Transcript: Council - 2026-06-22

Speaker A · Sam.

Speaker B · Welcome everyone to council meeting on Monday, June 22. And a beautiful day it was. I'm looking for a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of council.

Speaker C · So moved.

Speaker D · Second.

Speaker B · Thank you. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. We do have Councillor Armour on the telephone line and our CAO, Mr. Horan as well, so we will be working with with that process.

Speaker B · Before I go to the approval of the agenda, I want to acknowledge do the territorial acknowledgement. And it's rather fitting that it is the day after National Indigenous Day. And as I sit around so many different tables, there is more and more understanding and recognition of the stewardship that first nations have done for our benefit today in terms of looking after the lands.

Speaker B · So I want to acknowledge with respect and honor that we are in the traditional territories of the Lokwungen people, Swahi's First Nation and Cosapsum, formerly known as Esquimalt First Nation. And we thank them for their stewardship.

Speaker B · All right, we move on. And I'm looking for a motion to approve the agenda. There are some late items to add to the agenda.

Speaker E · Move approval with the late items.

Speaker B · Thank you. Councillor Cavan. Seconding. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Councillor Armour, as we usually do, I will assume you are in the affirmative unless we hear from you. And feel free to speak up if you feel you have a question. And I will continuously make sure I'm checking in on you as well. We have the minutes of the regular council meeting held on May 25 and the regular council meeting held on June 1. Motion to adopt.

Speaker F · Move.

Speaker B · Adoption. Seconder, please. Thank you. Are there any errors, omissions or changes? I'm seeing none. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. We move down. And we're at bylaws for adoption or first and second reading that are subject to a public hearing. So for adoption, tonight we have the adoption of the Inter Community Business License bylaw. And there is a recommendation in front of you Council. And we have reviewed this in at a past meeting.

Speaker G · Move.

Speaker H · Adoption.

Speaker B · Thank you. Discussion. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. We are now down to public input. And this is on agenda items 7, which are staff reports, which include statement of financial information, short term rental, proposed regulatory framework. Darn. The paper won't move. Item 8, which are bylaw readings not subject to a public hearing.

Speaker B · Item nine, which are reports and minutes, and item ten, the notice of motion. Are there any members of the public that wish to speak? You will have two minutes. Please come to the podium. The first Person up has to figure out how to turn it on. Great. And your name and address for the record. And you see that there are green light, yellow light.

Speaker I · All right, thank you.

Speaker D · Hi, I'm Nancy Payne, 1036 Monroe Street. I'm here tonight to encourage that Council adopt the provincial Short Term rental rules under the Short Term Rental Accommodations Act. It is a clear, proven framework that protects housing while allowing responsible residents to participate in short term rentals. The rules are very straightforward. According to the act, accommodation rented for fewer than 90 consecutive days is considered short term and it is limited to a host's principal residence plus one secondary suite or accessory dwelling unit on the same property. Operators must register annually and display their registration numbers on all listings. Platforms such as Airbnb are required to verify compliance and remove illegal listings. Most importantly, municipalities are no longer left guessing.

Speaker D · These rules come with stronger enforcement tools, higher fines and clear authority to act. This is a balanced common sense approach. It protects long term housing while supporting local residents who rely on this income. Allowing short term rentals strengthens our local economy by meeting real demand for short and medium term stays. I urge Esquimalt Council to move forward and align Esquimalt's bylaws with this provincial framework including the principal residence requirement and mandatory registration system. Thank you very much.

Speaker B · Thank you. Welcome.

Speaker J · Hi.

Speaker F · Dwight Ince, 1163 Witchbury Ave. Short term rental Regulatory Outline Although completion dates are not exact, staff expect 780 total units of various types to be completed between 2026 and 2029 based on current permits under the Province Short Term Rental Accommodation Act. Without amendment, Stirs and Esquimalt are limited or should be limited to a person's principal residence and one other unit on the same property. The province characterized this as a regulatory floor intended to provide a baseline level of housing protection. Local governments may then adopt additional regulations that build upon and may exceed the provincial floor. As quoted by Eric Swanson in his report to Council, the geographical reality of Esquimalt and small population with dwelling availability sets up the township in a positive position to respect property rights while meeting increased housing needs.

Speaker F · Increasing property tax pressure on homeowners, especially retired income homeowners, necessitates the need to generate income from the largest single investor most citizens make which is their home to address increased taxation. People rent their homes primarily because it is the only means of generating income as they are potentially not able to sell their time, effort, labor and skills to the market as they once were knowingly and friendly. Has not objected. However, the province provides approach the need to balance first as housing floor regulation if required. In addition and begrudgingly the floor regulation economic recognizes the need to not meet their need and act provides by does not require it council current and known housing stocks.

Speaker F · There is no need to amend the act to meet the need of a squamil. Although the act allows for amendment, it does not mean we have to establish a bylaw that further into property the enjoyment of poverty is governed by the common law principle that Mr. Inc.

Speaker B · Your time is up.

Speaker F · Must be carried out in a manner that does not inflict injuries.

Speaker B · You can come back.

Speaker F · End of the line again.

Speaker B · You can't come back. I'm sorry. Your time is up.

Speaker J · Oh, okay.

Speaker F · I'll come back again later.

Speaker B · Thank you. Welcome. It's all good.

Speaker K · Yeah.

Speaker G · My name is Ian Black. I live at 461 Grafton street and I sent a letter to all of you councillors about a week ago expressing my views. But I had a further thought that I wanted to add to the record. I've been a citizen of Esquimalt very happily for the last near 30 years. Many of you know me, I walk a lot. I enjoy Saxpoint park and Macaulay Point. And I really like this community because it is a family centric community. There's a lot of families here, kids, adults, grandparents. And to that end, a short term rental arrangement that is accommodating to families allows parents to come to Esquimo to see their young kids and they can't afford the money that it costs to go downtown into a big hotel.

Speaker G · They can't certainly afford to go to this luxury thing that's on Lamson. And secondly, if it's the other way around, if it's seniors coming to visit their family with their kids, that their kids are here, the same thing, affordability. We don't charge a lot of money for our short term rental. It's homey, it's safe. We have letters, umpteen letters of people really who have appreciated it. We just asked council to be more concentric on the needs of families in Esquimalt and not those of special interests. Thank you very much.

Speaker B · Thank you. Are there other members of the public that wish to speak? Are there other members of the public? Please feel free to line up. It saves us time. Welcome.

Speaker C · Good evening. Annie Black, 461 Grafton. I'd like to just say that I stand behind everything said by the previous three speakers. I'll add that, you know, Squamold could use a few things to bring it more into the modern day when I was writing my letters to all of you and asking you to think about things like there are many hotels in Victoria that are the other neighbor to the harbor and we're on this side, but we don't have much over here in that way by way of hospitality, food, bars, things like that.

Speaker C · I'm not asking for food bars. I'm just saying that when we opened our doors to people coming into our home, we didn't know who was coming. We had no idea. What we found were elders looking to stay nearby, their grandchildren and a lot of people coming to stay so that they could be near their elders. We got a few cyclists and one or two duds. That was it. It was an overall great experience because the people who came to stay in our walls were kind of like us. So I want to say think about your constituents, the people who live here. I don't know where any of you live, I don't know anything about your lives, but I know about what it's like to live here because I've lived here 30 years and we need accommodation.

Speaker C · And I think that the provincial law around short term rentals is more than adequate without too much fussing. That would be all I want to say.

Speaker B · Thank you. Welcome.

Speaker L · Good evening. Stefan Jacob. 821 Craig Flower Road in Esquimauld. I have been reading the letters and a lot of what has been said here today. So I don't feel like I can add anything further. I just wanted to really question what actually the outcome will be of the proposed legislation. Like if the. I assume the goal is to generate long term rental but everybody I have talked to who has a short term rental is not going to turn their place, which is often very intimate in their own house, into a long term rental for a variety of reasons. And I'm wondering if the impact to people having to shut down their short term rental is worth the benefit that you're expecting.

Speaker L · Because I have not seen in any report any prediction what will the actual outcome for Esquimalt specifically will be in the conversion rate from short term rental to permanent rental. I can just add the last point here. For our family it will be the space we have will be left unused because my mother in law is 90 years old and she will have to sooner than later move into the space and we can't risk to having a renter, permanent renter, which we will have problems to vacate the space for her.

Speaker M · So that's all I wanted to say

Speaker L · and thank you for your time.

Speaker B · Thank you. Welcome.

Speaker N · Thank you. Good evening Mayor and council. My name is Bettina Pleindel. I live on 934 Agnes Street. I send a long letter to council. I hope you all read it and had an opportunity. I don't want to add anything. I just urge you as well to listen to the people living here. I'm missing in the approach that was put forward any voices from the public against short term rental. I haven't seen any other than that some people weren't too happy at the public house. But there is nobody speaking up. No, we don't want this. And the opposite. You hear a lot of voices.

Speaker O · Yes.

Speaker N · We would love to have that opportunity to fund further reports that are mostly costly and I doubt that the proposed business license fee of $1,000 to $2,000 will recover that cost for that report. That doesn't support what the people in Nanaimo would like to see short term rentals under the provincial rules. The. It's a pretty clear statement. And I moved to Esquimault three years ago. I'm a very new Canadian citizen and I really. I'm so thrilled being here and having the freedom in comparison to my home country where people don't have an opportunity to influence and have such voices, such strong voices. So I miss as well being part of the further conversation as you will discuss later or shortly the short term rental.

Speaker N · And I'm looking forward to then have further discussion with council hopefully to see how we can move the needle. So most of us are happy.

Speaker K · Thank you.

Speaker B · Thank you. Are there other members of the public that wish to speak? Are there any other members of the public that wish to speak? Welcome.

Speaker P · Thank you. My name is Valerie elliott. I'm at 821 Craig Flower Road. Honorable mayor and council. After the March decision, those of us who are hosts were in shock and fear. We gathered to talk. We were told not to panic, that the process was not over. But things are moving quickly and we want to know how council intends to impose this ban and how it will measure success. I may need to communicate to tell the indigenous trauma counselor who cannot afford other accommodations that we can no longer regularly host her or the chemically sensitive person who booked with us because of our restrictions on fragrance and household chemical use that she'll have to take her chances elsewhere.

Speaker P · Many operators accepted bookings in good faith months into the future, some into next year. Hosts make purchases and financing decisions based on these bookings. Giving time to adapt respects people who will lose income. I can think of few other bylaws that have such a financial impact on residents. I Urge council to provide a reasonable transition period to allow residents time to adjust, honor commitments that they've made and make changes to their properties should they decide to turn them into long term housing. Although ours will not be one of them. We'd like transparency in decision making. We'd like to know what percentage of conversion to long term housing council is aiming for and how council will know it has achieved this objective.

Speaker P · The policy has a profound effect on ordinary citizens. It's the least that can be done to provide those who've taken pride in providing accommodation and esquimalt that many of us rely upon and enjoy the benefits of. Just as my family and possibly you do when you travel outside of Victoria.

