Obviously Tofino needs to opt in. Even without opting in some VR's in Tofino are going to be caught in the new legislation where grandfathering isn't allowed province wide.
It would be way cheaper for Tofino taxpayers to have the town opt in to the regulations than to pay for more affordable housing to be built.
9:24 Just let council do their job without muddying the situation and have them opt the town in. That is what we voted them to do, to look after the best interests of the town.
When I saw the premier on TV telling about this great new STR thing, there was Josie sitting right behind him, right up there on top! I was so proud, thinking that how came up from a quaint west coast village of only 600 souls, and now there she is right up there with the big guys! Wow, you go girl! South Chesterman's picked a fight with the wrong lady, eh?
Be careful what you wish for...mortgages just made rents very very expensive...the math does not work... and most of council and the Mayor have STR's so will they be motivated? and Now anything less than 90 days is an STR. Just saying, and no I do not have an STR in Tofino.
3:43...So I guess it doesn't matter that Josie n George ran an illegal STR for years with the DOT turning a blind eye to her sins does it. "some pigs are more equal than others" G.O.
The mayor’s suite is rented out long term. I spoke to a couple of councillors today that supported the owner operator initiative. 10:04 You are right. The math doesn’t work . It won’t work until prices drop substantially .
10:04 yes the math does not work just as Ralph says. There will have to be a reset of the real estate bidding war that has been going on here. When the prices of the properties drop, then the mortgages on them will drop and rents will not need to be so high in order to pay the mortgage.
If Council does not opt in, you can kiss Tofino goodbye. A 'Resort Municipality" where once was a real community. People will come from all over to ravage $$$$$ what remains of the housing stock. Sorry, that is what is already happening. Just opt in.
The long term effects can only be beneficial to housing problems. If real estate prices moderate, housing becomes more affordable. Your share of regional and provincial taxes also go down. If more housing is available maybe Tofino needs to spend less of so called "affordable housing" housing which has been not so affordable either to the folks looking to rent, or the Taxpayers who have Poured in millions. If more housing becomes available and there is a shift to monthly rentals. all economic sectors benefit from employee housing availability.
I don't care if the MLA has her face plastered all over this. I can stomach that for the benefit of the town.
The BC hotel association lobbied the government for these rules. This is a big win for them and most of the Tofino resorts are owned by people who don't live here. My biggest concern is the rule of unintended consequences. Stay tuned.
Opt into this program? Yes! Homeowners can still rent the spare suite nightly or bed and breakfast the spare room, but non resident owners will have to make some decisions. They took a chance on buying in at 3 mil and flouting the rules. Maybe their property will be worth less than before... too bad. My heart weeps but business is business.
A referendum in Tofino. I can tell you the result, so why bother? The left wing woke agenda will prevail. This is Tofino. I'll suggest that we all just sit back and watch what happens elsewhere in the province, before Tofino (who has no money to spare on a miscue) jumps into the fray. The law hasn't been passed yet, no one knows where the legal challenges are headed, how will this affect properties like Tibbs and Eik, that were specifically built for vacation rental purposes? Who here can say that they're an expert on the subject and have all the answers?
An earlier Tofino mayor would grab the photo opportunity, declare Tofino's stance, and commit us to the program, regardless of the consequences or cost to the taxpayer. Fortunately, we're no longer subjects of our previous ruler. It's no longer required that Tofino "look good", in order to promote a personal political agenda.
We're allowed to step back and breathe.
....and referendums cost. Lots. You can bet that office staff will be $$$ all for it $$$.
For years the governments of BC, on all levels, have rode the housing bubble to support their uncontrolled spending. At the same time they have destroyed all of our resource based economy and good paying jobs. Now they are all broke, the average person cannot afford a house, all of our social networks are broken, and their only option is to come after personal wealth. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Soon we will all be paying a wealth tax on the equity in our homes. Socialism works great until governments run out of other peoples money. I look forward to seeing the amount Gameshow Gord will be lobbying to take away from us today.
Hopefully Tofino isn't exempt from the new housing mandates announced by the NDP today. Six units per lot with no zoning or public hearings. Yea ha, bring it on!!
Yes, I know, Tofino residents don't like tourism but it is the main source of income in this town. If only the expensive hotels remain as tourist accommodation then only the independently wealthy will be able to vacation here. It would be unfortunate if regular travellers cannot afford to stay here anymore. I do agree though that in areas zoned residential investors should not be able to build several cottages to use as commercial tourist accommodation. Only the traditional B&B operations should be allowed in residential areas. Governments are laughing all the way to the bank since they are profiting from the high priced real estate. Ridiculously high transfer tax and GST upon sale, tourism tax and taxes on tourist rental income are most welcome income for the government. Another consideration for the home owner is that long term rental laws work mostly in favour of the renters and leave the landlord precious little control over his property. Even truly horrible renters are almost impossible to get rid of. Short term rentals are much better in that regard.
The sewer system isn’t built yet and you want to have perhaps SIX times the population? Never mind the minor detail of water supply. Living here certainly would be different. Try and catch a wave with that many people plus tourists all here. Maybe the waves at Tin Wis beach will look good.
I have been reading the letters to the editor that try to justify the existence of short-term rentals.
One of the common themes presented is the difficultly with long-term rentals, all the problems with terrible tenants. This is all nonsense, I have been in the long-term rental business for more than 40 years and have rented to several thousand tenants.
