N.B. studies short-term rental market’s impact on housing availability | CBC News
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The New Brunswick government is taking a closer look at short-term rental units, with an eye to potential regulations for an industry other Canadian provinces have already cracked down on.
The Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture is set to release a report in the next two to three weeks on how platforms such as Airbnb and Vrbo are affecting long-term rental housing in New Brunswick, said Jill Green, the minister responsible for housing.
Green said the move comes after hearing calls from mayors for regulations about short-term rentals.
“We’re going to take that information and understand how big of a problem it is, how it’s affecting the housing market in New Brunswick, and then start thinking about what some solutions could potentially be,” Green said.
Online platforms like Airbnb allow property owners to rent out entire homes, apartment units, or just rooms in their own homes to others, typically for periods of a few days to a few weeks.
But they’ve drawn criticism from housing advocates, who say those platforms are resulting in landlords turning long-term rental units into short-term rentals to increase their profit margins.
Some Canadian provinces have already taken steps to regulate them, including British Columbia, where Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said rules introduced this month are meant to target landlords who operate multiple short-term rental units in residences where they do not live.
The new legislation limits short-term rentals to within a host’s home, or a basement suite or laneway home on the property where they reside.
Featured VideoHousing Minister Ravi Kahlon says news rules to regulate short-term rentals in B.C. are meant to target short-term rental hosts with multiple listings, often for homes where they don’t live.
Green didn’t directly answer a question about what she thinks of British Columbia’s regulations on short-term rentals.
She said once her government knows how many short-term rental units there are in New Brunswick, it will use that data to assess how it responds and whether rules by other jurisdictions would be appropriate.
“So we would definitely be talking to B.C. about their different measures they put in place, and find out which ones are having the most impact to take care of the housing crisis for them.”
Growing concerns among municipalities
In June, Fredericton Mayor Kate Rogers said she wrote Green a letter asking for provincial regulations on short-term rentals over concerns they’re taking away from the city’s long-term housing stock.
“We are now hearing from students that they’re being displaced from their apartments because of short-term rentals,” she said.
“We’re hearing of developers who are, in their buildings, dedicating so many of their units to short-term rentals.”
Those comments came after Moncton Mayor Dawn Arnold wrote a letter to Green in May, asking for “provincial leadership on oversight of the short-term rental” industry.
Arnold said the first step should be for the province to create a short-term rental registry to understand how widespread they are.
Arnold and Rogers aren’t alone in their concerns, said Dan Murphy, executive director of the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick.
He said whenever he speaks to his members, availability and affordability of housing are always top of mind.
“And one of the things that comes up a lot in that context is, you know, the effects of the short-term rental market on housing — affordability of existing stock, and availability of that stock,” Murphy said.
“So a lot of communities are thinking about it and talking about it and trying to see what the types of solutions might be out there.”
Murphy said the municipalities group hasn’t formally called for specific regulations, but members want to see a registry created to first understand the scope of the short-term rental industry in New Brunswick.
Regulations on short-term rentals aren’t a silver bullet to New Brunswick’s housing problems but would help improve the situation, said Matthew Hayes, spokesperson for the New Brunswick Coalition for Tenants’ Rights.
Advocate sees impact in cities
Hayes said the proliferation of platforms such as Airbnb are part of what he calls the “financialization” of housing, whereby people buy homes not to live in but to rent out for higher returns than they would receive from a long-term rental.
“In many places, including parts of Fredericton and Saint John, long-term residents are being deliberately displaced — evicted basically — in order to put in short-term rentals,” Hayes said.
“So that’s happening in the downtown area of Fredericton, it’s happening in uptown Saint John.”
Hayes said he thinks regulations should go as far as only allowing short-term rentals of rooms in homes or units that are also occupied by the owner.
“When you’re talking about an entire apartment … only being available for, you know, weekend getaways or for one-month stays, that’s a big problem,” he said.
“That diminishes the value of the housing stock for people who need long-term rentals.
“It makes it less affordable and harder to find units.”
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