Speaker B · Thank you. Are there any other members of the public that wish to speak? Calling a second time, calling a third time. And we'll move along and we are now at staff reports and we have the 2025 statement of financial information and I believe. This is Ms. Bilidot. Good evening.

Speaker K · This report is coming forward for council for approval of the 2025 C Statement of Financial Information or otherwise. The SoFI to satisfy the legislative requirements under the Financial Information act, the township is required to prepare a Statement of financial information prior to June 30th of each year. The act specifies what we must report on, such as the remuneration and expenses to staff and members of council and amounts paid to suppliers. Once approved, this report will be uploaded to the township's website and be available to the public public. The recommendation is that council approve the 2025 statement of statement of Financial Information as attached to the report.

Speaker B · Thank you. I will look for questions first. Councillor Boardman.

Speaker O · Thank you. Just a question about public engagement. So the. The Statement of Financial Information was available for public viewing. Do you have any feedback from the public or have you received any comments from the public regarding this document?

Speaker K · No, it isn't actually like an open for public input, but it is made available. So we have published it in draft form.

Speaker O · But you haven't heard anything back from anyone?

Speaker J · No.

Speaker O · Okay. Why do we publish something and not ask for feedback on that? Is that a process just specifically for this report?

Speaker B · Correct.

Speaker K · It's the province of B. C. that stipulated that all municipalities have have to publish the same statement.

Speaker O · Okay.

Speaker K · So it's comparison, I guess, between municipalities.

Speaker O · Okay, thanks.

Speaker B · Other questions. All right. Councelor. Yes, Councilor Hal.

Speaker H · Not question. But I did find two grammatical nits in the document. Would you like me to just send them to you after this or do you want them right now? That might be easier after.

Speaker J · Okay.

Speaker Q · Councillor Cavins, I had a similar question about my name in there being technically correct, but it's changed from last year.

Speaker J · So I was just.

Speaker Q · Anyway, I will send a note. I don't know if that. Does that change what we adopt or can we adopt the document with changes

Speaker E · through the chair?

Speaker I · I think those are not changes to content. And so I think that those are

Speaker O · sort of superficial changes that can be

Speaker I · made and don't impact your motion to approve or otherwise.

Speaker B · I have a curiosity question. They have kept the amount at 75,000 for years and years and years and it seems quite out of date. And I'm wondering whether there has been any discussion from the province with regards to a change to that

Speaker K · I'm not aware of. The province itself has discussed it. I know it's come forward across many communities within, say, the director's role potentially at mayor and council level even as well. I think at some point three to five years ago, there was potentially a discussion of bringing it forward to UBCM to get the province to act on that, but nothing's essentially resulted from that.

Speaker B · Thank you. All right, Council, there is a recommendation and that is that we approve the 2025 Statement of Financial Information as attached. I'll move that. Thank you. Is there a seconder? Thank you. Councillor Boardman, any further discussion?

Speaker R · I just know that it's a lot of work to gather all that information and thank you very much for doing that.

Speaker B · Any the seconder wish to say, add anything?

Speaker I · Oh, no.

Speaker B · Any further discussion? And I'm not hearing from Councillor Armour, so all those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. We move down. And we're at short term rental proposed regulatory framework, Mr. Brown or

Speaker A · members of council. March 16. Earlier this year, Mr. Swanson presented a report to council showing a full spectrum of our regulatory pathways that Council could take. And we asked council to provide us with some more focused direction, which council did. And so now we're back. Mr. Swanson has authored a new report which is attached to the staff report based on council's direction to us on March 16th. So Mr. Swanson will present his report, his findings, and then we can have a discussion.

Speaker O · Thank you.

Speaker M · Okay. Good evening, Mayor and Council again, my name is Eric Swanson. I'm a principal with Third Space Planning. And I'm happy to be back tonight to walk you through this proposed short term rental regulatory outline. Just going to test the clicker. Okay, got it. So, as Mr. Brown said, you will recall that at the March 16 meeting, council passed this motion, shown here in bold, deciding on a Basic regulatory approach to Short Term rentals, which reads that council authorize that short term rentals be permitted only within the operator's principal dwelling unit, which means renting a room while present or perhaps the whole unit while away, with no secondary or garden suites included and limited to a maximum of 180 nights per year.

Speaker M · During that council meeting, we flagged a number of detailed decisions that would need to be made after deciding on this basic approach. And that's tonight's job. We're going to be laying out recommendations on 26 specific decisions to fully build out the regulatory framework around your chosen basic approach. But don't worry, most of them are straightforward and we'll move through them efficiently. Six, however, have been pulled out for additional discussion because we do anticipate they will benefit from more explanation and back and forth, especially later on. We'll spend some more time proactively on each of those and then of course you are free to pull out any of those remaining 20 you'd like to dive more deeply into.

Speaker M · And I'm happy to engage on that after part of me I'm just going to take a drink here. Okay, so the 26 decisions/topics organized by their associated bylaw, with a final category covering off internal policy and practice. So most of these topics, including most of these flagged for discussion, are in fact related to the Zoning bylaw. The other one flight for more discussion is parking, a perennial hot topic in most communities. Then the remainder have a bit more to do with the nitty gritty of implementation. Each of these decisions are of course important. Again, please feel free to pull any of them out for more explanation and discussion.

Speaker M · But when prioritizing our time for tonight, we did pull out these 12 topics here. So let's start with the Zoning Bylaw, which is where most of the substantive land use decisions sit. We've got 11 recommendations to go through. The first four happen to be ones that we have flagged for more discussion, so we'll take our time with those and then the presentation will speed up a little bit thereafter. So recommendation number one deals with your existing bed and breakfast use. So the recommendation is to unify your existing B and B use with this new term short term rental under a single term and set of regulations.

Speaker M · So this would mean eliminating the BNB term and associated regulations across your bylaws. All SDR operators would also be allowed to serve up to one meal per day, not simply to not lose that breakfast component. And you would amend or rezone your existing special B and B zones to A more standard residential zone. So the rationale is essentially that the new STR permissions that you would be granting under the basic approach you've chosen essentially make that BNB use obsolete, except in that it has that special permission to serve up to one meal per day. So unless regulating that one meal per day is a priority for council, simply allowing all SDR operators to provide it allows for a much cleaner, more straightforward bylaw.

Speaker M · I just had to sync up my laptop with what I'm actually showing you here. So the advantages of this approach include, again, a more cleaner, cleaner, more straightforward bylaw, and it would in fact lead to expanded permissions for your two licensed BNB operators. So I wouldn't necessarily anticipate big pushback there. They continue to operate as normal and in fact be granted additional permissions. Disadvantages would include that it would require some more bylaw amendments, but those could be phased to avoid delaying the core STR regulations. For example, the housekeeping ones could come later. And by extending the meal permission to all STR operators, there's. This is another disadvantage.

Speaker M · There's the potential for competition with existing food service establishments, though it's not clear to me that that impact would necessarily be significant. I suspect most SDR operators, you know, won't serve breakfast. That's not typical these days, but listed up there for your consideration. The second recommendation deals with your existing tourist accommodation use and the recommendation is to keep this term, which is very useful. It allows for a dedicated amenity, rich guest accommodation. For example, you can have full kitchens, which is not allowed, for example, under the hotel designation. But to amend this term in your bylaw to create a clearer distinction between short term rentals and tourist accommodation, and the distinction being that short term rentals happen in dwelling units. So a dwelling unit is where someone

Speaker H · lives,

Speaker M · whereas tourist accommodation happens in dedicated guest accommodation units. So where no one is living, so they happen in dedicated discrete units. So even with this clean error distinction, it's important to note that currently and going forward, all tourist accommodation in the township does need to comply with the provincial principal residence requirement. So that means it needs to be on the operator's home lot or it needs to fit one of these so called exempt accommodation provider definitions in the provincial legislation, the two big ones are strata hotels and fractional ownership developments. So what this essentially means is that in some of these comprehensive development zones that you have, with a set number of tourist accommodation units permitted, you would need a front desk and a centralized dedicated booking system specific to that property.

Speaker M · That's kind of what the Province is looking for to comply with its regulations. Here again, noting tourist accommodation use is very useful because it does allow for this kind of spot zoned approach to allowing a calibrated number of amenity rich d dedicated units. So the advantages of this approach, specifically the clarifying amendments that we have in mind, are that it removes a source of confusion and overlap in your current bylaw. The specifics are in the report you have. I'm happy to come back to them later if you'd like to dive into it a bit more. The main disadvantage is that again, it does require more amendments kind of clarifying that terse to combination use.

Speaker M · So it might take a bit longer to draft the whole package. I don't think a ton longer though the third and fourth recommendations go together. Recommendation 1. 3 is that you align with the provincial definition of short term rental with the province defining STRs as guest days of less than 90 consecutive days. So this would have you at least align on the definition part even as your regulations, along with virtually everyone else on the CRD do exceed that provincial floor, for example, to better protect housing. Recommendation 1. 4 then is to monitor who's falling outside of this definition. So 90 plus day rentals, does that number upon ongoing monitoring seem to you to warrant bringing them into the light of the regulations?

Speaker M · So the advantages of this recommended definition, the 90 day one, are that it simplifies joint enforcement and data sharing with the province just having the same definition. It's also arguably clearer for operators. You've got a single definition and a threshold across which both the municipal and the provincial regulations kind of sit. The disadvantages are largely that it leaves a regulatory gray area. And so what I mean is the gray area is this. When you define a short term rental as 30 days or 90 days or whatever the number, the way the land use bylaw grants permission for those 31 day rentals, or those 91 day rentals in this case, is by essentially treating that as residential use.

Speaker M · Even though the use is clearly to all involved, not residential, it's still temporary guest accommodation. So whenever you kind of pick a number of days to define the use, there's a little bit of looking the other way beyond that threshold as an indirect way to permit it. And so I do provide an alternative in the report and I'll describe it briefly here. To avoid the gray area, you could use what's called a duration neutral definition. So essentially you would take all rental units in the township dwelling units where someone is paying an owner to stay there, and you split them into two types. For any unit where there's a lease, like an actual signed lease or a deemed tenancy under the rta, that's a long term rental.

Speaker M · If there is no signed lease or deemed tenancy, that by definition is a short term rental or pick your term regardless of the number of days. This does have precedent in the CRD and some of the legacy bread and breakfast regulations. I'm trying to recall the detailed jurisdictional scan I did for you, but I do recall at least one municipality that has a duration neutral definition of bnb. There isn't a number of days involved. I'll admit part of me, when trying to develop our best recommendations for you did want to recommend this duration neutral approach because it is grounded in what I would propose is kind of the actual land use question.

Speaker M · It's still pretty clear cut, but we are all conditioned now to think of short term rentals in terms of a

Speaker G · number of days

Speaker M · and the province does too, obviously. So while I can make a case for it being clear, this alternative approach will absolutely cause some degree of confusion if you go for it like kind of the more duration neutral one. And I don't wish that confusion on you or staff, hence my recommendation in this report to just align with the provincial definition and kind of monitor beyond that. But I wanted to make sure you understand that, you know, a bit of wrestling there. Speaking of 30 day, you know, the off 30 day option, because that's another one that was in the report, a brief note about that.