Managed properly, there have never been any issues in my experience, as described by short-term landlords. Be assured that the Residential Tenancy Act is not broken as suggested.
While short rentals have taken long-term rental stock out of the market, it has also caused another serious problem. Because of the potential income created by short-term rentals, house prices have doubled in value, in many areas, especially in communities that attract tourists.
I applaud the government, bold enough to finally address the short-term rental disaster.
Not quite. It's locals in houses, tourists in hotels and resorts, and hotel and resort staff in privately owned rentals so there's no need for resorts to provide staff accomodations. Keeps the profits healthy for people who live elsewhere and own resorts in Tofino.
Isn't it time that Tofino's commercial taxation rate was boosted a bit? D.O.T. is gonna take a big hit in lost STR licence fees, as they shut down operations. Need to recoup those funds someplace.
If Tofino were to opt in to the new provincial legislation it wouldn’t necessarily reduce the amount of STRs . It would only require the operator to declare it as their principal residence. If the non-local STR owner were to sell , I would speculate that the buyer would continue to operate it as an STR but would also live here. There were 268 STRs issued in 2021 and of those properties 121 applied for a homeowner grant. Those are the latest numbers I have . It should be noted that with the increased assessments some homes wouldn’t qualify for a home owner grant even if the property was a principal residence .
Correct me if i’m wrong but Tofino’s STR bylaw already requires an onsite resident in a secondary suite or in the “home”) aka monthly tenant/owner) in order to get a STR license (with the exception of Cox bay Beach resort, Fred Tibbs and Eik Landing.) So even if only 70 % of the licensed STR rentals in Tofino were compliant (based on Ralph’s number of 268 licenses issued) that’s 188 properties that are either owner on site or monthly tenanted. (likely in the suite) 188 times say 2.5 people per property thats secure monthly /owner housing for 470 ppl. Close to 25% of Tofino’s population.
Thats not bad compared to the cites where Air B&B’s don’t require an on site tenant/owner. Seems to me whether you like it or not Tofino atleast seems to be ahead of the game already with their current STR Bylaw.
Furthermore (i hate that word but whatever..) Municipalities should not be relying on privately owned single family dwellings to supply the need for entry level monthly rental housing!
That form of housing should be provided by the traditional apartment style higher density apartment buildings. Thankfully a couple of these Apartment type buildings are now just being completed in Tofino.
However the DOT should have provided more aggressive incentives to existing property owner/developers so they would take this on so we the tax payers aren’t stuck with giving up public property and footing most of the bill.
The report commissioned by the lobbying group the BC Hotel Association (where the GM of LBL is a board member) is what the province used to make their recommendations.
This is the wealthy resort owners against the residents just trying to survive here, again.
If you really dig into the data, there aren't that many "rich out of town homeowners".
Look around. It's all your closest friends and residents that have worked hard to save and buy an investment property in the town they already live - to try and survive here.
Tofino already has an existing framework of STR licensing. We are literally the model other communities have looked at. Hats-off to the DOT for putting it into law in 2005 that there needed to be a caretaker suite, otherwise we'd be in a really bad place. As it stands, every legal VR in Tofino is SOMEONE's principle residence.
The provincial exemptions are well thought out and are there for a reason. Tofino is not the target here. Is our system a little off - sure - but it's not as broken as it is elsewhere.
The DOT doesn't need to adopt the government's rules. It already has rules of its own (and can make more, if needed).
You are right. Many of my friends with two or more multi-million dollar houses are really trying hard to survive. They long for the carefree days of living in a leaky RV or car camping while working two jobs. Some have had to cut back and only go south twice this year. I heard of one friend that actually had to clean their own STR. They were traumatized.
There is a couple of elephants in the room that nobody seems to be addressing. One thing that seems to attract the out-of-town investor to buy here is the lax enforcement our district bylaws or standards of behaviour in terms of what you can get away with. Tofino has created a climate of getting away with things so that sure you could have a caretaker sweet or a caretaker cabin or two of each and the motorhome or two in the yard and rent them all out nightly and nobody cares or does anything about it. These aren't isolated examples of thumbing your nose at the Bylaw's in Tofino. There's always the piss poor excuse for struggling people to just make their mortgage payment with a little helper in the basement. No one seems to acknowledge that a person with two or three houses already is pocketing a large sum of money every year by running a commercial investment business in a Single family residential home. The properties with five or six rental units are using up five or six times the services that would be normal for a single-family dwelling. It's all OK because my grandfather built these two centuries ago.
If the DOT doesn’t opt in to the provincial STR regulations more residential homes will turn into STRs as it will be illegal for non-owner operators in the rest of the province . The exception to this is Resort Municipalities . The greed of these people knows no bounds .
It really is a shame that some of the VR owners are only able to spend two months in Thailand and Chamonix instead of six now because their incomes are going to be so drastically reduced.......horrible injustice.
