Victoria short-term rental owners and managers file claim against province (2024)

With about two weeks until new legislation comes into effect to curb short-term rentals, a group that includes hundreds of property owners is taking the province and the City of Victoria to court to challenge it.

A legal petition has been filed in the Supreme Court of B.C. by the Westcoast Association for Property Rights, which operates under the name of Property Rights Association of B.C., and by Victoria-based business Amala Rental Solutions and Angela Mason, who is a co-owner of Amala with Ryan Sawatzky. They want a review of the legislation and to be compensated for the financial losses it will bring.

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The association is made up of about 290 people who are owners of residential and non-residential properties across B.C. It was formed in October 2023 in reaction to the province announcing its legislation to restrict short-term rentals.

Amala is a property management company that provides cleaning, client communication and other tasks for owners of about 100 units in downtown Victoria. It also runs Air Lobby, a physical location on Pandora Avenue, where guests staying in those units can store luggage and bikes or pick up keys.

The incoming legislation means that across a list of B.C. municipalities with more acute housing challenges, short-term rentals can only be offered in a home where the host lives, or in the basem*nt suite or laneway home on the property where they reside.

The province has said the goal is to reduce the number of entire homes that are rented out short-term and to increase the number of long-term rental options.

With the new legislation, most of the units owned and managed by the petitioners in the claim will be illegal. Since the legislation was announced, some owners of short-term rental properties in Victoria have been selling them for less than asking price.

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Mason owns one of the approximately 100 units for which Amala provides services so the group filed the petition with her name.

“I was chosen because I represent a single property owner legally operating in Victoria who was impacted, as well as a brick-and-mortar business who will close its doors. All its people, including myself and my partner, will be without jobs and without income to support their families,” said Mason.

Amala has been in business since 2016 and last fall was under contract to manage 90 short-term rental properties and employed 11 full-time employees, 21 part-time ones and seven contractors, according to the claim. Most have been let go and there are now only 15 workers left.

Mason said she bought her condo unit because it was zoned for short-term rental by the City of Victoria, which will be cancelling business licenses it issued once the provincial legislation comes into effect.

“It was never to be something I could carry with a long-term tenant to mortgage it,” said Mason. “My hopeful outcome is to allow lawful operators to continue operating and shut down the ones who are operating illegally and consider a longer, phased-out plan.”

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The Ministry of Housing told Postmedia, “The Province’s principal-residence requirement for short-term rentals will go into effect as planned in many B.C. communities on May 1, 2024. As this is a matter before the courts, the ministry is unable to comment on this further.”

The City of Victoria is a housing market where over a third of residential properties are owned by investors, according to 2021 numbers from Statistics Canada’s Canadian Housing Statistics Program, which are the latest available.

According to urban planner and director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program Andy Yan, it shows 32.3 per cent of all residential properties in the City of Victoria are owned by investors rather than being owner occupied. This means that they are either rented out long-term, rented out short-term or left empty. When it comes to condos, specifically, the number is higher with 38.2 per cent of them being investor owned.

“Those are really high numbers,” said Yan.

jlee-young@postmedia.com

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