10 ms·

Vancouver signs first agreement in Canada with Airbnb for short-term rentals

64 points by Tiktaalik 9y ago

tareqak 9y ago
There was no definition of MOU in the article. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) is an agreement between two (bilateral) or more (multilateral) parties. It expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicating an intended common line of action. It is often used in cases where parties either do not imply a legal commitment or in situations where the parties cannot create a legally enforceable agreement. It is a more formal alternative to a gentlemen's agreement. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorandum_of_understanding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorandum_of_understanding
vkou 9y ago
The rules for qualifying for a rental license are detailed, and pretty reasonable. They permit renting out a room, or your house if you live in it, but do not permit turning an apartment complex into an AirBnB hotel. In short, you can let on AirBnB, as long as you are not diminishing housing stock. [1] It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good. [1] http://vancouver.ca/doing-business/short-term-rentals.aspx http://vancouver.ca/doing-business/short-term-rentals.aspx > Short-term rentals are allowed when: > It's your principal residence, in other words, where you live most of the year and the residential address you use for bills, identification, taxes, and insurance > It's a legal dwelling unit (a home with an address that complies with all applicable regulations, including building code and fire safety) > You have a short-term rental business licence > If you're renting, your landlord allows you to sublet your home as a short-term rental > If you're in a strata, your strata bylaws support short-term rentals in your building
- conanbatt 9y ago
  Short term rentals do not diminish housing stock, and help a city get more tourism which is by all means good for the whole. Its one more case of locals that vote vs non-locals that dont, even if they are way more numerous. If Vancouver finds itself short of houses by whatever measure, they have to look elsewhere.
  - borne0 9y ago
    >>Short term rentals do not diminish housing stock If houses that would otherwise be rented or occupied are being used for short term rentals how can this be true?
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      The people that stay at short term rentals are also dwellers. They are taking up the time the longer term rentals aren't taking.
      - borne0 9y ago
        We disagree on the definition of dweller, cities require more than just vacation seekers to function. And the longer term renters aren't taking up those dwelling since it's more profitable for owners to rent out short term, but the reason that anyone wants to rent short term is because it's an interesting place to be, which it won't be if it's all people on vacation. I'll call this the Ibiza Quandary.
        conanbatt 9y ago
        It's no quandary at all, the visitors and the landlords agree. Only a minority disagrees. If the rate of visitors reaches a rate where where the occupancy rate of airbnbs is makes them less interesting than long term units, congratulations, you have found market equilibrium.
        borne0 9y ago
        So people who simply want to live in a city near to where they work and their children go to school have to be subject to market corrections where a single massively financed pseudo-hotel can massively distort a major cost of living assignment? Ridiculous. This is where common-sense regulation is needed.
        conanbatt 9y ago
eumenides1 9y ago
This looks like a pretty good agreement for both parties. AirBnB continues to operate in Vancity, Vancity can set rules and governance to short term rentals. The most important is that Vancity can deny the ability for commercial operators pretending to be residential operators and punish those that persist. - Short-term rentals will only be allowed in a principal residence, where the operator resides for more than 180 days of the year and receives mail - Commercial operators or other properties that do not qualify for the short-term rental business license program will be subject to these new fines effective April 19. The ball is really in Vancity's court here as they can enforce (or not) as necessary.
- walrus01 9y ago
  Please don't call Vancouver Vancity repeatedly. This is not a local thing. Vancity is a credit union. In local development, politics and such the city government is usually abbreviated as CoV (City of Vancouver) to distinguish it from the other similarly named entities, all of which are separate cities: City of West Vancouver District of North Vancouver City of North Vancouver https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancity
  - parliament32 9y ago
    Hearing someone call it "Vancity" is the quickest way to spot an out-of-towner trying to blend in. To us, Vancity is a credit union. The only related abbreviation I hear time to time is "Van".
- borne0 9y ago
  >>The most important is that Vancity can deny the ability for commercial operators pretending to be residential operators and punish those that persist. Watch now for a big increase in business licenses as those operators begin to do business under strawmen.
pkaler 9y ago