Thank you 1:15 You nailed it. The new legislation is in the right direction. It still allows the primary homeowner to have a STR in THEIR home , and that would be any local/fulltime resident who chooses to have a STR on their PRIMARY property . Tofino has not enforced or managed their current bylaws well they have the rules but little enforcement. Some properties have multiple Airbnb listings at one house. They are considered legal! To conform they have a door that connects each unit making it a single family home but then lock the doors to each unit to separate them into multiple separate single VR suites. A mini motel in a residential neighbourhood paying residential taxes and water. Its beyond nuts what goes on here and somehow we are looked at as an example . There are many STR's that do have a local resident in their suite but their are also many that DO NOT and non resident owners leave them for themselves and they sit empty for their use. There are also a few homes that have never conformed and have no secondary suite but are full time STR's and have been for a decade with out change or enforcement . So many obvious infractions that do not get enforced . My guess would be any town not opting in will see more demand from investors local or non and higher prices within their local community coming May 2024.
5:08PM agreed. The DOT will have to opt in or face a much worse situation than we are currently in as everyone selling in the province eyes up properties here and in other resort communities for STR. In Tofino for all the business license fees paid by current STRs, enforcement has been lacklustre to say the least.
its about time the average taxpayer woke up and understood that vrs use/take up 2 or 3 times their fair share of services, wear and tear on infrastructure, as well as improvements to sewer and water systems. if there are more rental suites the use increases. but the vr pays for only 1 residential tax component gauged upon 1 residential family usage. if any one doubts this situation it is evident in the metered water usage for a normal house compared to a vr next door. so we long term residents are paying for the abuses of the by-law in a big way......what by-law? enforcement? for the properties that short term rent 3, 4, 5. or more on a nightly basis for some time now where exactly is the enforcement of the by-law allowing only 3 bedrooms of a house with a long term tenant on site?i would suggest that it appears to be out of control. It's great for the smug successful business persons here to suggest that there's nothing wrong with a tourist destination resort becoming a messy residential hotel. they forget that the biggest problems us mere mortal taxpayers face is who pays for huge infrastructure costs required to service all of the out of town investors properties that routinely use 4 or 5 times the services of a normal family house. the district council doesn't consider fairness in its considerations for who is to pay for the pigs to eat four times more than anyone else. .This is a permitted abuse it seems having observed it for 20 years from what started out as simple mom and Pop bed and breakfast ops to the many properties with 6,7,or 8 nightly rental units. no, no dont bother those folks,...they really are too busy to do anything about our problem or pay 4 times what normal users pay. and the district employees laugh all of the way to the coffee shop
So many good comments on here. Who can deny that VCR use has driven up property values. Propelling us into a future that is too expensive for working people to actually live here.
When Tofino went all in on tourism, when a future of logging and fishing was in decline, the change to a tourism focus was to sustain the community. Now the over tourism, the commercialization of our residential sector poses an even more serious challenge to the viability of Tofino as a "COMMUNITY". Our town is not being sustained by tourism but destroyed by the commercialization of our neighborhoods. Step by step Tofino has become a place not where one resides amongst neighbors, but a place of exploitation. By people who live here and in many instances, by people who don,t Council draw the line...OPT IN or none of us will be able to live here in the future.
I suppose in response to the Westerly article about Tofino's salaried staff costing it's taxpayers significantly more than similar sized communities on Vancouver Island, the Mayor offered the view that Tofino Council consciously chose to pay their staff more. The reasoning behind this decision, to value their work more highly than other communities, is somewhat questionable. Apart from the virtue signaling going on. A more credible explanation might be to explain they are useless tools, OR to outline that Tofino needs more staff to get the job done because in a tourist destination with millions( fill in your own number) of visitors the job is bigger and more complicated. I now reference many of the above comments of how the Vacation Rental sector is sponging off the local taxpayer. Using services and not paying a penny more than a single family would pay on a residential lot. Imagine a significant part of the local tourist economy contributing nothing in the way of business tax on very commercialized properties. Wake up Council. Opt In.... or triple the property tax on operating VR's
Tofino wasn't planned to become a tourist destination resort. In any case the provincial Ministry of tourism pushed full scale tourism onto the community before it had the infrastructure to support it. And accepting the designation of tourist destination resort to capitalize on the MRI money didn't help without proper planning. And who pays for all of this? At this point we pay for the poor planning or lack of it by watching our community dissolve under the rubric of "tourism". Therefore tourism Tofino seems to have run with the ball and stiffed the community in the face pigging out on easy money particularly with using single-family dwellings for vacation rentals. Granted this was an unexpected consequence of many people simply trying to keep up with making a living. However, as we've discussed, it got out of control to the point of no control. Unless the mayor and council realizes this is the only point of control and we opt in to the VR operator owner living in the premises only, we might be doomed to be exploited by out-of-town investors having no skin in the game besides money. What is it going to be? Quality of life for a community? Or sustainable profits for nonresident investors?
The reason we need more staff? More control and more red tape so that it takes forever to do something if at all. And more union members. whole boxes of TimBits.
Just had a read of the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust "Vital Signs" report. Lots of good information there, worth the read.. The water usage graph(page 10) might be a little misleading. The water usage for Tourist Accommodation should include another 400+ units, likely 33% to 40% increase. in order to account for VR units, which are classified as residential under the water billing system. But are surely not residential use. That would flip the usage to about 50% tourist accommodation and 25% actual residential use. Also non revenue water at 5% is worth another look as well. A significant portion of this use includes washrooms toilets and beach showers, which represents yet more water going to the tourist sector.....At he time the 2022 report was filed there was no metering of these uses by the DoT so the non revenue amounts are just a guesstimate.
One suggestion would be to look at charging for water at VR locations on the same basis as commercial users. Could that work?