Speaker M · So, you know, I'm aware that here and in other communities there can sometimes be a desire just to stick with that 30 day definition because it does allow again indirectly operators to rent out units beyond that threshold without being caught by the regulations. Again, the issue is that, you know, if that's why you're picking the 30 day definition, because you want to allow that, it again is a very awkward way to do that because the permission to operate is granted. You know, even though you're knowing that something else is happening, it's not residential use that's happening, it's still temporary guest accommodation. So I would propose that in kind of the, the comprehensive package I've put out for your consideration, if you did want dedicated amenity rich guest accommodation units of any duration, you do have your existing tourist accommodation use and you can use it more going forward.

Speaker M · Okay, so moving on, I'm going to skip to 1. 10 because that's another one flagged for more discussion. And, and then I'll go back to the other ones. So this recommendation is more a reiteration of what we interpreted council's march direction to be, which would be to prohibit short term rentals in secondary suite and garden suite typologies. And so the actual like typology. So even if someone is living in a garden suite or a secondary suite as their principal dwelling unit, this interpretation would still prohibit that short term rental. Based on our interpretation of your direction. That's essentially the rationale. Simply that's how we interpreted your direction. The advantages of this are that it would allow for simpler interpretation and enforcement.

Speaker M · It would partially kind of close off something we tend to call like the musical chairs strategy, where an operator We've seen this in other places where an operator will claim to live in a secondary suite or a garden suite, but then actually live in the main unit on the lot and then use that secondary suite as a dedicated short term rental.

Speaker M · It would provide more straightforward protection of secondary suites and garden suites for long term housing, understanding not every one of those units would convert, but you're nudging the system in that direction. The alternative approach would be to permit STR use in secondary suites or garden suites where the unit genuinely is the operator's principal dwelling unit. So this is another way I suppose we could interpret your mortar's direction. And the advantages of that approach would be kind of the inverse of what you see here. And so I should have mentioned the disadvantages of the way we've interpreted your direction so far is that it does limit opportunities for renters and some owner occupiers who actually live in those unit typologies.

Speaker M · And so you wouldn't be losing any housing by allowing short term rentals to happen. And so you could allow them. And then the advantages and disadvantages would be kind of flipped. You have a little bit more complicated enforcement, but you'd be allowing a permissive environment to those operators. So the I'm just going to put them all up here actually. So the remaining zoning recommendations are more straightforward and I'm going to run through them briefly after a sip of water. So when it comes to defining principal dwelling unit, we're recommending a broad definition anchored in kind of what the province uses, a set of government ID and kind of other appropriate documentation and not defining it by specifying some number of days you need to live in the unit for it to classify as your home.

Speaker M · And just a reminder that your chosen basic approach only allows short term rentals in one's principal dwelling unit while they're away or renting a room while present cooking facilities. There's an opportunity to add a new definition to your bylaw, potentially a kitchenette one as well. I'm going to save you some detail here, but I'm happy to come back to it. It'll be useful for you on nights per year, per your direction. Limit whole unit rentals to no more than 180. There would be no limit, per our interpretation of your direction, on private room rentals while the operator is present. This helps avoiding having to pick a number of nights in your actual definition of principal dwelling unit.

Speaker M · Of course, don't allow STRs in illegal suites. Limit STR use to one dwelling unit per lot. That can help prevent another common bylaw avoidance strategy. Then simply add STR use as a permitted use in all zones where dwelling units are permitted. Let's move on to the parking bylaw. There's only one item. Again, it's one that comes up often. The parking question essentially is should STR operators be required to provide dedicated off street parking beyond what's already required for residential use in your parking bylaw? And our recommendation is that we recommend no parking requirements would essentially remain as specified for residential uses. The caveat being that if your experience shows there are particular areas where there's very parking demand or parking concerns are exasperated, you could revisit it later. The rationale is essentially laid out here on this slide.

Speaker M · The concern with requiring additional STR specific parking is that it starts to function as an indirect prohibition on the use in many housing types, including condos and apartments, townhouses, a lot of the small multi unit housing that you're allowing more of because you oftentimes only have 0. 5 parking spaces per unit. And so if you were to require dedicated SDR parking space, you'd essentially be prohibiting the use. And we weren't interpreting that as your direction. And so hence this recommendation here. The disadvantages are again that experience might show that SDR use does great some exacerbated parking parking pressures, and you just have to keep an eye on it. Pardon me, thirsty. Okay, business license bylaw, moving on. Items 3.

Speaker M · 1 to 3. 4 deal with the application and eligibility requirements. So a pre license inspection is very important. It helps to establish the nature of the dwelling unit, catch illegal suites, check fire and building safety before license goes out. Proof of residency is required both initially and at every annual renewal. In this recommendation, again using the same documents that the province accepts, one license per household is put in there again to prevent another common workaround where multiple family members kind of claim separate principal residences on the same property even though they're members of the same household. And a recommendation here to require a designated responsible person, somebody you can get in touch with should the operator be away, somebody who is always available to respond to concerns. The next four items cover ongoing conditions.

Speaker M · So the guest safety attestation is a lightweight but meaningful requirement. Operators essentially self certify that a number of basic safety measures are in place, including a fire evacuation plan. You know, fire extinguishers are checked, fire exits are maintained. Staff can also inspect these when on site. Strata and landlord consent would also be required under these recommendations. For obvious reasons, displaying one's business license number in all advertisements onto 3. 7 now is something the province requires. But it's a good idea for you to require it as well on fees. And so the initial fee should be set high enough to actually cover the cost of the pre license inspection, which is not insignificant.

Speaker M · We're talking about fire building inspector planning and or bylaw on site as well. So it's quite a lot of staff necessary in our recommendation, but quite a few staff on site during that pre license inspection. So it's costly. And then upon annual renewal the fees would decrease. Oh, one other recommendation. I was noting this to Mr. Brown. Earlier today I read in the Globe and Mail an investigative piece about the role of short term rentals in human trafficking. The city of Winnipeg has put forward a best practice and I'm going to verbally recommend it here. Straightforward whereby all operators are required to put a poster in the unit briefly explaining the issue of human trafficking and saying that the township has the right to attend the unit without operator permission at any time.

Speaker M · So this is a disincentive to use short term rentals for that kind of thing. I would look into the best practice a little bit more specifically before drafting amendments, but I just wanted to throw that out as a live topic and something I'd like to help you respond to. Okay. Bylaw notice enforcement, bylaw. We just got one item here. This is the penalties. The penalty structure is what gives of course the regulation's teeth. The recommendation is a dedicated STR contravention schedule with specific name defenses. Under the zoning and business license bylaws we're recommending penalty amounts kind of on the high end of your current range, e. g.

Speaker M · $500 per infraction per day just to help better deter non compliance rather than kind of being treated as a cost of doing business. The final area here is internal policy. So how the township will actually administer and enforce the the new framework. I'll just Put them all up. So these internal policy items are about making sure the regulations actually work in practice. A few things worth highlighting, the enforcement posture. So the recommendation is to be proactive from day one. The provincial portal now makes it relatively easy to identify and delist non compliant listings. You don't have to undertake a lengthy legal process, so that makes proactivity easier. Also recommend creating an internal enforcement guide to help staff achieve consistent interpretation of the new regulations on capacity.

Speaker M · We do recommend you plan for roughly one full time equivalent staff person to be dedicated to ramping this program up over the first six to 12 months and then it would taper down. But the logic here, and this is the consistent experience of other municipalities is, you know, we're going through 26 items here. This isn't a super straightforward issue. It's established municipalities trying to catch up. What you want to do is maintain a high degree of initial compliance through public education, awareness, easily digestible materials and proactive resourced enforcement so that the cost to enforce the program long term becomes much, much lower. It's a common mistake to not do this and you know, Victoria as an example, is still struggling with enforcement many, many years in. Okay, so. Oh, a public guide. I think I just spoke to this one.

Speaker M · I know that was long. Thank you for your patience. To recap what we've walked through tonight are the building blocks of a comprehensive regulatory framework to surround your chosen basic approach. And the task tonight is to work towards confirming or adjusting the recommended outline on all or any of these items or flag anywhere you'd like more information or alternative approaches. And then once council provides direction on these specific aspects of the regulations, the next step is then drafting the bylaw amendments and bringing them forward as a cohesive package. So again, thank you for your patience. I know it was a lot to cover and of course happy to answer any questions you might have.

Speaker B · Questions. Councillor Cavins,

Speaker Q · thank you very much for your very comprehensive report. I actually have questions on two of the items that are not in your six ones. Personally, I think the six that you're doing, your recommendations make sense to me. The ones that were interesting to me were 1. 8 and it's just a question, this is perhaps for Mr. Brown, but about prohibiting STR use on any lot containing any legal or unpermitted suite. My understanding is that we don't enforce some of the regulations around building code for some of our long term secondary suites. And I'm just curious, is this a departure from that or would this be so would they be required to make sure that their suite meets the full building code and safety requirements, sprinklers, various things like that.

Speaker A · So the idea not to enforce illegal suites was decision made by council, many councils ago. It's just never been reversed. It's probably time to think about that, especially as we go move forward with the short term rental proposals. But that is, it's from a long, long time. Different world, a different time.

Speaker G · Right.

Speaker Q · So if we did follow this recommendation, owners would be required to upgrade if they don't meet the current building code or safety requirements that the building inspector and or fire department find they would be required to upgrade to.

Speaker A · Those need a building co permit which requires the upgrades.

Speaker G · Yeah.

Speaker H · Okay.

Speaker Q · Thank you.

Speaker B · Councillor Morrison.

Speaker E · Sorry. Thank you for the presentation. My question is around 110 secondary suites and garden suites. And I think that's the section where you talked about, you referenced in there about people's principal residence and sometimes I think you called it musical chairs. They would claim the secondary suite as their principal residence in order to be able to str. And it was hard to track what was actually their legitimate principal resident, was it upstairs or downstairs. But I guess my question would be logically, if someone's principal residence does contain a secondary suite and they don't, it's a vacant suite, they don't rent it out. There's no recent history of having a tenant there.

Speaker E · Wouldn't that just automatically become part of their principal residence? That's the, that's part of their home. Would they not be able to rent it out as an str? No differently than rooms upstairs, whether they're downstairs in the basement or in the back garden somewhere in a garden suite. I'm having trouble with that definition that we're assuming that a principal residence is only the part that's not part of a secondary suite, regardless of whether they live in all parts and only part of it or. Or keep part of it just as extra space. It seems very confusing to me.

