Com. Pete Fry: “I’m afraid the [memorandum of understanding] that we have between Airbnb and the city of Vancouver is not fully respected’
A Vancouver couple whose short-term rental business license was suspended in October 2021 by the city are continuing to rent out the ground floor suite of their single-family home for $175 a night, a committee heard Wednesday Licensing Review Board consisting of three city councillors. .
This evidence caused the counselor. Pete Fry questions the city’s agreement with Airbnb signed in 2018 in which the online short-stay platform agreed that its Vancouver hosts needed a valid city license number to register on the company website.
“I’m afraid the [memorandum of understanding] that we have between Airbnb and the City of Vancouver is not fully respected,” Fry said. “So that’s something I’m going to take down and ask the staff for an update.”
The case involves Ryan and Myleen MacMillan, who share a house on Inverness Street.
The city suspended the couple’s license in October 2021 after finding that the two-bedroom downstairs suite they were renting through Airbnb was not considered their primary residence.
The couple, who continued to list the “spacious and modern” suite as of Thursday, March 10, appealed the city’s decision, claiming the entire house was their primary residence, with Ryan telling the panel he lived also in the sequel.
The short-term rental by-law states that a suite cannot be rented if it is not the owners primary residence. The city said the MacMillans’ home was considered to have two units, divided into the suite and the top floor.
Two addresses
What partly triggered the city’s investigation was that the single-family home also has two addresses – one in Inverness for the top floor and one for the suite on the East 24th Avenue side; short term rental license has been taken out for the address on Inverness.
Ryan appeared via audio link at Wednesday’s hearing and told the panel that he and his wife rented the suite as a short-term rental to supplement their income. He also explained that he and his wife were experiencing marital difficulties and that was the reason he lived in the suite.
Some of the bookings in the suite, he added, were shared accommodations between him and guests. Other times, when his wife was out of town, he resided upstairs while guests occupied the suite.
“The reason for short-term rental for us was that we had personal issues, and with house sitting it was the most flexible way to do that,” Ryan said.
“My feeling was that because I was on the ground floor, I felt we could do this work to supplement our income. That was the goal – it wasn’t to make it work commercially, to make a lot of money.
He said he continued to post the sequel on Airbnb after the city suspended his license last October because he believed he was licensed until his case was heard by the panel, which included Councilors Lisa Dominato and Rebecca Bligh.
“Difficult for us to understand”
Koji Miyaji, the city’s deputy chief licensing inspector, told the panel that the suite had “extremely high” booking rates between April and October 2020, totaling 171 days out of a possible 214.
“It is difficult for us to understand how a [79 per cent] a fully booked facility is a primary residence for someone,” Miyaji said, noting that the MacMillans’ suite was sold out in May 2020 and bookings hit 94 and 99 percent in the other two months.
“This reflects what we consider to be a business operation, where a location is primarily used to have short-term rental bookings.”
The panel also heard that a total of 77 days were booked in November and December 2020 and through February 2021; the city was unable to obtain booking information for January 2021 but the suite continues to be rented this year.
Miyaji said that over the course of two days in June 2020, when Ryan was asked about the living conditions at home, he gave two versions – one day he claimed to live upstairs with his wife, the next day he said he lived downstairs in the suite.
“In 24 hours, we had two different versions of their way of life,” said Miyaji, whose statement was later refuted by Ryan, saying he didn’t remember saying that and that he didn’t. wouldn’t fabricate a “bogus story”.
Miyaji and city attorney Robert LeBlanc pointed out at different points in the hearing that the city’s short-term rental bylaw was passed in 2018 to preserve the permanent rental housing stock — the “reason to be” of politics, as LeBlanc put it.
“That was the approved use of that particular unit,” LeBlanc said of the legal suite with a kitchen and bathroom. “And if we don’t have a primary residence, we don’t have long-term housing stock.”
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s annual rental market report released in February showed that the average long-term built two-bedroom rental unit in Metro Vancouver rented for $1,824 per month. The vacancy rate for this type of unit was 1.2%.
The vacancy rate was 0.8% for a condo, with the average two-bedroom costing $2,498 per month.
Historically, Vancouver’s vacancy rate has been lower than the region and rents higher.
‘Superhosts’
In his closing remarks, Fry pointed out that he had logged onto the Airbnb site and could book a stay at the MacMillans’ suite in March, April and May this year.
He noted that Airbnb has verified the couple as “superhosts,” a term the company uses to describe an experienced, highly rated operator committed to providing excellent stays for guests.
“So it seems to me that this has been a successful business venture for them,” said Fry, who along with Dominato and Bligh upheld the staff’s decision to suspend the MacMillans’ license.
“It’s not necessarily related to this decision. But I am troubled when people operate a business in the city of Vancouver without the proper license.
Fry added: ‘I understand that Mr MacMillan may not have understood that a license suspension meant he was unlicensed and unable to continue doing business in the city of Vancouver, but that’s actually the case.”
The list, which Vancouver is great reviewed Thursday, showed 45 guest reviews, the rankings of which gave the MacMillans an overall score of 4.9 out of five. Four of the most recent examinations were carried out in February 2022, including one of a person identified as Suong.
“The Airbnb is in a great location – close to lots of shops, restaurants, etc,” Suong wrote.
“Ryan was very accommodating when we needed to check in early. The place was big and the beds were comfortable! They added a nice touch with a welcome card and drinks in the fridge. Wouldn’t recommend if you’re a light sleeper as you can hear muffled conversations and footsteps upstairs.
“Confidence in our system”
Sarah Hicks, the city’s chief licensing inspector, said in an email Thursday that if landlords continue to advertise or operate a short-term rental business, they will be subject to enforcement action. .
This can include fines of up to $1,000 per violation, court orders and the case could be referred for prosecution, which the city has done 177 times since enacting the short-term rental bylaw in 2018. .
Hicks described the deal with Airbnb as a “balanced solution focused on partnering to ensure their hosts’ compliance with our regulations.”
She said Airbnb was not required to remove listings, but removed 2,482 unlicensed operators from their platform in one day in 2018. At the time, the purge reduced nearly a third the short-term rental market in Vancouver.
Hicks said the city is responsible for monitoring compliance and pursuing enforcement against operators who fail to follow short-term rental regulations. This includes operators who are not qualified to operate a short-term rental and those who do not include a valid license number in their listing.
In the case of the MacMillans, the license number on their active roster expired in 2020.
“We know there are operators who continue to ignore our regulations and operate in violation, even during the investigation,” Hicks said. “While our application process takes time, which may include going through court all the way to prosecution, it is thorough and we have confidence in our system.”
Vancouver is awesome contacted Airbnb’s media room via email Thursday morning, but had not heard back before this story was published.
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