The minute that the Pacific Rim NationalPark was designated Tofino was destined to become a destination resort. That was in 1972. The Federal Government invested millions of dollars at the time to install all the sewer and water infrastructure that Tofino has today in anticipation of Tofino’s growth in population and an anticipated major increase in Tourism.
Then the Clayoquot Protests aka The the War in the Woods came and fuelled even more exposure of Tofino and Clayoquot Sound world wide. That again resulted in a huge growth in Tourism. That was in 1993. That was 30 years ago. Unless you moved hear prior to those events you have no reason to lament about Tourism in Tofino knowing full well that you decided to move to an already World wide known Tourist Destination. Even if you moved to Tofino not to work in the tourism industry the above facts remain the same.
Tofino didn't become a Resort Municipality till the late 90's. Water and sewer improvements were funded by the Feds in the late 80s and early 90's For almost a decade even the tourism sector opposed being a Resort Municipality. Didn't like the idea of more taxes, till they realized they would get the money to promote themselves. Fishing and logging were the main economy right up until the Clayoquot land use decisions in the mid to late 90's. Some of your facts are your opinions.... but whatever. No one denies tourism is the main economic sector in Tofino's economy now or the more recent past, but that doesn't mean it doesn't come with serious consequences for the community.
Consequences that should be reconciled with other interests and values.
Besides you have no idea how long I, or other posters, have lived here. Does not matter if I moved here last spring, two years ago, fifty years ago, or I was born here in a dugout canoe under the first street dock. They call it democracy. Everyone gets a say. Best get used to it.
Good things sell themselves or you don't have to advertise them because word of mouth will have spread far and wide. That was the case with Tofino going along in the 90s. You didn't need a tourist destination resort designation to get more money for advertisements because we didn't have the infrastructure to support wholesale over the top tourism of any kind whatsoever...... Tourism Tofino disregarded this reality as well as did the BC ministry of tourism. They insisted that tourism needed to be advertised to be successful. It just doesn't. And all the stupid stupid things that have been done to Tofino in the name of tourism are just a waste of money. So instead of having a thoughtful well reasoned vision of substance for tourists to come here we just said everybody come here and make a mess for Tofino to clean up.
Regardless of if Tofino opts in or not, one thing has got to change. The water rates. There is zero incentive for the tourism providers to reduce water usage. They have often been getting their water in the past for less than the cost of production. I'll bet not many of you realize the actual production and treatment cost of that cubic meter of water you use. I am not sure the district office actually knows the real cost of a cubic meter of water. In fairness it is difficult to calculate with it depending on how much crap has to be filtered out and plugs the filters. The filters as I understand it cost around $50,000 a set and now I think there are at least 2 of those sets in operation. District staff are doing a great job of supplying us with great water.
However, I am not sure the fair billing for water consumption issue has been properly dealt with. Residents pay more for their cubic meter of water than the resorts. The cost of producing that water is the same for all users so why are there different rates?
We almost ran out of water this past summer. Until the water rates punish severely those users who go over their base rates/allotments, then year after year there will be growing water shortages upon the arrival of tourists who will fill soaker tubs, leave faucets running and flush toilets for the fun of watching the water swirl down.
Sure would be interesting to get the numbers on the amount of water used by the absentee owner vacation rentals.
And yes Tofino should opt in to the Province's plan to create housing at the expense of the vacation rental operators businesses. We might get back some social fabric if the absentee owners all sell their properties and the new owners actually join the community.
I agree that Tofino has huge issues with affordable housing and tourism but politicians making rules are what got us into this mess in the first place. I'm not sure if more rules are the answer. Do we need more rules that are not enforced? If you can't enforce your current rules then why make new ones? I do think we are going to experience a housing correction once all these mortgages come due as interest rates continue to rise. Housing prices should drop on their own so maybe better to wait and see how this plays out instead of more rules with unintended consequences. There are so many economic and political unknowns right now. Maybe instead of more rules we just need more housing and less red tape for a home builder. Maybe politicians could focus on actions like increasing our water storage or making it easier for a local builder to create his family a home instead of creating rules for DOT to attempt to enforce.
The elephant in the room that nobody is talking about is staff accommodation in residential neighbourhoods. Some of these homes have a dozen people living in them with no rules what so ever. The companies who own them are making huge profits on these rentals. Businesses and hotels should be required to house staff on site and not run a for profit housing business in residential neighbourhoods.
Obviously Tofino needs to opt in. Even without opting in some VR's in Tofino are going to be caught in the new legislation where grandfathering isn't allowed province wide.
ReplyDeleteIt would be way cheaper for Tofino taxpayers to have the town opt in to the regulations than to pay for more affordable housing to be built.
We should be opting into this or at least asking through a referendum if the town wants in or not. I suspect most would.
ReplyDeleteLocals in houses. Tourists in hotels.
ReplyDelete9:24 Just let council do their job without muddying the situation and have them opt the town in. That is what we voted them to do, to look after the best interests of the town.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw the premier on TV telling about this great new STR thing, there was Josie sitting right behind him, right up there on top! I was so proud, thinking that how came up from a quaint west coast village of only 600 souls, and now there she is right up there with the big guys! Wow, you go girl! South Chesterman's picked a fight with the wrong lady, eh?
ReplyDeleteBe careful what you wish for...mortgages just made rents very very expensive...the math does not work... and most of council and the Mayor have STR's so will they be motivated? and Now anything less than 90 days is an STR. Just saying, and no I do not have an STR in Tofino.