Speaker M · In fact, it's a perennial source of confusion. However, it is the necessary, it is the way that you actually implement the best practice of a principal dwelling unit style housing protective regulatory framework to do that, like Victoria or Vancouver or Toronto or any other place. If you do kind of stick with that basic approach, you need to find a way to distinguish between separate livable dwelling units. And so this is where I was kind of getting out with that cooking facilities definition. I think you might have, counselor brought this up last time as well. If you start removing kind of amenities from your unit, you can get rid of an oven, get rid of cooking amenities, you start to actually erase the distinction.

Speaker M · And now you're kind of left with a single dwelling unit because you've removed a kitchen in the basement suite, for example. And so this is one of the things that Victoria and our consultations and other municipalities have experienced. If you don't get that distinction right and you don't clarify the terms like cooking facilities nearbylaw, you start to lose the ability to actually achieve the goal that you set for the regulations in the first place, which is protecting housing. Now I think I mentioned this last time as well. There is no way and we shouldn't expect a principal dwelling unit style housing protective aimed regulation to lead to the conversion of all possible dwelling units to long term rentals. Unrealistic.

Speaker M · It's actually very difficult, especially with no pre regulation baseline to measure the outcome of that. What you're doing with this type of basic approach that you've chosen and other places that have chosen it as well is you're nudging the system in a direction. And so you're trying to convert exp proportion of those dwelling units to housing, understanding that you may never know exactly what proportion you've achieved because again, you need that preregulation baseline. So without staff going and doing a census of all current non compliant listings and knocking on the door before any of this happens, you're not going to be able to probably figure that out.

Speaker M · And so you're nudging a proportion of those units toward housing. And again, you need to maintain the distinction between separate livable dwelling units, like upstairs down, if that makes sense.

Speaker J · Yeah.

Speaker E · And just to follow up to the chair. So when you talked about the labor intensive aspects on behalf of the municipality and the resources required, I think you said at first you'll need a full time person dedicated to this and that will change over time. Is that because of the fact that as we drafted currently right now secondary suites and garden suites are not permitted. So then we would have to go and inspect each one of these and figure out whether they meet the definition or not based on amenities. Will we have to go there and have to measure the size of the fridge or whether the bedroom is a certain size or what have you, or what the amount of kitchen facilities, the size of the bathroom, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker E · We'd have to go and check all that to determine whether that's defined as a secondary suite or garden suite or part of the principal residence through the mayor.

Speaker M · With these recommendations you're going to have staff on site anyways at a pre license inspection for the fire and the building code components. So the assessment of the nature of the dwelling unit would happen with a planning or bylaw staff on hand as well. So it would be an additional cost. But you're going to have staff on site anyways. And the goal with the recommended enforcement guide, which is more of an internal facing document, is exactly to address these kinds of questions you're raising to ensure that staff have a consistent interpretation of terms like dwelling unit and cooking facilities so that even though you're having an additional planning staff member on site, it's relatively straightforward to determine.

Speaker E · Just for the chair, I will have a motion on this later to do with secondary suites and guard suites. So I'll just reserve that for later.

Speaker B · Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Helua.

Speaker M · Thank you very much.

Speaker H · I have three questions. The first is for staff and I just. Director Brown, I was curious if there's any recommendations from the consultant report, which is comprehensive and excellent. Thank you. If there's any that you would not support us implementing or you would recommend doing slightly different than is put in front of us or do you implicitly agree with what's in front of us?

Speaker A · Your worship, Councillor Hallowell? Yes, I agree with the consultant's report. The consultant and I have worked very closely together on these recommendations. The only one point of clarification is on the increased enforcement at the beginning of this program. It's not necessarily more by law enforcement. Like our plane technician is more than capable of going through short term rental advertisements and we will have access to the provincial database as well once we have a bylaw in place. So it's not necessarily. I just want for clarity, it's not necessarily a bylaw officer, our planning technician will probably be doing a lot of the pre enforcement work. Just for clarity.

Speaker B · Thank you.

Speaker H · I had assumed that but just wanted to make sure. The second is I just wanted to clarify where we are at today if we do nothing. My understanding is under our current zoning bylaw, short term rentals are not allowed. We may choose not to enforce those rules. But they're not allowed right now.

Speaker A · That's correct. Any use, it's not a permitted use, is a prohibited use and short term rentals are not a permitted use in any zone in Esquimo.

Speaker J · Okay.

Speaker H · And so if we made no changes at all, we don't default to the provincial rules or anything. We are considered to be more stringent than the provincial baseline and we that would just continue to be a squamous

Speaker M · approach to short term.

Speaker A · Very stringent with regard to the 30 days. We have considered that in the past. If you're renting for more than 30 days, then that is basically a principal residence. And that's based on thinking long ago. And you know, again, things have changed. But that's where that, that principle came from is that more than a 30 day rental was considered just a, a principal rental. But that's an interpretation from long ago that should be looked at again.

Speaker H · Okay, and then my final question, more nitty gritty and I am stretching a bit here, but there's quite a bit in here about potentially looking at one FTE capacity in the short term to be a bit more proactive in developing STR compliance. And then there's some talk about some cost recovery from license fees, those sorts of components. Have we done any more fulsome numbers about what it may cost to both put this together, but then more so in implementation?

Speaker A · No, we have not done a detailed cost analysis though.

Speaker B · Okay, thank you, Councillor Borden.

Speaker O · Thank you. I have a couple of questions. So can you tell me if there will be any negative impacts to those properties that are currently zoned as bed and breakfast

Speaker M · through the Mayor? No, not to our knowledge. The current zones are very restrictive. The envisaged STR permissions are quite permissive by comparison. And so they would be granted those new permissions. They'd no longer be limited to guest days, if I'm recalling, no longer than three weeks. I believe current BNB use is restricted to no more than six guests. There's probably a couple others that I'm forgetting, but those would no longer apply under the STR regime. And so they'd be granted more permissions

Speaker O · because we do have some residents that have gone through that length.

Speaker M · Exactly.

Speaker O · To rezone to bed and breakfast. I want to make sure they're not negatively impacted.

Speaker M · And I should also add, I do, I would recommend not charging them the higher license fee up front. They're already licensed as a BNB and so they'd come in at the lower annual renewal.

Speaker B · Sure.

Speaker M · Yeah.

Speaker O · Okay. And a question for Mr. Brown. Do we know what the rental vacancy rate is for a squamilt right now?

Speaker A · Your worship Council Boardman, the last detailed data we have for escram outcomes from October 2025. At that time the vacancy rates for 1 bedroom was 4%, 2 bedroom 1. 7%, 3 bedroom 0%. And so an average of 2.

Speaker A · 9% vacancy rate in October 2025. By comparison, in October 2024 the overall vacancy rate was 1. 5.

Speaker I · So.

Speaker A · So vacancy rate has essentially doubled in one year. There was a CMHC report recently released for Greater Victoria that said the vacancy rate. I think it said 3. 3%. But that's greater Victoria. That includes Oak Bay and Victoria and Zanich and probably the West Shore. So I would not extrapolate to Esquimault from that report.

Speaker O · Okay. But it would, we have no reason to believe, believe that it would be significantly different than in October 2020.

Speaker A · Yeah.

Speaker O · 2. 9. Okay.

Speaker B · Thank you, Councilor Cavins. Okay. Councilor Armour, do you have any questions?

Speaker J · Yeah, I have one question and I'm sorry, this is, this may come off repetitive or redundant, but could I ask the presenter or Mr. Brown at a very high level just to remind me or us again of the major distinctions between what we're proposing or what's being recommended based on our recommendations from previous council meeting versus the base that the province provided. So we're taking a few steps further and I'm just, without getting into detail, just a high level, what are the major changes that we're implementing that go beyond the provincial regulatory base?

Speaker M · Thank you for that question through the mayor. The most basic difference is that where the province allows up to two distinct dwelling units on the operator's home lot to be used as short term rental and your proposed basic approach, you would allow one in the operator's principal dwelling unit. The second one I might Highlight is the 180 day limit on whole unit rentals as a further regulation on on top of that. And that is partly, that has the effect of partly enforcing the intent which is to limit STRs to one's home.

Speaker J · Thank you, that's very helpful. So looking at the recommendations that are in the report, it's basically so because we're prohibiting the use of garden suites and accessory dwellings, that's where it's a step beyond where the province is.

Speaker M · Well, partially, partially not. And so this is something I think you should discuss and clarify. It was our interpretation that your March 16th motion to prohibit secondary suites and garden suites was related to typology, not whether you live there or not, but just the typology of the building itself. Another equally legitimate approach could be to allow short term rentals in secondary suite and garden suite typologies. So long as that is where you live, that is the dwelling unit where you live. That has the advantage of not precluding renters and some owner occupiers from short term renting even when no housing is being lost. The only downside is a bit more enforcement complexity.

Speaker M · But, but certainly, certainly nothing that can be dealt with.

Speaker J · And this is where, and I know Councillor Morrison's talking about amendments. It'll be interesting hearing that. But this is where you talked about the potential downside of that is you flag the quote unquote musical chairs challenge.

Speaker M · Yes, that's right. And in that slide, you know, I was trying to be comprehensive in listing the advantages. Short term rentals are profitable and they're desired. And so there will always be an incentive to provide more of them around whatever restrictions you might adopt. And so there are a number of strategies that are employed in other jurisdictions. And by restricting or prohibiting STRs in garden suites and secondary suite typologies, you'd close off one of those. You'd halfway close off one of those. There's another half that's the exact same thing, but I don't need to get into details, but you'd half close off that particular loophole.

Speaker J · And Mayor, if I may just one one final question and this came up during the discussion that we had on March 16, but I just, I want to want to get your take on this again. So you know, we heard from members of the community tonight during the public comment period that because of the lack of accommodation, hotel accommodation in Esquire Malt, that these, these short term rentals provide that sort of safety valve or that other opportunity for people, families who want to stay on to my.

Speaker J · Because we don't have hotels. I guess, you know, as you flag with more and I just don't like this again, the flip side of that is of course the less restrictive the FDR policy, the less incentive potentially that hotel operators would have to develop a hotel within the township. And I just, I, we talked about it before. I just want to get your take on that again.

Speaker M · Oh, pardon me. Yes, through the mayor. The more, the more restrictive in housing protective your regulations, the less competition you are inducing into the market. Introducing into the market for potential hotel development. I will elaborate on that by saying it's not just hotels as you've used tourist accommodation in the past. It could include comprehensive development zones where you're having a mix of houses and kind of these more amenity rich units. So it doesn't need to be the classic hotel. It can be a strata hotel or fractional ownership model. The classic Vancouver island example is Parksville, Colicum beach corridor. There's a ton of that. Potentially some of that could come here. I do know that there has been a recent report and the CRD with some policy recommendations about how to incentivize new hotel development in the current Real estate market.

Speaker M · So I think there is an opportunity to think about that here. And so, yes, through the mayor, the premise of your question is correct.

Speaker G · Yeah.

Speaker J · Okay, thank you very much.

Speaker B · I have Councilor Bram and then Councillor Cavins.

Speaker R · One clarification and then a question. The clarification is the current. What council passed in March was no secondary suites, period. Just two rooms in a house.

Speaker N · Correct.

