Bill No. 154 - Tourist Accommodations Registration Act (amended) - 3rd Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : This bill is fine. We will support it but I think it's important that - this is the second bill I have gotten up on tonight where a piece of legislation gets opened up that could make a big difference, and then something gets done that makes not much of a difference at all.

I would echo the comments of my colleague. I made similar comments when the Act was first passed by this government to say it's great that we're starting to talk about registration for Airbnbs, but there is no enforcement, there is no penalty, and therefore why would anyone do it?

Similarly, it's good for the sake of knowledge to know where people are renting Airbnbs in their own homes, but with respect, I would say that that is the least important issue pertaining to Airbnbs in the province right now. In fact, housing prices are rising so quickly that I suspect that for many Nova Scotians, particularly new homeowners, this may be a very important way to defray their costs of homeowning. I think it's great that way.

I think in the original conception, the notion of the sharing economy, that you could rent a room in your home, and someone could come stay there and that could help you pay your costs, and you can help provide a home - particularly in rural areas of the province where there may be fewer hotel rooms, I think that makes a lot of sense.

I think what we've seen, particularly in HRM, which I can speak to more cogently I think, is what I would say is probably an abuse of that concept. What we see are multiple, what we might call ghost hotels, owned by single individuals or companies that are using up what was once very important long-term rental stock and converting it into short-term accommodation.

The reality is, as I think my colleague alluded to, at the moment, it's a financial no-brainer. You can rent an apartment, even at the inflated rates right now, for $1,500 or $1,900 or $2,000 a month, but if you can rent that same unit for $200 or $300 or $400 a night, it becomes difficult to choose to rent it long-term. And there is nothing that defrays that basic financial reality.

This government has now - has had for a very long time - an opportunity to influence that. If you look at these maps that have been produced - they've been tabled in the House in previous sessions, I don't have one right now - of the number of properties in HRM that are Airbnbs, whole houses, it is astonishing.

We have seen from this government, in the name of action on housing, a housing task force that takes powers away from the municipality, Special Planning Areas that allow them to make their own decisions about development in HRM.

What we continue to ask this session but have literally gotten no answer on is: What are we doing about existing housing? What are we doing about existing rentals?

One of the ways that they are disappearing is through renovictions, which we've talked about. Another way that they are disappearing is through conversion to short-term rental. This is a real problem. Again, this bill - it's good to have knowledge. It's good that we know where all the Airbnbs are. We support this bill, but we need more action.

We need to understand the implications of all the properties that are being converted. Again, with this skyrocketing cost of property, in my riding in Dartmouth South, in the neighbourhood of the flower streets, which is where I used to live, there are currently five properties for sale. They're all multi-unit rentals and they're all going to go for $1 million, which is just absurd to me. Even in the space of a few years. They would have sold for a fraction of that five years ago, but they're going to sell for a lot of money.

It is likely that at least some of those will immediately turn into short-term rentals because that's the financial equation. That's how people can make a return on their investment if they're not going to live in them. Usually, people who are buying multi-unit rentals, sometimes it's an owner-occupied situation, not often in the heart of downtown in that kind of situation.

I feel like at this point in the session, when we've been talking about housing, this bill is really an opportunity to point out what I think is another missed opportunity, where we could have looked at the ways in which short-term rentals are impacting our precious and incredibly rare rental housing market, but we haven't. I hope, as other ministers have said about other bills, that this is just one step and that we will see a closer look, particularly not at this category - I think this category's not that big of a deal - but at the category of entire homes that are being converted into short-term rentals that may or may not be registered. Again, we're still not going to know, as my colleague pointed out, because there's no penalty or particular encouragement for people to register.

I hope the government takes that to heart. I hope that they do look at this, that they do ensure in some way that people do register so that we have this information and that we can then act on it. I really think this is a missing piece in terms of dealing with rentals, particularly in HRM. There is opportunity to act, and for that action to be really impactful.

With those few words, I'll take my seat.