ReplyDelete3:43...So I guess it doesn't matter that Josie n George ran an illegal STR for years with the DOT turning a blind eye to her sins does it. "some pigs are more equal than others" G.O.
ReplyDeleteThe mayor’s suite is rented out long term. I spoke to a couple of councillors today that supported the owner operator initiative.
ReplyDelete10:04 You are right. The math doesn’t work . It won’t work until prices drop substantially .
10:04 yes the math does not work just as Ralph says. There will have to be a reset of the real estate bidding war that has been going on here. When the prices of the properties drop, then the mortgages on them will drop and rents will not need to be so high in order to pay the mortgage.
ReplyDeleteIf Council does not opt in, you can kiss Tofino goodbye. A 'Resort Municipality" where once was a real community. People will come from all over to ravage $$$$$ what remains of the housing stock.
ReplyDeleteSorry, that is what is already happening.
Just opt in.
The long term effects can only be beneficial to housing problems. If real estate prices moderate, housing becomes more affordable. Your share of regional and provincial taxes also go down. If more housing is available maybe Tofino needs to spend less of so called "affordable housing" housing which has been not so affordable either to the folks looking to rent, or the Taxpayers who have Poured in millions. If more housing becomes available and there is a shift to monthly rentals. all economic sectors benefit from employee housing availability.
ReplyDeleteI don't care if the MLA has her face plastered all over this. I can stomach that for the benefit of the town.
OPT IN
The BC hotel association lobbied the government for these rules. This is a big win for them and most of the Tofino resorts are owned by people who don't live here. My biggest concern is the rule of unintended consequences. Stay tuned.
ReplyDeleteOpt into this program? Yes! Homeowners can still rent the spare suite nightly or bed and breakfast the spare room, but non resident owners will have to make some decisions. They took a chance on buying in at 3 mil and flouting the rules. Maybe their property will be worth less than before... too bad. My heart weeps but business is business.
ReplyDeleteAt least the Tofino resorts pay commercial tax. Many of the VR operators don't live here either. They are scamming the taxpayer as well.
ReplyDeleteIf anything deserves a referendum this is it.
ReplyDeleteA referendum in Tofino. I can tell you the result, so why bother? The left wing woke agenda will prevail. This is Tofino.
ReplyDeleteI'll suggest that we all just sit back and watch what happens elsewhere in the province, before Tofino (who has no money to spare on a miscue) jumps into the fray. The law hasn't been passed yet, no one knows where the legal challenges are headed, how will this affect properties like Tibbs and Eik, that were specifically built for vacation rental purposes? Who here can say that they're an expert on the subject and have all the answers?
An earlier Tofino mayor would grab the photo opportunity, declare Tofino's stance, and commit us to the program, regardless of the consequences or cost to the taxpayer.
Fortunately, we're no longer subjects of our previous ruler. It's no longer required that Tofino "look good", in order to promote a personal political agenda.
We're allowed to step back and breathe.
....and referendums cost. Lots. You can bet that office staff will be $$$ all for it $$$.
For years the governments of BC, on all levels, have rode the housing bubble to support their uncontrolled spending. At the same time they have destroyed all of our resource based economy and good paying jobs. Now they are all broke, the average person cannot afford a house, all of our social networks are broken, and their only option is to come after personal wealth. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Soon we will all be paying a wealth tax on the equity in our homes. Socialism works great until governments run out of other peoples money. I look forward to seeing the amount Gameshow Gord will be lobbying to take away from us today.
ReplyDeleteHopefully Tofino isn't exempt from the new housing mandates announced by the NDP today. Six units per lot with no zoning or public hearings. Yea ha, bring it on!!
ReplyDeleteYes, I know, Tofino residents don't like tourism but it is the main source of income in this town. If only the expensive hotels remain as tourist accommodation then only the independently wealthy will be able to vacation here. It would be unfortunate if regular travellers cannot afford to stay here anymore. I do agree though that in areas zoned residential investors should not be able to build several cottages to use as commercial tourist accommodation. Only the traditional B&B operations should be allowed in residential areas. Governments are laughing all the way to the bank since they are profiting from the high priced real estate. Ridiculously high transfer tax and GST upon sale, tourism tax and taxes on tourist rental income are most welcome income for the government. Another consideration for the home owner is that long term rental laws work mostly in favour of the renters and leave the landlord precious little control over his property. Even truly horrible renters are almost impossible to get rid of. Short term rentals are much better in that regard.
ReplyDeleteThe sewer system isn’t built yet and you want to have perhaps SIX times the population? Never mind the minor detail of water supply. Living here certainly would be different. Try and catch a wave with that many people plus tourists all here. Maybe the waves at Tin Wis beach will look good.
ReplyDeleteLook who has written to the "Times Colonist":
ReplyDeleteProperly managed, long‑term rentals work
I have been reading the letters to the editor that try to justify the existence of short-term rentals.
One of the common themes presented is the difficultly with long-term rentals, all the problems with terrible tenants. This is all nonsense, I have been in the long-term rental business for more than 40 years and have rented to several thousand tenants.
Managed properly, there have never been any issues in my experience, as described by short-term landlords. Be assured that the Residential Tenancy Act is not broken as suggested.