Speaker R · Up to two rooms in a house.

Speaker M · Didn't in your motion, you didn't actually specify a number of rooms in the house. It was just that it needed to be your principal dwelling unit. The only other thing on top of that, I guess, sorry to the mayor was the 180d limit per year.

Speaker R · Because I thought I heard no, it couldn't be a secondary suite or because it could have been used for long term. So I guess. All right, so you could take out the. And this is where I came back with, okay, you take out the kitchen and then it's still in the principal dwelling. Okay, I get it. Sorry, had to dance around that for a minute. My other question, my question is though, in the provincial rules or you know, mandate for it, Is it a 3% vacancy rate two years in a row? 3% or plus two years in a row and then we wouldn't have to have more specific provincial guidelines is. How does. Can you explain that a little bit for me, please?

Speaker M · Yes, happy to. So through the mayor, the opportunity or the option that all local governments have where the principal residence requirement currently applies, that includes Quemel, is like you say, if the township demonstrates a 3% or plus vacancy rate for two consecutive years, you can opt out of the principal residence requirement. That would then allow you to go beyond that provincial floor and be even more permissive. And so now you could have, for example, complete dedicated SDR properties where no one is living long term and they're just kind of pure commercial SDR accommodation properties. As an example of what you could do, I will take the opportunity to talk for a moment about the 3% number. My understanding from conversations is that the 3% number is somewhat arbitrary.

Speaker M · What it ties back to is some historical research from five Canadian cities. Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Toronto. I think I'm forgetting the fifth one where over a couple decades, I believe they found that in those sample cities a vacancy rate of 3% corresponded to inflation adjusted rents, neither increasing or decreasing. That is 3% kind of correlated with a balanced rental market. So why I'm mentioning this is that for any municipality looking to the 3% number as a threshold, what you'd want to Decide is what do you want rents to do in the township? If you want rents to just stay flat, trying to hit that 3%, this data would support that. If you want rents to decline slightly, you'd want a higher than 3% vacancy rate.

Speaker M · If you wanted rents to increase, you would want a lower than 3% vacancy rate. Just to give you a bit of context about that number.

Speaker B · Thank you, Councillor Cavins.

Speaker E · Thank you.

Speaker Q · Just a question, clarification from Mr. Brown. Just going back to the question about enforcement of building code and stuff. If we were, what the current thinking of the recommendations would be that to apply that only to short term rentals or would that also apply to long term rentals as well?

Speaker A · Council reverses its direction to staff, would it apply to everything. We do get complaints about these long term rentals, illegal long term rentals. So it also, once we find them, if council reverses policy, we would compel them to get a building building permit. But yeah, it would absolutely apply to

Speaker Q · short term rental, but that the former is not what would be included in the. Okay, just. Just to clarify that.

Speaker H · Thank you.

Speaker B · If there's no further questions, I'll go to Councilor Morrison.

Speaker E · So I did have a question, one last question through the chair, but it was just around. Just struck me you talked about how we have the existing B and BS and we're trying to morph them with STRs and that you would automatically allow for one meal service for everybody. Does that create an extra burden though, for homeowners that they have to get a health authority certification if they're serving meal? Is there an extra layer of bureaucracy that would be required there?

Speaker M · Great question. So through the mayor, in fact, that is what we wanted to avoid.

Speaker E · Yes.

Speaker M · With the meal permission. So by specifying that STR operators in your bylaw are allowed to provide up to one meal per day, that gives them clearer access to the provincial exemption where they do not need a permit under the food service regulations. If you were to not provide that, then it would be more of a hassle for them.

Speaker E · So it's actually.

Speaker M · It's less bureaucracy.

Speaker E · Okay, that's good to know. Thank you. So, yes, I did. So we have the recommendation, the staff report. I was gonna.

Speaker B · Are you gonna put a motion on the floor?

Speaker E · Yeah, I'll put that motion forward, but with a significant change if I could.

Speaker B · All right, you're putting the staff recommendation.

Speaker E · I'll read it out as I proposed it to be. So. So just looking at the motion or the recommendation that council directs staff to prepare amendments to the zoning bylaw this is license bylaw and bylaw notice enforcement bylaw based on the the proposed regulatory framework outlined in the report attached as Appendix A To staff report dev 26032 with the exception and this is where I kind of alter things with the exception of section 110 to be reworded as section 110, strike, prohibit and then replace that with allow short term rentals and secondary suites and garden suites for up to a maximum of 120 nights per calendar year within owner occupied homes.

Speaker E · And in addition and it be further resolved that all related bylaws including Zoning Bylaw, Section 1. 5, 1. 51 and 1. 52 as listed in the short term rental proposed regulatory Framework staff report number DEV 26032 be changed to allow for short term rentals for for secondary suites and garden suites to a maximum of 120 nights per year. And then finally and be further resolved that the cap of 120 nights on secondary suites and garden suites be reviewed by council one year from the date of implementation. So essentially it's the staff recommendation with a significant departure regarding the allowance of secondary suites and garden suites as we heard was not permitted. I'm basically proposing the opposite to 120 nights.

Speaker E · But I'll need a seconder to speak to it.

Speaker B · I just want to go to staff. First of all did you get I

Speaker E · can I have it written down please, please.

Speaker B · Yes, that was significant.

Speaker E · I will definitely. I'll email it to everybody.

Speaker B · Okay. And do I have a seconder?

Speaker R · I'll second for discussion.

Speaker B · Thank you Councillor Morrison.

Speaker E · Okay, so yeah, thank you

Speaker B · and motivate and just clarify for those in the audience and around the table here.

Speaker J · Okay.

Speaker E · Okay. So essentially we had a staff recommendation in the report as the presenter provided to us that allows for short term rentals within homes for up to 180 nights. If the rooms are within the house and or the entire residence is rented out while someone is away and wants to just do kind of a vacation rental situation, that part stays the same. What I've done differently here is pulled out secondary suites and garden suites and as we've heard from the public, essentially people just want to have flexibility on that. And as I said in my question too, it's a bit confusing as to what is part of your home and what's not part of your home.

Speaker E · If you have a basement suite and you don't use it for rental, is it not part of your home? It gets kind of confusing. But I do think that essentially what I'm Putting forward provides a compromise between both the important kind of private property rights and the need for the communities such as ours to preserve the availability of rental stock. Now as I said, we're allowing a maximum of 190, sorry, 180 knights for all the other STR types. But using limiting to 120 nights would still be less and sort of form less than the other STR types in terms of what we're going to do with secondary garden suites.

Speaker E · And I think that also feeds that need to compromise a little bit on that. So I'll just give you a quick scenario, what I'm thinking how this could work. We know that there's a lot of students that use basement suites. They only need them typically during the school year. So let's say, you know, from September to April, the university calendar, that's eight months, you might have a student that comes and rents a secondary suite for that period as per lease and everything else. And then during the summer months from May through till August, it sits empty. So why not STR that? That's a, that's a scenario where it could work for both providing permanent tenants rental space and then also the ability to do STRs. That scenario might not work for everybody.

Speaker E · Everybody will have to decide in terms of their own STR use or secondary garden suite use, how they want to use their 120 night limit and how they want to use it other times of the year. And then just in terms of the permanent rentals, I think it was Councillor Bray mentioned last time we have, you know, it's important to remind ourselves we have made tremendous progress with hundreds, literally hundreds of new rental units having already been recently built or currently being built or soon expected to start building in the future.

Speaker E · With many new and modern purpose built rental buildings providing options for a variety of tenant needs. Another important point is to say that anyone that's currently in a secondary suite or a garden suite as a tenant cannot be evicted for the purposes of switching to an str. They're protected for as long as they need that rental space. And then the last thing I would just say in terms of, we talk a lot about affordability and you know, obviously the availability of rental units is important for affordability of tenants. But also when we look at the affordability issue, homeowners are not immune to that either. And we kind of, as we know now living in a gig economy, people are driving Ubers or delivering food, really trying to find, be creative about how they can get income in non traditional ways and making better use of Your additional space that you have within your home, whether it's a secondary suite, garden suite, or just empty bedrooms, whatever the case may be, that's part of our modern gig economy.

Speaker E · And I think the Township Esquimal needs to kind of, you know, be part of that 21st century mindset about how people grapple with affordability and make their income in creative ways. The last thing I would also say too, about the hotel, I think that's a bit of, a. Bit of a red herring to say that, oh, if, you know, if we allow STRs, then we're never going to have the hotel. But the reality is that the hotel market is all generated downtown for the most part, and that's a very short distance from Esquimo. If there's going to be new hotels popping up, they're more likely to be in the tourist traditional zone of downtown Victoria, not so much in the suburbs.

Speaker E · So I don't think that we can penalize our tenants on their pride, private property rights by assuming that somehow there'll be a hotel that just magically gets built in the squamil to fill the void. And so. But if. But if we really do want tourism development in Suimo, the quick and easy way to do it is, as we've heard from people who want to do SDRs is through SDRs, because that'll bring people from all over the world into our community right away on an ongoing basis, spending money here because probably they can't afford to go downtown and pay for those astronomical hotel rates.

Speaker E · So I just, as I said, this is a compromise. It's really about recognizing those private property rights while also being able to preserve the rental stock because it might make more sense for people if they're limited to 120 nights, to maybe just have the steady income of a permanent tenant.

Speaker B · Thank you. Thank you for your motivation. And I will go to Councilor Brehm.

Speaker R · Yes, thank you. Much of what Councillor Morrison says I agree with. I want to look at it with a slightly different lens. We have created a lot of those who stay in short term rentals stay in short term rentals for a reason. They don't. It's not that it's necessarily cheaper than a hotel. They do it because it's a place that they need to stay in better. They can bring their dog, they have some privacy. They don't want to walk into a bed and breakfast and necessarily have to tiptoe in at night.

Speaker O · They want to be able to go

Speaker R · into their own space. So they're a very different Beast. That's why I don't think it will affect hotels as much as people think. My other comment is we have created a lot of housing stock and rental stock that are very, they are small, you know, my kids had to buy a 600 square foot one bedroom condo which means that when my son in law's parents come to visit they have no place to stay and they want to stay close to the kids so that they can spend the time with the kids but there is no place for them to stay.

Speaker R · My grandkids and I bought a two bedroom condo so when my grandkids and my other son and his wife come, I don't have room for four. I did volunteer to take the kids and they happily let me take the kids but they need a place to stay that's also close by. So again these are very different reasons and we created some of this in our own rights by you know, allowing the smaller density buildings. So we have to be thoughtful on that process. So that's a really, that's a really big thing for me is to find places for them. It's 120 days, like the day, the number of days.

Speaker R · I'm not as you know, it's a question I have for staff, the provincial policy or regulation or whatever. Is 90 days, correct? Correct, 90 days, yes. So if we do 120, I don't, you know, I want to make it simple for both state staff, for everybody. How much more challenging would we get? Like would the province have an issue with the 120 days? Because I actually, I like Councillor Morrison's thought process. Students come for you know, X number of months and then that just fills

Speaker I · up the rest of the year.

