Short-term rental corporations ‘predatory’, says former Iqaluit mayor
Kenny Bell encourages city to enforce bylaw he helped pass in 2021
This screenshot shows available listings in Iqaluit for short-term rentals during the week of July 5 through 12. (Screenshot courtesy of Airbnb)
Former Iqaluit mayor Kenny Bell addressed city council as a private homeowner this week to raise an alarm about what he calls “predatory” short-term rental companies.
Former Iqaluit mayor Kenny Bell is asking city council to enforce an existing bylaw that prevents companies from buying houses to rent for short-term stays. (Photo by Daron Letts)
“They’re taking advantage of an already broken system,” he said during Tuesday’s Iqaluit city council meeting. “A lot of times these businesses are predatory in nature.”
Short-term rental websites, such as Airbnb and Vrbo, allow private property owners to post rooms or entire condos, apartments or houses for rent.
There has been a backlash against these sites over the years across Canada because investors buy up properties solely to list them for short-term rentals, which reduces housing stock and drives up prices.
A handful of properties are available for rent in Iqaluit at any given time on Airbnb and Vrbo.
Iqaluit, as well as Nunavut in general, has long suffered from a severe housing shortage.
“It’s not the mom and pop that is renting out a room to make a few dollars to help pay for their mortgage or rent,” Bell said to council.
“It’s the stand-alone three-bedroom, four-bedroom houses that are being taken off the market by companies — corporations.”
Bell pointed to a zoning bylaw he helped implement as mayor in November 2021 that dictates a homeowner renting a room must also be a resident of that dwelling. A detached unit in a home occupied by the owner is permitted in the bylaw. As well, homeowners can rent their entire property for as many as 180 nights per year.
“Council adopted these rules a number of years ago because housing matters,” he said. “I’m not asking staff to do any extra work other than asking council to direct staff to enforce the current bylaw.”
Nunatsiaq News asked the City of Iqaluit how many times it has enforced this bylaw since its passage. The city does enforce its bylaws, city spokesperson Geoff Byrne said in an email, through working with residents towards compliance. If that doesn’t work, the city “may take further enforcement action.”
“The city does not publicly report enforcement statistics by individual bylaw provisions,” Byrne said.
In a message to Nunatsiaq News, Bell offered Tuttarvik Bed and Breakfast Inc. as an example. The company lists three properties on its website. People can book individual rooms inside these homes or an entire home.
Tuttarvik Bed and Breakfast owner Kumarasamy Venugopan told Nunatsiaq News he is in compliance with the city’s bylaws.
“I can guarantee you that I do follow the bylaw,” he said. “I do have multiple businesses, but I do everything by the book.”
Venugopan then politely ended the interview with no further comment.
When asked, Byrne also declined comment on the compliance of individual businesses.
At council, Bell found an ally in Coun. Kyle Sheppard, who was on council when Bell was mayor and the bylaw was passed.
“It’s completely unacceptable to me,” Sheppard said. “I share your concern with the proliferation of short-term rentals during a housing crisis.”
Sheppard suggested some short-term rental operations might have been grandfathered in — meaning they were permitted to continue operating — despite the bylaw.
Sheppard suggested that future short-term rental operations can be weeded out in the business-licensing process.
“There can be some work that we can take away and look at when it comes to the business licensing side and the planning and development side along with municipal enforcement to come up with a plan,” Sheppard said.
“Until such a time where we can meet the basic needs of everybody in town, I don’t think we should allow any expansion of this type.”
With respect, Kenny Bell lecturing this council on housing supply is rich.
As mayor, what was actually delivered? Joamie Court and zero commercial/industrial lots. That is not exactly a housing revolution.
Meanwhile, this council, in one meeting, advanced more industrial lots in West 40, awarded 30 to 40 new homes in Tundra Ridge to a developer, and approved 116 public housing units. That is real supply moving forward, not just another task force, press quote, or political soundbite.
Airbnb may be an easy target, but it is not the root cause of Iqaluit’s housing crisis. The problem is supply and demand. We do not have enough homes, enough serviced lots, enough staff housing, enough public housing, enough market housing, or enough commercial and industrial land to support growth.
Calling short-term rentals “predatory” might make for a good headline, but it does not build a single unit. More lots, more homes, more density, and more development approvals do. On that score, this council has already done more in one meeting than Kenny and his housing task force delivered in office.
Anonymous comments are easy. Facts are harder.
No one has ever said Airbnb is the sole cause of Iqaluit’s housing crisis. The housing crisis has many causes, and we need to address all of them.