This seems like reasonable regulation. And all of this demand-side management is going to do nothing for affordability. Housing affordability is a supply-side zoning issue and can be fixed very quickly: - Unify/standardize zoning. The entire country of Japan only has about a dozen different zoning types. I see more than a dozen zoning types from my home office window. - Stop going to council for spot upzoning. This should not be a council function. This should be handled by city operations. - Upzone Grandview-Woodland and Hastings-Sunrise from RS-1 to RM-4. RM-4 is how Kitsilano is zoned. TADA! You’ve just created 50,000 housing units and solved the whole problem. Zoning visualization: http://maps.nicholsonroad.com/zones/ http://maps.nicholsonroad.com/zones/
- Tiktaalik 9y ago
  Sure I mean if we're playing with lines on a graph in a theoretical space then building enough supply can exceed the demand and result in more affordable housing. That's not real life however. In reality supply creation is constrained by real world factors such as time and labour supply and "just add more supply" is not so easy. It takes time. On top of this Airbnb has acted as a sort of friction against supply creation, as when you create a new building, some percentage of the new units were being bought purely to be rented out 100% of the time as a hotel business and were thus never contributing to increasing the vacancy rate. This is why this new policy from the City of Vancouver is explicitly aimed at this sort of Airbnb use. When the City of Vancouver approves a new condo building, which takes years to build, they ideally want 100% of the units in that apartment building available for local renters.
  - pkaler 9y ago
    This is not theoretical. This is the exact same process that took place in Victoria, Australia. https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-reform/reformed-zones-for-victoria https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning...
  - notatoad 9y ago
    >In reality supply creation is constrained by real world factors such as time and labour supply and "just add more supply" is not so easy. It takes time. Ultimately, supply is constrained by cost. And in Vancouver, that's not an issue - if the regulation allows it, converting a single family home to a multi-unit dwelling is so ridiculously profitable that the solution to the housing crisis is to simply change zoning to allow it, and then wait. "just add more supply" really is that easy if you let the market forces work. yes, it's going to take time, but this problem has been ongoing in Vancouver for much longer now than the amount of time needed to fix it.
lwansbrough 9y ago
Still can't get a taxi most nights unless you call an hour ahead. In fact, you'll be able to get legal weed in this city before you can hail a ride service.
- fatbird 9y ago
  On a Saturday night at dinnertime, I get cabs within 5-10 minutes, and I'm (just) outside downtown. Between the individual cab company apps and eCab, Vancouver's taxi services have shaped up a lot. One cabbie even described in detail how their company punished drivers who don't respond reliably to booking requests through the app. Same company told me one time when I called that it would be as fast to book through the app since it all goes into the same system anyway. I'll credit the threat of Uber with triggering this systemic change, but I never recognize complaints like yours. I get cabs reliably and reasonably quickly even on peak nights.
  - lwansbrough 9y ago
    > I'll credit the threat of Uber with triggering this systemic change This is a really, really important caveat in your argument. Even the threat of Uber was enough to improve cab services. Now let's actually have ride hailing competition (provided Uber is held to the same standards as taxis.) As for cab drivers, I've heard no shortage of complaints from friends and family about cabs (be it the money, service, availability, etc.) Living just outside downtown I suspect is much better for getting cabs than living downtown, as cab drivers are heading back downtown for more pickups anyway quite often (especially on Saturday nights.) Never mind trying to just hail a cab off the street - I've been denied a few times based on where I was going, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. There's no legitimate argument against ride hailing services like Uber so long as they're operating with the same standards, unless you're a cabbie who stands to lose work.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
chillacy 9y ago
Nice, I hated feeling like I was doing something shady whenever renting AirBnBs in vancouver, they always had directions like don't talk to anyone, always mention that you were a relative from out of town, etc, so as not to attract attention.
jaclaz 9y ago
As always happens in these cases, I believe that whatever public authority (the municipality, the governement, etc.) making an "agreement" with a private company does three (IMHO) terrible things: 1) undervalues its own authority (ultimately the authority of citizens/people) to simply make a Law or regulation and enforce it 2) recognizes to a private company (which big as it might be is only one of the various playes in the field) a "contractual force" that the company should not have, besides giving to it a lot of brand publicity for free 3) consequently all other companies operating in the same field are (without any particular reason) underprivileged, somehow reinforcing and helping the attempts to become a monopoly of the "big one".