Speaker R · What is that? Is that a challenge?

Speaker M · Thank you for your question through the mayor. One way you could amend or alter the recommended regulatory outline in this way is to essentially create two license types. And so one license type would be for principal dwelling unit short term rentals. These are taking place in your home dwelling unit. They are per year march direction limited to 180 nights per year category. 1 second category of short term rental could be in a dwelling unit on your home lot but where you do not live. And you could have a separate allotment or maximum number of calendar nights per year for that. It could be 120. Oak Bay and Saanich I think would be considering 60. So then different numbers can go around but you'd pick a number for that license type. Of course, different license types.

Speaker M · You're introducing complexity into the regulations but you know, anything can be done as far as the definition, which again I'll distinguish. So there's two numbers going on. There's how you define short term rentals and the recommendation is to align with the provincial definition so that any rental less than 90 days counts as a short term rental and is caught by the regulations that then forks you into one of these two notional now license types of principal dwelling unit, short term rental or another unit on your lot.

Speaker M · And then the other number is the cap, the number of nights per year that you allow it. One other thing I might say is that I'm just thinking through Sanich and Oak Bay and trying to recall the rationale for a specific number of nights. I believe they were considering 60 nights due to a staff recommendation to allow for some measure of it, but not to incentivize the conversion of those units to kind of full time short term rentals just due to the often large margin between short term rental income and long term rental income.

Speaker E · So they're just trying to calibrate that added point. Just to let you know. I think the update has been reported to me that Sanage has actually now expanded to look at. They're debating between 90 and 180 nights.

Speaker M · I guess there's count.

Speaker Q · You're right.

Speaker E · But ope is still significant.

Speaker F · 60.

Speaker E · That was the staff recommendation. 60 for Sanich originally.

Speaker M · So thank you.

Speaker B · Yeah, thank you. Did you finish answering?

Speaker M · Yes, I believe. I'm sorry, that took a while.

Speaker B · Yeah. And you're comfortable, Councillor Boardman?

Speaker O · Thank you. So I think we've all been giving this a lot of thought since our last meeting when we came up with these original guidelines that you've been working from. So perhaps we're departing from them somewhat tonight.

Speaker M · Oh, they're your guidelines? Just trying to flush out your decision.

Speaker O · I'm just going to refer to my messy notes I've been writing as I've been listening. So my concern is not necessarily about convincing people to convert from short term rentals to long term rentals. I'm not sure that would happen for a number of circumstances. But I am concerned about people about like not encouraging people to convert from long term to short term. And that's why we need to do this thoughtfully and that's why we need to put a limit on this and try to figure out what the right balance is that supports, you know, the financial pressure on homeowners because we acknowledge that that exists, the economic benefit to the community and the preservation of current affordable long term rentals.

Speaker O · We need to keep those as much as we can. So I'm not overly fussy about 90 or 120. I do think we need to commit to an evaluation at one year. And if we picked 90 days with AS. As per the motion on the floor then. Or, sorry, 120. If we pick 90 instead of 120, we could evaluate in one year and. And go up. I don't think we can ever go down once we make that decision. Mr. Brown. I'll pause.

Speaker A · So, Mr. Brown, I think there's a little confusion on the 90 and 120 days. Those are two totally different numbers with totally different objectives. So the 90 days is the maximum of a single rental. So if I am from Tennessee and I want to come to Esquimalt for four months in a short term rental, I couldn't do it under the 90 day provision.

Speaker M · You could, in fact. So it would simply not be caught under the definition. And so if you rented it for four months, it would not count as a short term rental in that sense. And this is why I was wrestling with choosing a cutoff versus a duration neutral definition which catches all non residential tenancy activity.

Speaker O · Sorry, Mr. Brown, I wasn't clear. I am clear about that point.

Speaker A · Yeah. So the 120 days is a maximum number of days in a year. You can rent out your. Your suite as a. Yeah, I understand that.

Speaker E · It could be like an average of 10 nights per.

Speaker B · Councilor Morrison, I.

Speaker O · So what I'm saying is I support providing the ability to rent out your secondary suite for either 90 or 120 days per year. I might prefer to start with 90 rather than 120 because. Because then we can, in one year, after we do an evaluation, if there aren't any issues, we can move it up to 120, but we can't necessarily move it down. That's for renting the secondary suite.

Speaker B · Councillor Boardman, are you wanting to make an amendment?

Speaker O · I'm not sure, but I'll listen to the rest of my colleagues and then I may.

Speaker B · Okay. And further discussion.

Speaker E · Councillor Cavan, Council's information. I've emailed everybody, so. So if you look at your email, you can actually see the full motion there, just to prevent any confusion.

Speaker K · Thank you.

Speaker Q · Yeah, so I appreciate what Councillor Morrison is bringing forward. I think we've heard an awful lot from homeowners and I've gone out and talked to a few and there's some genuine stories. And this is a complicated place in terms of allowing people to have flexibility with their homes for people who probably wouldn't be offering them as long term rentals. My concern is still the impact on the affordable end of our rental market. And so while I agree, I agree with the idea of allowing suites to be rented in short term renters, I think it's a matter of degrees and I just want to be very cautious how we go on that.

Speaker Q · We have to always remember that some of these numbers are out of date. But we had 6% of all households in Esquimaux in 2021 were paying more than 50% of their income for rent, 35% are paying, can only afford $1,000 a month. So we do have a population here that is really vulnerable. And so I think we need to be careful that we don't change our regulations in a way that incentivizes and yes, individual units can't be done with Residential Tenancy act, but there's lots of ways around that. And over long term, sometimes what's better for the individual's homeowner is not necessarily better for the whole community. So that's where my concern is.

Speaker Q · And so that's where my concern is, where in this 90 to 120 days, a lot of that actually is alleviated a lot by what Mr. Brown was saying about our enforcement of long term of building and fire regulations in long term rentals versus short term rentals. Because to me that really makes it a much bigger hurdle for someone to convert. And I think that especially at the very low end of the market, they're not going to spend the time or the money to convert from a long term to a short term if they have to do significant upgrades to their building. I'm also with Councillor Boardman. I'd like to hear from the others I would support and I might put an amendment to move it to 90.

Speaker Q · My biggest fear is that watching what happened in Victoria where things that had been approved were taken away was very difficult and I don't think fair to homeowners. So my concern is that you start small and once we do this very elaborate change show regulatory which we're presenting here, my understanding is shifting a number from 90 to 120 days is a very fast bylaw amendment. So we can go that way easily in a year or two years. We can't go backwards. So that's where I, where I'm leaning on this.

Speaker B · Councilor Armour.

Speaker J · Thanks, Mayor. Yeah, I really appreciate Councillor Kevin's comments. I tend to agree like I think back on our discussion March 16 and why we put in place the recommendations we did for the consultant consider and come back to us with and that was to try and find the balance in our community between the needs of renters and the needs of homeowners.

Speaker J · And I know council's heard me say this in the past and started beat the same job, but for the most part, renters are in a much more difficult financial position than our homeowners. They haven't had the advantage of the significant increases in housing prices over the last few years. In fact, they bear the brunt of it because they're having rent and so they're facing increased cost, whereas homeowners earn, facing increased asset gains. So I, you know, going back to March 16th, I thought we achieved a pretty good balance here trying to meet the needs of renters. So I'm like Councillor Cabins. I, you know, I could see potentially supporting this change.

Speaker J · But I also agree starting perhaps at 90 days, at 1 as close 120. And I just, I mean, this is a minor issue, but when Councillor Morrison made the motion with his amendment to the staff recommendation, he talked about, you know, one of the reasons for his rationale is we shouldn't limit homeowners from making use of their private property rights. And I just, just want to flag, I mean, this is a minor thing, it's just my own view, but there is no private property right to, to be able to rent out part of your house or an attachment. That's a municipal decision. So I mean, I don't, I don't want, I understand the passion of the people who spoke at the beginning, but ultimately it's a council decision on bylaws in terms of what owners are able to rent or not rent in some shape.

Speaker J · Right. But with that, as I say, I can sort of lean towards cat. Word.

Speaker G · Counselor.

Speaker J · Kevin. Thanks, Mayor.

Speaker B · Thank you. I have heard three people speak of a separate number, so I'm hoping that someone will put the amendment on the floor for discussion. And Councelor Hallowell has volunteered at your service.

Speaker H · No, I, So taking the motion. I actually have two amendments, but I'll do them separately. So the first one, taking Councillor Morrison's motion and just changing 120 nights to 90 nights.

Speaker B · All right. And I need a seconder. All right. And do you want to speak to that amendment?

Speaker H · I think the last three or four speakers have sort of motivated for it. This is what I've been wrestling with since we gave our direction back in March is secondary suites, garden suites. And where that appropriate line is. I don't know where it is. I don't. I think there's a reason so many municipalities have slightly different rules is no one really knows where that line is yet. But I think Councillor Boardman made a very good point that especially if people are starting to plan some Airbnbs, book up quite a bit in advance, others you can find relatively quickly. But if we were to do a review in a year and they had some bookings ahead and we bring it back, I think that's far, that's quite challenging.

Speaker H · You know, doing 90 days instead of 20 is probably challenging as well. But I think from a regulatory perspective, if we're looking to allow secondary suites and garden suites, if we start at 90 days and in a year's time, if it seems to be implementing well, we look to expand that.

Speaker B · Thank you. I'll go to the seconder who has already spoken to it. Okay. On the amendment. And I don't. We. I'd really like to call the question on this part. Part. But I will continue down the line.

Speaker R · I was just going to say by going 90 days, we're following basically the provincial regulation and it's just as clean.

Speaker B · Okay. Councillor Morrison.

Speaker E · So as it, as it happens, I originally when I drafted my, my amended staff recommendation, I had it listed as 90 nights, 90 days. The only reason why I changed it was I would try, I wanted us to be as consistent as we possibly could be with our neighboring municipalities. And yes, we know that Oak Bay, the smaller municipality, is going to have a 60 day limit. So that wouldn't be consistent at 90 or 120. But we also know, as I mentioned earlier, Saanich is now debating whether it should be a minimum of 90 or a minimum of 180. What's right in the middle of that is 120 nights.

Speaker E · That's sort of why, I mean, San Jose is our largest municipality. That's probably going to be the biggest driver of knowledge about what you can do for SDRs in terms of number of nights. The only other thing in terms of flexibility that we wanted to is this to the amendment. Speaking to the Amendment. So under 120 that obviously the math is such that you could do an average of 10 nights per month. At 90, you can basically only do just about just over a week and a bit half a day basically per month. So it is limiting in terms of what, you know, the revenue that you could generate.

Speaker E · Maybe that's a good thing in sense that it would also motivate you might take a second look at becoming a permanent landlord with a tenant. But I just. The reason why I got to 120 instead of 90 was really trying to be Consistent and trying to be as flexible as we possibly could without going too far.