While short rentals have taken long-term rental stock out of the market, it has also caused another serious problem. Because of the potential income created by short-term rentals, house prices have doubled in value, in many areas, especially in communities that attract tourists.
I applaud the government, bold enough to finally address the short-term rental disaster.
Tim Hackett
Brentwood Bay
Not quite. It's locals in houses, tourists in hotels and resorts, and hotel and resort staff in privately owned rentals so there's no need for resorts to provide staff accomodations. Keeps the profits healthy for people who live elsewhere and own resorts in Tofino.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it time that Tofino's commercial taxation rate was boosted a bit? D.O.T. is gonna take a big hit in lost STR licence fees, as they shut down operations. Need to recoup those funds someplace.
If Tofino were to opt in to the new provincial legislation it wouldn’t necessarily reduce the amount of STRs . It would only require the operator to declare it as their principal residence. If the non-local STR owner were to sell , I would speculate that the buyer would continue to operate it as an STR but would also live here.
ReplyDeleteThere were 268 STRs issued in 2021 and of those properties 121 applied for a homeowner grant. Those are the latest numbers I have . It should be noted that with the increased assessments some homes wouldn’t qualify for a home owner grant even if the property was a principal residence .
Correct me if i’m wrong but Tofino’s STR bylaw already requires an onsite resident in a secondary suite or in the “home”) aka monthly tenant/owner) in order to get a STR license (with the exception of Cox bay Beach resort, Fred Tibbs and Eik Landing.) So even if only 70 % of the licensed STR rentals in Tofino were compliant (based on Ralph’s number of 268 licenses issued) that’s 188 properties that are either owner on site or monthly tenanted. (likely in the suite) 188 times say 2.5 people per property thats secure monthly /owner housing for 470 ppl. Close to 25% of Tofino’s population.
ReplyDeleteThats not bad compared to the cites where Air B&B’s don’t require an on site tenant/owner. Seems to me whether you like it or not Tofino atleast seems to be ahead of the game already with their current STR Bylaw.
Furthermore (i hate that word but whatever..) Municipalities should not be relying on privately owned single family dwellings to supply the need for entry level monthly rental housing!
That form of housing should be provided by the traditional apartment style higher density apartment buildings. Thankfully a couple of these Apartment type buildings are now just being completed in Tofino.
However the DOT should have provided more aggressive incentives to existing property owner/developers so they would take this on so we the tax payers aren’t stuck with giving up public property and footing most of the bill.
@813pm, that's the most intelligent comment here.
ReplyDeleteThe report commissioned by the lobbying group the BC Hotel Association (where the GM of LBL is a board member) is what the province used to make their recommendations.
This is the wealthy resort owners against the residents just trying to survive here, again.
If you really dig into the data, there aren't that many "rich out of town homeowners".
Look around. It's all your closest friends and residents that have worked hard to save and buy an investment property in the town they already live - to try and survive here.
Tofino already has an existing framework of STR licensing. We are literally the model other communities have looked at.
Hats-off to the DOT for putting it into law in 2005 that there needed to be a caretaker suite, otherwise we'd be in a really bad place.
As it stands, every legal VR in Tofino is SOMEONE's principle residence.
The provincial exemptions are well thought out and are there for a reason. Tofino is not the target here. Is our system a little off - sure - but it's not as broken as it is elsewhere.
The DOT doesn't need to adopt the government's rules. It already has rules of its own (and can make more, if needed).
Ooof, buckle up. This might be a bumpy ride.
You are right. Many of my friends with two or more multi-million dollar houses are really trying hard to survive. They long for the carefree days of living in a leaky RV or car camping while working two jobs. Some have had to cut back and only go south twice this year. I heard of one friend that actually had to clean their own STR. They were traumatized.
ReplyDeleteThere is a couple of elephants in the room that nobody seems to be addressing. One thing that seems to attract the out-of-town investor to buy here is the lax enforcement our district bylaws or standards of behaviour in terms of what you can get away with.
ReplyDeleteTofino has created a climate of getting away with things so that sure you could have a caretaker sweet or a caretaker cabin or two of each and the motorhome or two in the yard and rent them all out nightly and nobody cares or does anything about it.
These aren't isolated examples of thumbing your nose at the Bylaw's in Tofino. There's always the piss poor excuse for struggling people to just make their mortgage payment with a little helper in the basement. No one seems to acknowledge that a person with two or three houses already is pocketing a large sum of money every year by running a commercial investment business in a Single family residential home. The properties with five or six rental units are using up five or six times the services that would be normal for a single-family dwelling. It's all OK because my grandfather built these two centuries ago.
If the DOT doesn’t opt in to the provincial STR regulations more residential homes will turn into STRs as it will be illegal for non-owner operators in the rest of the province . The exception to this is Resort Municipalities . The greed of these people knows no bounds .
ReplyDeleteIt really is a shame that some of the VR owners are only able to spend two months in Thailand and Chamonix instead of six now because their incomes are going to be so drastically reduced.......horrible injustice.
ReplyDeleteThank you 1:15 You nailed it.
