Winnipeg city council approves new rules for short-term rentals

Winnipeg city councillors voted to to approve a package of regulations on short-term rentals such as Airbnb on Thursday.

New short-term rentals will be limited to primary residences — meaning the place where property owners live. Anyone listing a short-term rental will need to be licensed and pay the accommodation tax.

The new rules include changes proposed by Mayor Scott Gillingham, including extending an exemption to owners who currently own multiple short-term rental properties in areas zoned for single family homes and duplexes.

Last week, Gillingham's executive policy committee voted to allow people to keep up to three listings, in addition to their primary residence, but only in downtown, multi-family and commercial zones.

If council had voted against Gillingham's changes, people like Michelle Finley, who rents the house next to her own home in St. James, would have been out of luck.

"I think this is a happy medium for now," Finley told reporters at city hall on Thursday.

"We'll see where it goes. I know going forward, we're going to be more plugged in with the public service and councillors and talking about the topic. We weren't necessarily at the table as much as we wanted to be leading up to today."

Divisive issue

Councillors and community were divided over the proposed regulations, with some saying they go too far, others saying they don't go far enough.

Coun. Janice Lukes (Waverley West) opposed the amendment grandfathering in multiple listings in single-family areas, saying she receives regular complaints from people in her ward about short-term rental properties.

Others, such as Coun. Matt Allard (St. Boniface), spoke against the limits on how many units people could own, arguing they would lead to lost revenue for the city and possibly lawsuits from short-term rental owners.

"I'm agnostic, I guess, on the number of units [people can list], but I think we should have a robust regulatory process and I don't see why we would arbitrarily cut out a whole potential segment of the market," he told reporters.

Allard brought forward his own motion, which would have allowed multiple listings in all areas of the city, but it was voted down.

There could be more changes to the rules, Gillingham says.

"This is certainly by no means the end of the discussion, or the end of the debate," he said. "This is a first step to really get the ball rolling to establish regulations," he said in a news conference on Thursday.

The city has six months to draft a bylaw for council to vote on.