Speaker B · Okay, I will just speak to the amendment. I will support it. I'll speak to the main motion when we get there. As to some of my thoughts. But we started and we talked about baby steps and not having to come backward. And so this to me is a reasonable step again. And then the evaluation of it can be quick and changes can be made. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. So I'm going to call the question on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment and those opposed? None opposed. So we have go back to the main motion now amended to 90 days for secondary suites. And I'm going to come back to to Councillor Helliwell who indicated a second amendment.

Speaker M · Thank you.

Speaker H · This is consequential to me but not consequential to the motion and that is that we add a. Be it further resolved that when the zoning bylaw comes for first reading it include a high level estimate of implementation costs and revenues for the first three years.

Speaker B · Thank you. Is there a seconder for that? Councillor Cavath, do you wish to speak to it?

Speaker H · Motivation. I think that's just good practice for a new initiative. I think it's important. I'd expect staff would probably be thinking about doing that, but I think we need to get in good habit if we're bringing this is a fairly substantial change in what our bylaw could be doing and the amount of effort and I think it would be best practice before it's finalized that we have a sense of knowing what those costs and revenues are.

Speaker B · Thank you, Councillor Cavens. Anything, dad. Any further discussion on this amendment? Seeing none. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Come back to the main motion as amended and amended. Further discussion.

Speaker E · I just have a question.

Speaker Q · Is it in the current motion or the SAF recommendation that there would be an evaluation period of a year or 24 months? It's in. Okay, then that's further.

Speaker B · Further discussion. Councillor Boardman, question.

Speaker O · And to Mr. Brown. So within that evaluation period, do you have in mind some specific evaluation criteria and are you able to get baselines for them sort of before we start or have you given that much thought?

Speaker A · No, but I think, you know, complaints, bylaw complaints would be number one criteria and we will be able to monitor data from the provincial website so we can bring that back. But no, I haven't thought of a specific framework within the.

Speaker O · So we talked about vacancy rates tonight and members of the public talked about conversion rates from short term to long Term or long term to short term? I don't know if those are really quantifiable.

Speaker A · Very difficult.

Speaker E · Yeah.

Speaker O · Okay, well, I'll leave that with you then. Thanks,

Speaker B · Councillor Morrison.

Speaker E · I just think for the public there's probably a lot of question and an eagerness to want to know what the implementation timeline would be for this. So going forward from tonight, you've now got ask staff. Yeah. So the question for staff, you now got a more definitive. Back in March you didn't have so definitive a decision by council. Now we have a more definitive decision by council. What would be the timeline for when people can expect this to be, if approved, if we were to vote in favor of this night? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A · So because of the election and summer break, any amendments to any bylaws would be dealt with with the next council.

Speaker E · So sorry, through the chair then what does that mean in the meantime then? Does that mean we're still stuck with the existing. As it was pointed out earlier is that we don't have STRs at all in Esquimo.

Speaker A · So what happens if you want a short term rental and you go to the province? The province will contact us and we'll say if the short term rental is greater than 30 days, we don't have an issue with that under existing bylaw, but anything else is prohibited.

Speaker E · So through the chair, can council do anything or action anything to counter that in some way or basically to alleviate that, I guess the better word, so that we can actually have our residents do what is intended to be done as we pass. If we pass this tonight without having to wait until the next council term.

Speaker A · Mr. Brown, you could add some meetings in August.

Speaker E · Could we not just provide direction that

Speaker A · there has to be. There's a whole bunch of amendments. Only council can do that. We can't do that.

Speaker B · Okay, so you've heard, heard what would need to be done.

Speaker J · Right.

Speaker B · That's a decision for all of council at another time.

Speaker E · The only question I'll ask though on that is we know that other municipalities have been doing, they've been allowing, even though their bylaws say no strs, they basically have been allowing them to exist during things like the World cup soccer over the summer months as an example. I think View Royal has been very public about the that fact that they're not going to enforce their SDR bylaws.

Speaker B · Mr. Brown, anything further on this,

Speaker A · we cannot stop.

Speaker B · Okay.

Speaker E · Yeah, so, but why is View Royal have a moratorium?

Speaker B · It's my understanding then they didn't, they didn't do it do it.

Speaker E · Oh, because they made a big public

Speaker B · statement about what I heard from the mayor.

Speaker E · Oh, okay. Interesting. It's a bit of a quagmire for sure.

Speaker B · Okay, let's come back to the motion as amended and amended. I just wanted to speak that when we first had the presentation we were also in the middle of a region wide assessment of need for hotels, et cetera, following our discussion and part of the reason that I supported our very small incremental change was the fact that Eric pointed out to us that it does have an effect on our ability to attract hotel.

Speaker B · That being said, what I have heard and what I think I have learned from those who have short term rental is that it's a very different market and we in Esquimalt also we're going to get that presentation on hotels.

Speaker B · But there are so many things that a municipality can do within their OCP et cetera that can help incentivize for hotel. So I'm not as concerned about it because of that difference in market.

Speaker B · I think that having made the proposed changes that we are better meet the needs of the community at this point.

Speaker B · And I still like the idea of the shorter term because of the baby step to evaluate whether and who knows whether it's the right number of days.

Speaker B · So I'm supportive of the motion and I'm going to call the question. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motion is carried.

Speaker B · We're going to take a three minute break because I forgot my water bottle and I'm parch. Councilor Morrison, I'll get you back to the table. Where's councilor Boardman?

Speaker E · I even let me even go first was.

Speaker B · And Eric kept drinking. All right, we, we. I'm just going to ask the audience down. Thank you. And we are now at the bylaw to amend development application procedures and fees. Where. Where did Mr. Brown go? Oh, okay.

Speaker B · Mr. Brown, I'm reconven. Apologies. I know, I know that there are lots of questions for you but we are now at the bylaw to amend development application procedures.

Speaker A · Your worship is a very simple straightforward bylaw. We did bring in amendments to the fees and charges bylaw in I believe it was April and we missed one fee for a delegated development permit. So it was very straightforward. Just additional amendment. It's shown in the track changes document. I think it's. I don't think there's a lot. There's no controversy. We're not aware of any issues. This actually makes it better for people who have small drone permits.

Speaker B · Okay, thank you very much council.

Speaker R · I'll Move that council give first, second and third readings to development application procedures and fees. Bylaw 2012, number 2791amendment. Bylaw 2026, number 3190.

Speaker B · Thank you. Seconder, please. Thank you. Do you want to speak to it? Do you wish to speak to it? Any discussion? All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. Thank you very much, Mr. Brown. We move down to bylaw offense notice penalty updates. Ms. Kitts.

Speaker I · Thank you. Essentially, this is the first time that we are updating our bylaw offense notice system since it was introduced in 2014. It's the first time we're doing a substantial review. Over the last two or three months, staff have been reviewing our penalties, the structure we put in place with the bond system, regional norms across the municipalities, our enforcement trends internally. To develop this report here, what we have seen is that many of our penalties are not in line with regional norms, they're not in line with accessibility expectations, and they really no longer support strong compliance. In particular, we have not increased our parking penalties since 2014.

Speaker I · And with these tickets making up 95% of our bylaw work, and with approximately 72% of parking related tickets issued between 2019 and 2024 having been unpaid, we felt it was time to address this discrepancy and update the penalties to hopefully support compliance and increase deterrence. It's also an opportunity to learn more about how other local governments structure their penalties. Not all municipalities are working under the bond system. Some of them are still using the municipal ticket information system, which has different elements in terms of penalty amounts and maximums, late fees and adjudication procedures. So it's been fun and sort of interesting to see how other folks have been organizing themselves. So through this work, we put forward three options for your consideration. And we are recommending option one.

Speaker I · We're recommending a high deterrence safety forward update that increases penalties to help support compliance, reduce repeated infractions, align with neighboring municipalities, and support equity and access. And that's it.

Speaker B · Thank you. Are there questions, Councilor Bream? Yes.

Speaker R · Through you to staff, please. Okay. I noticed in there, and this just an example, and I'm just throwing out numbers. They may not be the exact right numbers, but you have that the charge or the infraction is $400. If you pay early, it's 350, but if you pay late, it's 450. That just seems like a lot of what if we just did, you know, it's 450. And if you pay early, it's 350 it just. Because what is late is late. 5:30, when the office closes at 5, is it like. I just. I think it's just an extra step that convolutes it. Whereas it's 450, you know, take the larger of the number.

Speaker R · But if you pay early, it's 350, and then maybe you'll just get more people who pay early. It just seems like a lot of numbers to try and keep track.

Speaker B · Okay, we've got a question.

Speaker I · We don't have to have late penalties. Late penalties is something you're allowed to do under the bond system. So you can't do that under the MTI. MTIs go through a court process, and that's set by. And the penalties are set by the court. So the bond system allows us to do that. So I'm guessing in 2014 we decided that implementing late fees would help encourage people to pay on time. The amount of the penalty that we've implemented is per the director's input. So some of them are over $25 late. Some $50 late. I think it's intended to try to get people to pay. It is not necessarily confusing because it's clear, you know, early. This is the fee if you pay early, this is the fee you pay late. But there, there are layers.

Speaker I · If council doesn't wish to have late penalties, we don't need to have late penalties. It's something that we've been doing since 2014. And so I just took the approach of carrying on.

Speaker B · Anything further, Counselor Bray?

Speaker R · No, I just thought give them the bigger number and if they pay, and then just give them the option to pay early.

Speaker B · Okay. Any further questions?

Speaker E · Councillor Cavins, thank you for the report.

Speaker Q · One question I have is about non compliance and that we've sent things out to collection agency and our recovery rate is still not very high from those. I'm just wondering what are our options once that's happened? Do we have any other enforcement options available to us or.

Speaker B · Great question.

Speaker I · I don't know what options we have after collections. I think the low return on collections right now is that we're trying to collect on 2022 tickets. The goal is to bring over the 2023 and 2024 unpaid tickets to collections this summer. And then after speaking with neighboring municipalities, particularly the city of Victoria, they actually send them six months to collections. So I think if I can get into a system where we're sending them when it's in recent memory, that would really help. So I'm hoping we would have a higher Return in terms of paid tickets through the collection agency. When we get a better system in place.

Speaker I · Our next step on collections, I'll take that away as a step to see if there's further enforcement steps. We have. I'm not aware right now. Thank you.

Speaker B · Thank you, Councillor Boardman.

Speaker O · Thank you. I noticed that there are some areas that haven't been adjusted and so I'll just use tree protection bylaw as an example. Does that mean that we've looked at all of these tree protection costs or fines and they're already aligned with others or does it mean we haven't looked at them yet

Speaker I · through the chair? So in your appendix A, it goes through what we've done with each schedule. And the tree protection bylaw was one of the only ones that have updated recently. So it was updated in 2022. And most of the fines in the tree protection bylaw are at our upmost top range. We cannot have a penalty over $500 per the bond system. So you can see a lot of those under tree protection are $500. So there are a few, including fire. Like our chief of fire was here last year updating the smoke alarms and the fire prevention bylaw. So those have been updated so there's no amendments to that one, as well as the fireworks bylaw.