ReplyDeleteThe new legislation is in the right direction. It still allows the primary homeowner to have a STR in THEIR home , and that would be any local/fulltime resident who chooses to have a STR on their PRIMARY property . Tofino has not enforced or managed their current bylaws well they have the rules but little enforcement. Some properties have multiple Airbnb listings at one house. They are considered legal! To conform they have a door that connects each unit making it a single family home but then lock the doors to each unit to separate them into multiple separate single VR suites. A mini motel in a residential neighbourhood paying residential taxes and water. Its beyond nuts what goes on here and somehow we are looked at as an example . There are many STR's that do have a local resident in their suite but their are also many that DO NOT and non resident owners leave them for themselves and they sit empty for their use. There are also a few homes that have never conformed and have no secondary suite but are full time STR's and have been for a decade with out change or enforcement . So many obvious infractions that do not get enforced .
My guess would be any town not opting in will see more demand from investors local or non and higher prices within their local community coming May 2024.
5:08PM agreed. The DOT will have to opt in or face a much worse situation than we are currently in as everyone selling in the province eyes up properties here and in other resort communities for STR. In Tofino for all the business license fees paid by current STRs, enforcement has been lacklustre to say the least.
ReplyDeletehttps://skift.com/2022/03/15/short-term-rentals-may-prove-right-fit-for-private-equity-seeking-new-asset-class/
ReplyDeleteWorth reading
its about time the average taxpayer woke up and understood that vrs use/take up 2 or 3 times their fair share of services, wear and tear on infrastructure, as well as improvements to sewer and water systems. if there are more rental suites the use increases. but the vr pays for only 1 residential tax component gauged upon 1 residential family usage. if any one doubts this situation it is evident in the metered water usage for a normal house compared to a vr next door. so we long term residents are paying for the abuses of the by-law in a big way......what by-law? enforcement?
ReplyDeletefor the properties that short term rent 3, 4, 5. or more on a nightly basis for some time now where exactly is the enforcement of the by-law allowing only 3 bedrooms of a house with a long term tenant on site?i would suggest that it appears to be out of control. It's great for the smug successful business persons here to suggest that there's nothing wrong with a tourist destination resort becoming a messy residential hotel. they forget that the biggest problems us mere mortal taxpayers face is who pays for huge infrastructure costs required to service all of the out of town investors properties that routinely use 4 or 5 times the services of a normal family house. the district council doesn't consider fairness in its considerations for who is to pay for the pigs to eat four times more than anyone else. .This is a permitted abuse it seems having observed it for 20 years from what started out as simple mom and Pop bed and breakfast ops to the many properties with 6,7,or 8 nightly rental units. no, no dont bother those folks,...they really are too busy to do anything about our problem or pay 4 times what normal users pay. and the district employees laugh all of the way to the coffee shop
So many good comments on here. Who can deny that VCR use has driven up property values. Propelling us into a future that is too expensive for working people to actually live here.
ReplyDeleteWhen Tofino went all in on tourism, when a future of logging and fishing was in decline, the change to a tourism focus was to sustain the community. Now the over tourism, the commercialization of our residential sector poses an even more serious challenge to the viability of Tofino as a "COMMUNITY". Our town is not being sustained by tourism but destroyed by the commercialization of our neighborhoods. Step by step Tofino has become a place not where one resides amongst neighbors, but a place of exploitation. By people who live here and in many instances, by people who don,t Council draw the line...OPT IN or none of us will be able to live here in the future.
I suppose in response to the Westerly article about Tofino's salaried staff costing it's taxpayers significantly more than similar sized communities on Vancouver Island, the Mayor offered the view that Tofino Council consciously chose to pay their staff more.
ReplyDeleteThe reasoning behind this decision, to value their work more highly than other communities, is somewhat questionable.
Apart from the virtue signaling going on. A more credible explanation might be to explain they are useless tools, OR to outline that Tofino needs more staff to get the job done because in a tourist destination with millions( fill in your own number) of visitors the job is bigger and more complicated.
I now reference many of the above comments of how the Vacation Rental sector is sponging off the local taxpayer. Using services and not paying a penny more than a single family would pay on a residential lot. Imagine a significant part of the local tourist economy contributing nothing in the way of business tax on very commercialized properties. Wake up Council. Opt In.... or triple the property tax on operating VR's
Tofino wasn't planned to become a tourist destination resort. In any case the provincial Ministry of tourism pushed full scale tourism onto the community before it had the infrastructure to support it. And accepting the designation of tourist destination resort to capitalize on the MRI money didn't help without proper planning. And who pays for all of this? At this point we pay for the poor planning or lack of it by watching our community dissolve under the rubric of "tourism". Therefore tourism Tofino seems to have run with the ball and stiffed the community in the face pigging out on easy money particularly with using single-family dwellings for vacation rentals. Granted this was an unexpected consequence of many people simply trying to keep up with making a living. However, as we've discussed, it got out of control to the point of no control. Unless the mayor and council realizes this is the only point of control and we opt in to the VR operator owner living in the premises only, we might be doomed to be exploited by out-of-town investors having no skin in the game besides money. What is it going to be? Quality of life for a community? Or sustainable profits for nonresident investors?
ReplyDeleteThe reason we need more staff? More control and more red tape so that it takes forever to do something if at all. And more union members. whole boxes of TimBits.
ReplyDeleteJust had a read of the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust "Vital Signs" report. Lots of good information there, worth the read..
ReplyDeleteThe water usage graph(page 10) might be a little misleading. The water usage for Tourist Accommodation should include another 400+ units, likely 33% to 40% increase. in order to account for VR units, which are classified as residential under the water billing system. But are surely not residential use. That would flip the usage to about 50% tourist accommodation and 25% actual residential use.
