pretty but apartment blocks are efficient and the cheapest way to build affordable rentals.

Anonymous said...

It has always been tough to buy a place. 1975 Vancouver house $55 to 60,000 with large down payment, mortgage etc about $4800 a year with gross income of about $12,000.
So 40 years later we have $26000 a year payments on a $60,000+ income.

Not making $60,000 a year? You better upgrade your skill set so you can earn that income or you will forever be a renter.

House ownership may not be best for everyone. Remember you may be really happy to not own a place here when the tsunami hits or interest rates rise.

Anonymous said...

The few lots available in town are $450,000 plus each, then you need to build a home! New residences at $500,000 are good value. While renting is good in the short term, home ownership allows you to build equity and a future. Prices unfortunately in Tofino are only going to continue to rise due to the shortage of land and District policy limiting growth.

Anonymous said...

Interesting that the stratas and apartments aren't qualified for recycle or garbage pick-up, because they're classed as "commercial". However they cannot do short term rentals because they're classed as "residential". The rules apply to some, not to others. Some, it seems, are more equal than others.

Anonymous said...

Funny...everyone is saying there isn't a place to rent....three years ago we owned a new condo in Tofino..we placed an ad to rent it, two people answered the ad. I don't see hundreds of people looking for places on Craigslist or Used Tofino....where are all these so called renters.....?? Fake news I say.

I know some of the owners of South Chesterman....they frequent our business everytime they visit and they all visit a lot. Regular people...rich, not really, I have more money then most of them. Hope they fight this....release more land Council ...don't look at SC for all this crazy blame of housing shortage when you have done nothing for years to change it.