64 points by Tiktaalik 9y ago

There was no definition of MOU in the article. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) is an agreement between two (bilateral) or more (multilateral) parties. It expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicating an intended common line of action. It is often used in cases where parties either do not imply a legal commitment or in situations where the parties cannot create a legally enforceable agreement. It is a more formal alternative to a gentlemen's agreement. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorandum_of_understanding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorandum_of_understanding

vkou 9y ago

The rules for qualifying for a rental license are detailed, and pretty reasonable. They permit renting out a room, or your house if you live in it, but do not permit turning an apartment complex into an AirBnB hotel. In short, you can let on AirBnB, as long as you are not diminishing housing stock. [1] It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good. [1] http://vancouver.ca/doing-business/short-term-rentals.aspx http://vancouver.ca/doing-business/short-term-rentals.aspx > Short-term rentals are allowed when: > It's your principal residence, in other words, where you live most of the year and the residential address you use for bills, identification, taxes, and insurance > It's a legal dwelling unit (a home with an address that complies with all applicable regulations, including building code and fire safety) > You have a short-term rental business licence > If you're renting, your landlord allows you to sublet your home as a short-term rental > If you're in a strata, your strata bylaws support short-term rentals in your building

conanbatt 9y ago
Short term rentals do not diminish housing stock, and help a city get more tourism which is by all means good for the whole. Its one more case of locals that vote vs non-locals that dont, even if they are way more numerous. If Vancouver finds itself short of houses by whatever measure, they have to look elsewhere.
- borne0 9y ago
  >>Short term rentals do not diminish housing stock If houses that would otherwise be rented or occupied are being used for short term rentals how can this be true?
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    The people that stay at short term rentals are also dwellers. They are taking up the time the longer term rentals aren't taking.
    - borne0 9y ago
      We disagree on the definition of dweller, cities require more than just vacation seekers to function. And the longer term renters aren't taking up those dwelling since it's more profitable for owners to rent out short term, but the reason that anyone wants to rent short term is because it's an interesting place to be, which it won't be if it's all people on vacation. I'll call this the Ibiza Quandary.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        It's no quandary at all, the visitors and the landlords agree. Only a minority disagrees. If the rate of visitors reaches a rate where where the occupancy rate of airbnbs is makes them less interesting than long term units, congratulations, you have found market equilibrium.
        borne0 9y ago
        So people who simply want to live in a city near to where they work and their children go to school have to be subject to market corrections where a single massively financed pseudo-hotel can massively distort a major cost of living assignment? Ridiculous. This is where common-sense regulation is needed.
        conanbatt 9y ago

eumenides1 9y ago

This looks like a pretty good agreement for both parties. AirBnB continues to operate in Vancity, Vancity can set rules and governance to short term rentals. The most important is that Vancity can deny the ability for commercial operators pretending to be residential operators and punish those that persist. - Short-term rentals will only be allowed in a principal residence, where the operator resides for more than 180 days of the year and receives mail - Commercial operators or other properties that do not qualify for the short-term rental business license program will be subject to these new fines effective April 19. The ball is really in Vancity's court here as they can enforce (or not) as necessary.

walrus01 9y ago
Please don't call Vancouver Vancity repeatedly. This is not a local thing. Vancity is a credit union. In local development, politics and such the city government is usually abbreviated as CoV (City of Vancouver) to distinguish it from the other similarly named entities, all of which are separate cities: City of West Vancouver District of North Vancouver City of North Vancouver https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancity
- parliament32 9y ago
  Hearing someone call it "Vancity" is the quickest way to spot an out-of-towner trying to blend in. To us, Vancity is a credit union. The only related abbreviation I hear time to time is "Van".
borne0 9y ago
>>The most important is that Vancity can deny the ability for commercial operators pretending to be residential operators and punish those that persist. Watch now for a big increase in business licenses as those operators begin to do business under strawmen.

