In the face of growing delays and distractions, Osoyoos Town Council has instructed the town’s planning department to fast-track the drafting and implementation of new short-term rental (STR) regulations as part of an ongoing zoning bylaw update.
The sheer size, complexity, and cost of the STR regulation process have caused council members to demur on quick action at past Committee of the Whole meetings, but their impatience was palpable at the October 10 meeting when Urban Systems’ Brittany Tuttle presented new timeline options that could push implementation all the way back to 2026.
Tuttle explained that, because Urban Systems has also been working with the Town to apply for the province’s Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) program, an incentive-based system dedicated to energizing housing supply growth by offering funding to local governments, their efforts have been stretched in many directions.
Additionally, a major staffing change in the planning department which saw the sudden departure of Gina MacKay, Director of Planning and Development Services, led Rod Risling, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) to ask if Tuttle and Urban Systems could widen the scope of their contract.
This would include shouldering the drafting and application development process once their initial task of presenting recommendations to council was complete.
Though the additional responsibility will actually streamline parts of the process by allowing them to integrate the STR regulations into the larger zoning bylaw update, Tuttle grouped it with their work on the HAF award as “moving pieces” that have delayed their initial schedule for the release and implementation of those bylaw updates.
If the federal government is able to stay on its own schedule, Tuttle predicted that the Town of Osoyoos should know the status of their HAF application by the end of the year, but she and Risling emphasized that the real work associated with implementing those funds – widespread zoning assessments that could eat up manpower into the summer of 2025 — would start there.
They now project that STR regulations will likely have to wait until early 2026 if the HAF application is successful or early 2025 if it fails, marking a delay of one to two years from their initial projection of a January 2024 implementation date.
“There are two conflicting pieces,” Risling said about the new zoning bylaws connected to HAF and the implementation of STR regulations, “and it’s more efficient to do it all together. If we don’t … there is a band-aid solution [that would cost] around $20,000 or $30,000 to implement the STR piece one year earlier.”
“So that’s the dilemma: implement one year earlier at the cost of $20,000 to $30,000, or wait one more year and save that money.”
However, Councillors Johnny Cheong and Zachary Poturica both expressed their view that the issue of cost was not so cut-and-dry.
Cheong pointed out that the town would still generate revenue under the “band-aid approach” because they would be issuing business licenses under the new STR regulations, and Poturica felt that the enforcement costs mounting up under the current bylaws should also be taken into consideration.
Councillor Jim King also argued for haste, and while Mayor Sue McKortoff initially questioned whether they should wait for new planning staff to be hired and re-evaluate the matter then, Risling and Tuttle both gave strong warnings that postponing council’s decision any further would only pile delays on delays and make matters worse.
“I agree with my colleagues here,” said Councillor Myers Bennett. “I think we need to do this a lot sooner than later.
We’ve been playing around with this for two, three years and it’s been getting worse and worse, and people are upset everywhere. We’ve got to do something.”
Going forward, council instructed Risling and the planning department to prioritize speed when working on STR regulations with an intended implementation date of early 2025, and to determine what staffing needs must be met before the implementation occurs.
