Head of neighbourhood coalition opposing Vancouver housing strategy accused of running illegal Airbnb

By ThinkPol Staff

The head of a coalition of Vancouver neighbourhood groups opposing City of Vancouver’s recently unveiled housing strategy stands accused of running an illegal Airbnb operation.

The City of Vancouver’s Housing Vancouver report^[1]http://council.vancouver.ca/20171128/documents/rr1.pdf outlines a strategy for densifying more affluent low-density neighbourhoods like Kerrisdale to add 72,000 housing units.

This the includes the addition of as many 12,000 low-income units, and 24,000 new rental units including 4,000 laneway homes.

Housing Vancouver also sets a target 36,000 additional affordable condos, townhouses and coach houses for first-time homebuyers, families, and downsizing seniors.

Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods, which represents 27 individual residents’ groups, opposes the City of Vancouver’s plan on the grounds that “focus on additional supply through up zoning has proven to be one of the primary contributors to increased land inflation and undermines our shared objective of improving housing affordability.”^[2]http://coalitionvan.org/posts/cvn-to-council-housing-vancouver-strategy/

But critics are questioning the credibility of Dorothy Barkley, the co-chair of the coalition, after it emerged that Barkley turned one of her suites into an illegal Airbnb hotel last year^[3]https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/4137579.

“The Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods has consistently lobbied against change, and I suspect its constituents are older homeowners who do not directly feel the bite of the housing crisis,” Vancouverite Alec Smecher told ThinkPol. “I’m sure many of these people worked hard to reach financial security, but I think they’re blind, sometimes willfully, to the unprecedented hardships that less-fortunate and younger Vancouverites are facing.”

Critics argue that Barkley’s letter to the Mayor and Council of Vancouver is especially hypocritical.

“Retaining current rental stock receives relatively little attention, despite being the most affordable option for residents,” the letter authored by Barkley and the other co-chair Larry Benge reads. “Retaining character houses by encouraging secondary suites that can provide additional rental housing and mortgage helper income will have less impact on land inflation than demolition and new larger developments.”

If Barkley really cared about increasing the rental stock by encouraging secondary suites, she should not have turned her own secondary suite into an illegal Airbnb hotel, critics point out.

“I rent, and have been forced to move several times in the last years,” Smecher added. “I’m fortunate to be well employed and weathered the stress and cost, but consider the recent news story about two senior women living in a borrowed van in North Vancouver.”

“As prices increase and units are taken off the rental market, I’m not the kind of person who is being ejected from the bottom; they are,” Smecher said. “Homeowners like Ms. Barkley are playing an active role.”

Smecher feels that the City of Vancouver’s housing strategy should’ve been introduced much earlier.

“The City of Vancouver, like all levels of government, is now trying to catch up after years of indefensible neglect,” Smecher said. “The time to have solved the housing crisis was proactively, when there was credible evidence that a combination of factors were creating a monster ‒ AirBnB, foreign capital, failed industry self-regulation, criminality, and inflationary financial policy.”

“Tackling this would have required political risk-taking and it was probably easier to wait,” Smecher added. “Now the housing crisis literally has a death toll associated with it. While all levels of government are finally turning activist, it’s cold comfort to those who
are homeless, or left their home city for greener pastures, or stayed and suffered.”

Barkley’s Airbnb listing boasts of “Private entrance to a charming upstairs suite in a heritage Craftsman house in Vancouver’s vibrant & eclectic Commercial Drive. It is a short walk to over 100 restaurants & a mix of shops, while the Vancouver East Cultural Centre and its live theatre is but steps away.”

Smecher feels that Vancouver homeowners ought to be more sensitive to the plight of the city’s underhoused.

“I attended the hearings at City Hall and heard many home-owners saying the same thing: they’d like someone to do something about the crisis, but only if it doesn’t affect their side gig,” Smecher said. “They spoke with horror about the personal financial catastrophe that would follow any AirBnB regulation. Those homeowners need to understand that they’re staring into the maelstrom that the rest of us already live in, as we try to raise our kids, live our lives, and build our communities.”

All short-term rentals in entire homes/apartments are currently banned in Vancouver^[4]http://vancouver.ca/doing-business/short-term-rentals.aspx.

Even under the new regulations coming into force next April, Airbnb units in secondary suites will remain illegal.

Dorothy Barkley told ThinkPol that she only started offering her upstairs suite on Airbnb after her four children left for university, and that she continues to rent out her basement suite to long-term tenants.

Barkley insists that she is unable to offer the suite long term as she needs to keep it available for when her children come to visit.

Barkley added that as a retiree without a pension, she needs the Airbnb income to afford her home and offer the basement suite to long-term tenants.

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