Speaker I · So there's just a few directors that were proactive and got here to make some amendments, but not all of them had been updated. So that necessitated the review.

Speaker O · Okay, thanks. And I would like to just comment that this is a really great report and you've done a lot of really good work. So thank you for that.

Speaker I · Thank you.

Speaker B · Councillor Helloell.

Speaker H · Are we doing comments too or just questions?

Speaker B · We, we. If we put a motion on the floor, we can do comments.

Speaker H · Okay, so then it's got to be questions.

Speaker M · Got it.

Speaker H · I was just. I wanted to follow up on Councillor Bram's point because the. The late payment also struck me as. As different from most other municipalities. I don't feel strongly one way or the other whether we keep it. But I was curious. From your perspective, is it more administrative work for you or your team or does it not matter? Once it's set in the bylaw through

Speaker I · the chair, it doesn't matter. We just look at the bylaw table and pick the number there and jot down that number under section four in the report, I believe. Esquimal. The town of Sydney in the district of Saanich are currently using late penalty penalty payments. Other folks are not like Saanich, Victoria and the district of Oak Bay. I Don't believe they are. And the town of View Royal has done sort of a very simple approach where they have a one fixed fine amount whether you're early or late. So I think you can cut this pie lots of ways. And this is what we're doing right now. It's not to say it's the right way, but it's a way.

Speaker B · Any further questions? There is a recommendation Council.

Speaker Q · I'll move the staff recommendation trying to get in front of me which is that we direct staff to proceed with modern modernizing the is bond penalty structure in accordance with a high deterrence safety Forward approach option one and give first and second and third readings to the bylaw notice enforcement bylaw number 2839Amendment bylaw 2026 number 3191.

Speaker B · Is there a seconder for the motion? Councillor Boardman, do you want to speak to it?

Speaker Q · Just that I appreciate the work and staff are coming with a good recommendation. I think we could get into lots of little details and I think once we start opening that up, we're going to be debating $75 versus $125. And I just don't think that's a good use of our time.

Speaker B · Councillor Boardman.

Speaker O · No, I don't have any further comments.

Speaker I · Thank you.

Speaker B · Thank you. Any further discussion? I have a question. I think we are to hear back on our bylaw enforcement and how we've adjusted. When does that come back through the chair?

Speaker I · Are you referring to after hours bylaw?

Speaker B · Yeah.

Speaker I · I can provide you a quick verbal update now if that's helpful.

Speaker B · That'd be great.

Speaker I · Yeah. So at the last time I was here talking about bylaw, there was a direction for staff to pursue bylaw support after hours, including Saturday parking enforcement and events. And so we looked internally at our team. I talked to a contractor as well that provides those services in the region and our internal resources. And we weighed some pros and cons and we've decided to go to an auxiliary posting that should be out soon. So looking for somebody to come in specifically to help support support events and parking enforcement and then another day a week to help with some bylaw licensing work that we are needing to manage.

Speaker I · So that should be out in the coming weeks working with HR to get that out and then the goal will be to see how that we'll have two auxiliary bylaw enforcement officers. And so we'll see how that pans out in the year to come in terms of long term planning for the, our, our bylaw team.

Speaker B · Okay, thank you. And, and my second Question is around enforcement of the shorter term parking that we've made changes to and and how that is going. Are we seeing a lot of tickets

Speaker I · and are you referring to the time limited parking?

Speaker B · Y.

Speaker I · Okay. Yeah. It sounded like for a while there was before I arrived there was a lot of tickets around residential only parking and that was where our bylaw officer was spending a lot of time. Those got a little more quiet in the last six months. We're seeing less complaints or calls around residential only and much more effort being to review and proactively enforce the time limited parking. So there are more tickets happening in that area. I'd have to bring back a review report next year to see what it looks like in that time. But I think we're getting some more compliance with folks getting used to the time limited angle that we have here that we perhaps didn't previously.

Speaker I · So anecdotally from our bylaw officer I believe it's mellowing out after a bit of heightened increase at the beginning of it. But in a year I'll come back with better data.

Speaker B · Great. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. Thank you very much for the report. We move down and we have reports and or minutes of from committees and we have the committee of the whole recommendations that need to be ratified and that is that the committee of the whole recommend that council refer the presentation from the West Bay Residents association and Habitat Acquisition Trust regarding the proposed interpretive platform in Pollinator park to staff for a report back to council to allow for discussion and consideration of inclusion into future priority planning.

Speaker E · I'll move the ratification of that resolution.

Speaker B · Thank you. Is there a seconder? Thank you. I don't think we need any further discussion on that. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. We move down to the notice of motion. And I will ask Councillor Cavins to to put his motion on the floor. Yes. Unless you want to bring them forward. I'm assuming that.

Speaker O · Okay.

Speaker Q · My motion is I'll be resolved portion that council direct staff to bring forward suggested bylaw amendments and a brief report on potential implications that would allow for sharing boxes as an ancillary use in a residential areas in line with our existing zoning regulations for home occupation.

Speaker E · I'll second.

Speaker B · Thank you. And if you'd like to motivate. Sure.

Speaker Q · So this motion came out of discussions with staff about the community pantry that we've all been hearing about. But through those discussions it became clear that many of the little free libraries, yarn libraries Puzzle libraries and other boxes more keeps bringing up that exist throughout exquimalt are likely technically contrary to our zoning bylaw and not because council ever decided they shouldn't exist, but because the bylaw simply never contemplated them. And we know that these boxes are widely supported by the community. They help build connections between neighbors, keep useful items out of the landfill and provide a simple way for people to share resources and reduce costs.

Speaker Q · They're a small thing, but they add a lot of value and joy to a lot of people in the neighborhood. So the issue for me is that we currently have a situation where many of the structures are technically non compliant, but enforcement is complaint driven. I personally find it very uncomfortable with a situation where something that is otherwise well loved and has existed for years can suddenly become a bylaw issue because of a complaint from a neighbor which may or may not relate to the actual core of the issue. And we've dealt with similar things. Deer fencing was very similar. We had consensus in the community, but one or two people were targeted because of neighbors.

Speaker Q · And so I think that I would like us to break these, make it clear that boxes and pantries and libraries are legal. And I also think that we need to be. I would much rather we regulate the impacts rather than the use. And we already do that with home occupation. And I'm suggesting that we use the home occupation bylaw as a template because it provides staff with the ability to enforce the home occupations. But in this case the boxes, if there are impacts on traffic, noise, rodents, whatever the concern may be, that's there as well. I'm not saying to have no regulation, but I think we should really focus on what the impacts are.

Speaker Q · Just to be clear, this is just asking for staff report and for some suggestions and try to understand what the implications are. And I know there's been some concern about pantries and different types of pantries. I visited a whole bunch around the region. They already exist in different communities and I find it hard to see the impact and the problem. But I think this is where staff could give us a report, could give us an opportunity to understand where there are actual impacts that we should be concerned about. This is just a hope that we start this discussion and prevent someone maliciously reporting them and trying to close them down. Because I think it's clear that the community supports them and is enthusiastic about the sharing boxes.

Speaker B · Councillor Morrison?

Speaker E · No, I think Councillor Cavins covered it really well. You know, it's, it's part of an, part of an engaged community that's engaging that we have that we're fortunate to have our residents offer up these sort of mini community services on, on their properties that sort of just sort of organically happen, as I said, in a community that's really wanting to be a strong community and a supportive community.

Speaker E · And as Councillor Cabinet said, all we're asking for at this point is some of the information report and then what would we be, what would this entail if we were to need to amend our bylaws? And I think that's a good starting point for us to continue this conversation at a later date.

Speaker B · Councillor Armour.

Speaker J · Thanks, Mayor.

Speaker F · Yeah,

Speaker J · I guess it's a question for staff because I wasn't sure at first with the notice of motion where I came forward if this was applying to all community boxes, including pantries, or it was just for the book libraries and yarn and so on. But I understand that from council and I guess, I mean, the recommendation just calls for a staff report. So it's a, it's a, it's a first step in the process, I guess. And I guess my question is for the staff. I mean, in my mind there's, there's the issue of, you know, I hear what Councillor Cavins is saying about it

Speaker I · being

Speaker J · not wanting it overly complaint driven and also wanting to put certainly all the book libraries that have been going on for years and are generally loved throughout the community. We want to make sure those are compliant. I'm still just on the pantry. I think there is more exploration that's needed and I think it's more than just a bylaw issue. It's also a health and safety issue, as has been discussed in the past. And so I guess my question for staff is will they potentially in their report be looking at the uses of the boxes separately or individually and not necessarily coming up with blanket proposals that would apply to all the boxes staff through the chair.

Speaker I · I would envision looking at the pantry and the community pantry separately with different, different matters for consideration in terms of food safety and those items that I'll present as a consideration. So, yeah, I'll perhaps look and then, you know, some of them had complaints on them, some of them not have complaints. So that can be presented for consideration.

Speaker J · Okay, that's good. That, that's all I, that's the confirmation I was looking here.

Speaker B · Thank you, Councilor Boardman, I just have

Speaker O · a question for Councillor Cavins, if I may. So you mentioned that there's pantries and library boxes in many other municipalities. Do you know if there are any supporting bylaws in those municipalities? As well,

Speaker Q · not that I know of. I've done a quick look, and they're kind of silent on these as well, but I didn't do a comprehensive look.

Speaker O · Thank you.

Speaker B · Further discussion. Just before I go back to the mover, I want to also say that I see the pantries as a very different thing than the other boxes. And so I'm pleased that Ms.

Speaker B · Kitts will bring back a report that looks at that separately, because I think there are very different issues around health and safety, rodents, a number of things that could be challenging for the neighborhood.

Speaker B · So as this is asking for a staff report, certainly the book boxes, the little libraries and the seed library, they're all welcomed in the community. And so I'll support this motion to receive a staff report back.

Speaker B · Councillor Cavins, you wanted to add something?

Speaker Q · Yeah, I just wanted to mention that, you know, I think this is about finding. There's obviously a line between community sharing and full. You know, a large nonprofit or. There's different. There's gradations here that we have to look at. And I think this is what asking for. I also think it's important to remember that in the home occupation bylaw, it states that you have to follow all other bylaws, all other rules. So that was quite deliberate with asking for that. That we do ask for this kind of regulation of our home occupation. So it's not a. I'm not proposing a free for all, but I think it's a good discussion to have as we go forward.

Speaker B · Any further discussion? All right. Seeing none. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. We are now down to public comment, period. Are there any members of the public that wish to speak?

Speaker B · Any members of the public that wish to speak? Calling a third time and hearing none. A motion to adjourn, please. So moved. Seconder. All those in favor and those opposed? And thank you, audience.

Speaker B · We are required to return to our in camera. So staff were. We're able to stay here, Right. Because we've got the phone calls. So we'll. We'll. Who?

Speaker Q · Jonah and everybody.

Speaker B · Oh, it's. It's about cleanup. Okay. We can go to the other room. Thanks.

Speaker A · It.