Maple Ridge takes another step toward regulating short term rentals

Maple Ridge visitors might have a tougher time finding Airbnbs as the city creates stricter short-term rental regulations.

In an effort to regulate the city’s short-term rental market, Maple Ridge city council pushed ahead a number of bylaws at Tuesday night’s council meeting, including amending zoning bylaw to bring short term rentals under one framework and amending a bylaw to introduce licensing for short-term rentals.

The Zone Amending Bylaw requires a public hearing, and the licensing bylaw requires a public notification.

While all councillors voted in favour of each bylaw amendment, some expressed their hesitancy around short term rentals that might take long-term residences off the rental market.

“I’m not a huge fan, when we have such a low vacancy rate,” said Coun. Korleen Carreras. (Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows have a 0.8 vacancy rate, according to October 2024 data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation).

At a committee of the whole meeting beforehand,  Coun. Jenny Tan said she was “uncomfortable” that there’s one short term rental allowed per property, “because that could be used for a long term-rental.”

Staff said the new regulations are intended to allow property owners some flexibility by allowing them one short term rental licence per lot, as they try to manage “mortgage helpers” while also maintaining rentals on the market.

Coun. Tan said she understood this, “Mortgage payments are killing everyone right now . . . we’re in this uncomfortable place of having to balance all the needs.”

Mayor Dan Ruimy said that Short-Term Rentals are a small piece of getting more homes on the market — the major factor is building more rental units.

Coun. Onyeka Dozie also pointed out that “Airbnbs serve as hotels in Maple Ridge,” since there are limited hotels in the community. 

Short term rentals include providers like Airbnb and VRBO, but not motels or hotels.

Council began discussing short-term rentals in 2019, when there was a need to accommodate visitors for the 2020 BC Summer Games (which were postponed to 2024 due to COVID). At a workshop earlier this year, they added triplexes and fourplexes to the framework to accommodate the expected growth of small-scale, multi-unit housing.

In the future, operators will require municipal approval to register on B.C.’s short-term rental registration portal. It’s currently waived for Maple Ridge residents until the city adopts their bylaw.

In 2023, the province introduced legislation to regulate short-term rentals due to concerns they were taking long-term rentals off the market. The province required these properties to be in a operators primary residence and include a business licence number.

The city’s proposed framework has a number of requirements for potential short-term rental operators that align with the provincial legislation.

Short-term rentals must be within a single-detached house, secondary suite, detached garden suite, duplex, triplex, or fourplex. The minimum lot size is 371 square metres. There’s a maximum of six guests per listing. There can be one whole-unit listing per property or a maxim of three bedrooms individually rented. It has to be on the owner’s principal residence.

This regulation is urban residences, not those in the Agriculture Land Reserve or rural areas that typically can accommodate more guests. City staff said they are working on this separately.