Ucluelet has nixed vacation rental restrictions the town’s previous council put in place in 2022.
During their June 11 regular meeting, Ucluelet’s council removed: a requirement for bed and breakfasts to offer breakfast to guests, the requirement for all guest suites to be accessed through a residence’s primary entrance, a prohibition on separate accesses for suites and a prohibition on suites being locked off from the main residence.
Mayor Marilyn McEwen, who had voted against the restrictions as a councillor in 2022, pitched the idea to nix them during this year’s April 21 council meeting.
McEwen received support at that meeting from councillors Ian Kennington and Shawn Anderson and the three outnumbered opposition from councillors Mark Maftei and Jennifer Hoar.
Hoar had also been a councillor during 2022’s decision and had voted in favour of the restrictions.
Council held a public hearing to hear feedback from residents on June 11 and the idea was received as a slam dunk with 19 residents expressing support for nixing the restrictions compared to two letters in opposition.
Following the hearing, council approved nixing the restrictions with the same 3-2 split seen in April.
The district’s director of community planning Bruce Greig noted that all other current short term rental restrictions, including the principle-residence requirement, would remain.
“It would still be required that a bed and breakfast use is an accessory to a permanent residential use. It would still need to be in the operator’s principal residence and would still not be permitted in a secondary suite or an area formerly used as a secondary suite,” he said.
All four residents who spoke during the June 11 public hearing expressed support for removing the four restrictions.
The first speaker said he and his wife live in Ucluelet year-round and run a bed and breakfast out of their home. He noted the rental was in operation when they purchased the property so no one has been displaced.
“It’s actually the reason we can afford to live in Ucluelet,” he said. “Me and my wife moving to Ucluelet and buying a house was one of the biggest investments that we’ve ever made, one of the most exciting things that we’ve done and we can really afford to live here because of the STR zoning that we had before (Bylaw) 1310 came into place.”
The speaker identified themself as one of 49 property owners whose bed and breakfasts became legally non conforming by the new restrictions put in place in 2022 and those owners are now at risk of losing their rentals because of the provincial government’s Bill-35 axing all legal non conforming short term rentals.
“I think that the biggest thing that separates communities that have housing for future generations and communities that don’t is opportunity,” he said. “We’re here for the long haul and we love living in Ucluelet. It’s a really rad place to live.”
He suggested the four 2022 restrictions do not reflect how travellers expect to arrive in town in terms of privacy and added they have done little in terms of creating new housing options for the town’s seasonal influx of summer season workers.
“We love them, they’re part of our community and they make this place run, but it really does put a huge strain on housing for long term locals and people that want to live here year-round,” he said. “(Bylaw) 1310 doesn’t solve that issue, it just takes money out of the pockets of people that live here and run small businesses and puts it in the hands of luxury condo owners, out of town investors and developers.”
Sleepy Bear Guest House owner Robyn Mair said her family purchased their home in 2019.
“These bylaws would force guests to tromp through our house, they would lose their own access, which makes no sense for our family for privacy and security,” she said. “These bylaws would have to shut us down. Our house isn’t affordable, so someone would have to buy our house from out of town. It doesn’t solve the housing crisis. Then our family would be unhoused and we would have to leave the community…I don’t think the burden of housing should fall on the 49 families that contribute to this community. If anything it would shut down every short term rental and then the tourism that we all so rely on would fall in the hands of some outside investor building a hotel, so all that money comes out of the family.”
Chris Johnston operates a guest house on Marine Drive they bought in 2019.
“We didn’t renevict anybody from that house…We did everything legally, ” he said.
“We could not live there without the income that we generate from those suits. We would have to leave this town and sell it. Our property would be greatly diminished in value because of it.”
He added he feels “vilified” by the non-conforming label, noting he had done everything legally but fell under the non-conforming umbrella when the 2022 restrictions were put in place.
“It’s frustrating to be called non-conforming when I did everything according to bylaws, according to building codes, according to everything. We did conform,” he said. “It’s upsetting that the idea of us housing local people is falling onto the 49 citizens in this position. We’re being blamed for the housing issue, which is very frustrating and it makes me very sad…It breaks my heart to hear about some of these families that will also have to move out of town if bylaws were changed and prohibit us from running our businesses as we saw fit. I applaud the council and the mayor for getting rid of some of these restrictions that limited our businesses, or essentially tried to take our businesses away.”
Along with the four residents who spoke, council also received 17 letters with 15 in favour and two opposed, though both opposition letters expressed support for allowing the 49 legal non-conforming operators to keep their businesses.
Todd Smith wrote that he was disappointed the mayor and council had not found a route to bring the 49 operators into legal compliance while keeping the restrictions on the books for future rentals.
“I’m disappointed in the mayor and the council for neglecting these options on the table and neglecting action on this file since these provincial short term rental announcements were made last October,” Smith wrote.
“This neglect has created a situation where 46-49 homeowners have now been affected by inaction. I encourage the mayor and council to address these issues without regressing existing policy.”
Smith noted a report presented to council by district staff suggested that removing the restrictions “may accelerate the construction of purpose built bed and breakfast units.”
“That is my core issue with pushing this new bylaw through without further consideration. Please separate and resolve the issue you have created by finding a stand-alone solution for these 46-49 affected legal non-conforming units,” Smith wrote. “Then, without conflating the issue of current and future housing stock, please abandon this proposed bylaw.”
Following the public hearing, council voted 3-2 in favour of nixing the four restrictions without comment.