During my term as Mayor
• We created the Mayor’s Housing Task Force on affordable housing to bring governments, Inuit organizations, developers, and other stakeholders together to identify practical solutions.
• We secured $214 million in federal funding for water infrastructure. Without water and sewer capacity, large-scale housing development simply doesn’t happen.
• We pushed for increased density, additional serviced lots, and reducing barriers to housing development.
• We kept housing at the centre of Council’s agenda and advocated for long-term solutions instead of short-term politics.
Housing projects approved today don’t appear overnight. Many are built on years of planning, engineering, infrastructure investments, negotiations, and advocacy by previous councils, governments, and partners.
As for Airbnb, enforcing an existing bylaw isn’t an alternative to building more housing, it’s part of the solution. Every full-time short-term rental occupying an entire home is one less home available to a resident. We need to build more homes while also protecting the housing stock we already have. Those two ideas complement each other.
I support more serviced lots. I support more public housing. I support more market housing. I support faster approvals. I support higher density. I also support enforcing the bylaws that already exist. None of those positions are contradictory.
I also publicly supported the 116-unit public housing project when it faced opposition. I said then, and I still believe now, that we cannot afford to reject badly needed housing simply because some people don’t want it nearby or there isn’t enough parking. If we want to solve the housing crisis, we have to be willing to approve housing.
One last thing.
The beauty of democracy is that if I wanted to spend my time campaigning to be Mayor again, I would have run. I chose not to.
Today, I’m simply a resident speaking on an issue I care deeply about. I don’t need a title to advocate for my community.
If this Council builds more housing than any council before it, I’ll be the first to applaud them. That’s the goal. Housing isn’t about who gets the credit, it’s about getting Iqalummiut into homes.
Anonymous critics can keep trying to take shots. I’ll keep speaking up when I think something matters, we are different.
So after all this world salad Kenny how many new homes got built during your time as Mayor?
Word salad or did you actually mean world salad? Always hard to understand anonymous folk.
You do have access to the internet, correct?
Housing doesn’t work on a four-year election cycle. Although we did build 18 units for Inuit for the first time in City history, Councils don’t pour foundations, they approve bylaws, secure infrastructure funding, service land, build relationships with governments, and create the conditions for development.
By your logic, this Council can’t claim credit for every house built during its term either. Many of those projects were years in the making before a shovel ever hit the ground.
Again during my term we secured $214 million for water infrastructure, advanced housing policy, changed bylaws, created the Mayor’s Housing Task Force, built relationships with funding partners, and consistently advocated for more housing. Those decisions didn’t just disappear when my term ended, they continue to enable housing today and into the future.
That’s how municipal government works. Planning comes first. Construction follows.
Has anyone checked to see what the residents of Pangnirtung think of short term rentals in Iqaluit? They deserve to be consulted. If Iqaluit has short term rentals Pangnirtung is entitled to them as well.
You ma’am or sir, win the Internet today!
Yes, we need to ask Pang on their opinion LOL it is very bad that we didnt ask them.
Like so many other things, the issue of short term rentals is unique in Iqaluit, and I don’t think it really compares to the problem that other cities are experiencing. Iqaluit relies so much more on outside workers to staff our government, and provide both public and private services that we rely on. Those workers require staff housing or they can’t come up and both our economy and public and private sectors would suffer as a result.
As I said, the issue of short term rentals is more complex here. The issue is more than tourists taking housing from the locals. Like it or not, our economy depends on short term and longer term staff housing.
Kenny Bell: “The beauty of democracy is that if I wanted to spend my time campaigning to be Mayor again, I would have run. I chose not to.”
Remember Kenny Bell was forced to resign as Mayor because he went to Iceland on City funds and admitted to not attending the conference including not attending to present on the panels he was scheduled to appear on.
https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/iqaluit-mayor-kenny-bell-resigns/
Pay attention to the topic at hand, if you are able
😂 “Forced to resign” there is absolutely no function for council to remove anyone, and you’re talking about me, that would have made news.
I decided the job wasn’t for me anymore. If I wanted to keep being mayor, I would have. If I wanted to be mayor today, I would have run.
Every councillor and the CAO knew I was resigning before I even left the city.
As for Iceland… I had an amazing vacation. Every cent of that trip came out of my own pocket, and I’d recommend it to anyone.
I even personally paid for the conference fees. https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/former-iqaluit-mayor-pays-back-money-for-iceland-trip/ As you can see here, 9k which was a wrong number is significantly higher than an average trip to Iceland, to be factual I paid over 11k back
Some people seem more interested in campaigning against a guy who isn’t even running than explaining what they’ve accomplished themselves. 🙂