Hundreds of Airbnb rentals not licenced in Kelowna
There are more than 500 suites listed for short term rentals in Kelowna that have not been licenced.
Data posted on the AirDNA website shows there are 1,432 listings within Kelowna's boundaries.
Yet the latest data from the City of Kelowna is that only 887 licences have been approved this year. A further 153 are pending.
That’s a shortfall of 545 licenses approved versus the number listed on AirDNA.
“We know, for a fact, there are people who are operating who have chosen not to get a licence,” Graham March, Kelowna’s licencing and system improvement supervisor, told iNFOnews.ca. “I can’t ever imagine it would match to what we have issued because people are people and they operate, sometimes, without following the proper channels.”
Kelowna, like many other cities, contracts with a third party to check listings versus licences. March did not know if or how many people have been fined for operating without a licence.
He noted that, while Airbnb is synonymous with short term vacation rentals, there are many other sites doing the same thing so policing can be difficult.
"I don’t know if we ever get to an accurate number for what is out there for offer," March said.
AirDNA only monitors Airbnb and VRBO.
For Kelowna, it shows 61% of the listings are with Airbnb, 14% with VRBO and 25% are on both.
Their data is screened so that only the actual number of listings is shown. That means, when units are listed on both sites, it’s only counted as one unit for the city’s total.
Kelowna Resort Accommodations, the largest property manager listed for the city on the AirDNA stie with 59 units, does check for licences, operations manager Tim Lalor told iNFOnews.ca.
“We advertise on our listings the actual City of Kelowna business licence number for all the properties that we manage,” he said. “In conjunction with all the owners, we submit their applications initially and then they renew it.”
As a management company, they also get renewal notices and he knows that the city is policing the system.
“We do get notifications from the city from time to time, saying we’re missing a bit of paperwork or the owner has not renewed in time, so they are actively chasing down people without business licence numbers,” he said. “But there are still a number of them who are operating without business licences.”
In comparison to Kelowna’s 1,432 listings cited on AirDNA, Kamloops has only 187 listings. West Kelowna has 410, Penticton 414 and Vernon 274.
West Kelowna only started requiring licences on July 13, 2021 and won’t have data to release on the number of licences issued until later this month.
Vernon is just going through the process of drafting regulations but there is no timeline on when those will go to council.
Penticton and Kamloops did not respond to a request for numbers as of publication time.
Big White has 376 listings, Victoria has 1,063 and Vancouver 3,468.
The site includes data for smaller communities as well, showing 117 listings in Summerland, 130 in Salmon Arm, 133 in Osoyoos, 138 in Peachland and 177 in Lake Country, for example.
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