The City of Kimberley is continuing the process of adopting a strategy around short term rentals, which will set expectations for how they are operated.
In a report to Council, planner Justin Cook said that while many STRs provide high quality accommodation, there have also been complaints from community members, around nuisance and safety concerns.
The City’s main goals in updating regulations and enforcement measures for short-term rental accommodation are to:
• ensure building and occupant safety;
• reduce impacts to housing availability and affordability;
• reduce STR’s impact on neighborhood character;
• reduce noise, parking and traffic problems and eliminate party houses;
• improve responsiveness to neighbor complaints;
• support compliant accommodation providers; and
• eliminate non-compliant unsafe or unauthorized accommodation providers.
In February of this year Council approved providing funds for a STR monitoring and compliance service. This will help determine where the STRs are located throughout Kimberley, and how many there are. Next up is coming up with the policy.
In developing the policy, there will be a community engagement process with both operators of STRs and community members.
“We are hoping to begin soon with the community engagement on STRs,” Manager of Planning Services Troy Pollock told Council. “STRs are an important part of our accommodator supply but we have to look at impacts to neighbours and more.”
Pollock said a lot of other communities were working on policies as well and those examples would be studied to see what would work best in Kimberley.
Mayor Don McCormick said he was glad to see the issue getting some traction.
Public engagement, policy formulation and community engagement are expected to take the best part of the year with enforcing the policy beginning in 2022.
READ: City looking to track short term rentals in Kimberley
READ: Time for a conversation around short term rentals, Mayor says
carolyn.grant@kimberleybulletin.com
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