Also non revenue water at 5% is worth another look as well. A significant portion of this use includes washrooms toilets and beach showers, which represents yet more water going to the tourist sector.....At he time the 2022 report was filed there was no metering of these uses by the DoT so the non revenue amounts are just a guesstimate.
One suggestion would be to look at charging for water at VR locations on the same basis as commercial users. Could that work?
The minute that the Pacific Rim NationalPark was designated Tofino was destined to become a destination resort. That was in 1972. The Federal Government invested millions of dollars at the time to install all the sewer and water infrastructure that Tofino has today in anticipation of Tofino’s growth in population and an anticipated major increase in Tourism.
ReplyDeleteThen the Clayoquot Protests aka The the War in the Woods came and fuelled even more exposure of Tofino and Clayoquot Sound world wide. That again resulted in a huge growth in Tourism. That was in 1993. That was 30 years ago. Unless you moved hear prior to those events you have no reason to lament about Tourism in Tofino knowing full well that you decided to move to an already World wide known Tourist Destination.
Even if you moved to Tofino not to work in the tourism industry the above facts remain the same.
Tofino didn't become a Resort Municipality till the late 90's. Water and sewer improvements were funded by the Feds in the late 80s and early 90's
ReplyDeleteFor almost a decade even the tourism sector opposed being a Resort Municipality. Didn't like the idea of more taxes, till they realized they would get the money to promote themselves. Fishing and logging were the main economy right up until the Clayoquot land use decisions in the mid to late 90's. Some of your facts are your opinions.... but whatever.
No one denies tourism is the main economic sector in Tofino's economy now or the more recent past, but that doesn't mean it doesn't come with serious consequences for the community.
Consequences that should be reconciled with other interests and values.
Besides you have no idea how long I, or other posters, have lived here. Does not matter if I moved here last spring, two years ago, fifty years ago, or I was born here in a dugout canoe under the first street dock. They call it democracy. Everyone gets a say. Best get used to it.
Good things sell themselves or you don't have to advertise them because word of mouth will have spread far and wide. That was the case with Tofino going along in the 90s. You didn't need a tourist destination resort designation to get more money for advertisements because we didn't have the infrastructure to support wholesale over the top tourism of any kind whatsoever...... Tourism Tofino disregarded this reality as well as did the BC ministry of tourism. They insisted that tourism needed to be advertised to be successful. It just doesn't. And all the stupid stupid things that have been done to Tofino in the name of tourism are just a waste of money. So instead of having a thoughtful well reasoned vision of substance for tourists to come here we just said everybody come here and make a mess for Tofino to clean up.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of if Tofino opts in or not, one thing has got to change. The water rates. There is zero incentive for the tourism providers to reduce water usage. They have often been getting their water in the past for less than the cost of production. I'll bet not many of you realize the actual production and treatment cost of that cubic meter of water you use. I am not sure the district office actually knows the real cost of a cubic meter of water. In fairness it is difficult to calculate with it depending on how much crap has to be filtered out and plugs the filters. The filters as I understand it cost around $50,000 a set and now I think there are at least 2 of those sets in operation. District staff are doing a great job of supplying us with great water.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I am not sure the fair billing for water consumption issue has been properly dealt with. Residents pay more for their cubic meter of water than the resorts. The cost of producing that water is the same for all users so why are there different rates?
We almost ran out of water this past summer. Until the water rates punish severely those users who go over their base rates/allotments, then year after year there will be growing water shortages upon the arrival of tourists who will fill soaker tubs, leave faucets running and flush toilets for the fun of watching the water swirl down.
Sure would be interesting to get the numbers on the amount of water used by the absentee owner vacation rentals.
And yes Tofino should opt in to the Province's plan to create housing at the expense of the vacation rental operators businesses. We might get back some social fabric if the absentee owners all sell their properties and the new owners actually join the community.
I agree that Tofino has huge issues with affordable housing and tourism but politicians making rules are what got us into this mess in the first place. I'm not sure if more rules are the answer. Do we need more rules that are not enforced? If you can't enforce your current rules then why make new ones? I do think we are going to experience a housing correction once all these mortgages come due as interest rates continue to rise. Housing prices should drop on their own so maybe better to wait and see how this plays out instead of more rules with unintended consequences. There are so many economic and political unknowns right now. Maybe instead of more rules we just need more housing and less red tape for a home builder. Maybe politicians could focus on actions like increasing our water storage or making it easier for a local builder to create his family a home instead of creating rules for DOT to attempt to enforce.
ReplyDeleteThe elephant in the room that nobody is talking about is staff accommodation in residential neighbourhoods. Some of these homes have a dozen people living in them with no rules what so ever. The companies who own them are making huge profits on these rentals. Businesses and hotels should be required to house staff on site and not run a for profit housing business in residential neighbourhoods.
ReplyDeleteso can some genius tell me where onsite employee housing is supposed to go for any of the local businesses that lease space for the business?
ReplyDelete@10:19
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAH - you are so misinformed if you think local businesses are making a profit off their staff housing units.
There is no profit being made from staff accomodations. Any staement saying there is is being made by individuals ignorant of relevent information.
ReplyDeleteno profit look eleswhere
ReplyDeletehttps://ricochet.media/en/4010/in-victoria-former-airbnbs-are-flooding-the-market-but-no-one-is-buying
ReplyDelete