pkaler 9y ago

This seems like reasonable regulation. And all of this demand-side management is going to do nothing for affordability. Housing affordability is a supply-side zoning issue and can be fixed very quickly: - Unify/standardize zoning. The entire country of Japan only has about a dozen different zoning types. I see more than a dozen zoning types from my home office window. - Stop going to council for spot upzoning. This should not be a council function. This should be handled by city operations. - Upzone Grandview-Woodland and Hastings-Sunrise from RS-1 to RM-4. RM-4 is how Kitsilano is zoned. TADA! You’ve just created 50,000 housing units and solved the whole problem. Zoning visualization: http://maps.nicholsonroad.com/zones/ http://maps.nicholsonroad.com/zones/

Tiktaalik 9y ago
Sure I mean if we're playing with lines on a graph in a theoretical space then building enough supply can exceed the demand and result in more affordable housing. That's not real life however. In reality supply creation is constrained by real world factors such as time and labour supply and "just add more supply" is not so easy. It takes time. On top of this Airbnb has acted as a sort of friction against supply creation, as when you create a new building, some percentage of the new units were being bought purely to be rented out 100% of the time as a hotel business and were thus never contributing to increasing the vacancy rate. This is why this new policy from the City of Vancouver is explicitly aimed at this sort of Airbnb use. When the City of Vancouver approves a new condo building, which takes years to build, they ideally want 100% of the units in that apartment building available for local renters.
- pkaler 9y ago
  This is not theoretical. This is the exact same process that took place in Victoria, Australia. https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-reform/reformed-zones-for-victoria https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning...
- notatoad 9y ago
  >In reality supply creation is constrained by real world factors such as time and labour supply and "just add more supply" is not so easy. It takes time. Ultimately, supply is constrained by cost. And in Vancouver, that's not an issue - if the regulation allows it, converting a single family home to a multi-unit dwelling is so ridiculously profitable that the solution to the housing crisis is to simply change zoning to allow it, and then wait. "just add more supply" really is that easy if you let the market forces work. yes, it's going to take time, but this problem has been ongoing in Vancouver for much longer now than the amount of time needed to fix it.

lwansbrough 9y ago

Still can't get a taxi most nights unless you call an hour ahead. In fact, you'll be able to get legal weed in this city before you can hail a ride service.

fatbird 9y ago
On a Saturday night at dinnertime, I get cabs within 5-10 minutes, and I'm (just) outside downtown. Between the individual cab company apps and eCab, Vancouver's taxi services have shaped up a lot. One cabbie even described in detail how their company punished drivers who don't respond reliably to booking requests through the app. Same company told me one time when I called that it would be as fast to book through the app since it all goes into the same system anyway. I'll credit the threat of Uber with triggering this systemic change, but I never recognize complaints like yours. I get cabs reliably and reasonably quickly even on peak nights.
- lwansbrough 9y ago
  > I'll credit the threat of Uber with triggering this systemic change This is a really, really important caveat in your argument. Even the threat of Uber was enough to improve cab services. Now let's actually have ride hailing competition (provided Uber is held to the same standards as taxis.) As for cab drivers, I've heard no shortage of complaints from friends and family about cabs (be it the money, service, availability, etc.) Living just outside downtown I suspect is much better for getting cabs than living downtown, as cab drivers are heading back downtown for more pickups anyway quite often (especially on Saturday nights.) Never mind trying to just hail a cab off the street - I've been denied a few times based on where I was going, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. There's no legitimate argument against ride hailing services like Uber so long as they're operating with the same standards, unless you're a cabbie who stands to lose work.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

chillacy 9y ago

Nice, I hated feeling like I was doing something shady whenever renting AirBnBs in vancouver, they always had directions like don't talk to anyone, always mention that you were a relative from out of town, etc, so as not to attract attention.

jaclaz 9y ago

As always happens in these cases, I believe that whatever public authority (the municipality, the governement, etc.) making an "agreement" with a private company does three (IMHO) terrible things: 1) undervalues its own authority (ultimately the authority of citizens/people) to simply make a Law or regulation and enforce it 2) recognizes to a private company (which big as it might be is only one of the various playes in the field) a "contractual force" that the company should not have, besides giving to it a lot of brand publicity for free 3) consequently all other companies operating in the same field are (without any particular reason) underprivileged, somehow reinforcing and helping the attempts to become a monopoly of the "big one".