When I read a recent "letter to the editor" from city hall staffer, Bill Barratt, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I disagree with every sorry excuse he made to justify his conduct. That is, to pursue chalet owners who were alleged to be contravening a municipal bylaw, by "short-term" rentals. His arguments are specious and superficial, and could not withstand the test of objective scrutiny. Due to space, let me just comment on one of the points he made. I would like to set out my case to debunk the TA myth that Mr. Barratt is attempting to proselytize.

Barratt stated that he "wanted the integrity of the neigbhourhood maintained". A little later in his letter, he stated his actions were designed to "protect our neighbourhoods and quality of life of our residents". Oh really? Emotive stuff, but like most hyperbole, without substance once you scratch beneath the service. Simply designed for impact effect.

Let's look at the myth, the faulty logic, and the reality.

Barratt has adopted the premise that any chalet renting out for short-term rentals and not zoned for that purpose, is destroying the fabric of the neighbourhood. Don't ask for any emperical evidence to support that argument of course, as you won't get any. Instead, expect to get some anecdotal feedback from maybe a maximum of a dozen chalet owners having a bad day. By the way, have you recently counted how many residents we have in our community? The number of TA-zoned "supporters" that Barratt has, is so low as to be almost mathematically impossible to quantify. Yet the beat, or beating-up as the case may be, goes on.

Whistler has always had a mix of chalets that have been rented out for short-term stays in its "long" 30 year history, next to chalets that were rented out for long-terms stays, or not rented at all. This continues to this day, and in "conformance" to the bylaw. To pretend otherwise is blatant hypocrisy.

Here are some examples of the "real world" chalet reality:

Reality # 1 - There are numerous chalets in non-TA zoned areas that are legally permitted to rent out "short-term" due to "grandfathered" non-conforming use status, eg they rented out before the bylaw was changed.

Reality # 2 - There are chalet owners in non-TA zoned areas that applied for, and received "spot zoning" of their chalets for "short-term" rentals, before Whistler suddenly closed that door several years ago. Unequal playing field you say? You betcha.

Reality # 3 - All chalet owners in non-TA zoned areas are permitted to rent out "long-term accommodation", eg. 4 consecutive weeks to an organization, group, etc. However, the individual members of that group may only choose to stay for a night, weekend or week, in other words, for a "short-term".

Reality # 4 - In Nicklaus North, the chalets on one side of each street are "TA-zoned" and on the other side of the street are non-TA zoned.

Getting confused? Coming down with a headache from this fascinating but impenetrable logic? Wait, there is still more. It gets better, or worse, depending on your perspective. Here is a whopper. Council in its infinite wisdom decided to approve new subdivisions as "TA zoned". The rationale being that everyone buying into the development would know that everyone else in the neigbhourhood could rent "TA", and that was therefore OK. In other words, everyone in theory could have the ability to, "legally" of course, mess up each other's heads with nightly chalet rentals. The further logic, was that these areas of potential nightly rental hyperactivity would be in segmented subdivision enclaves. You know what happened?

Reality # 5 - All the lots in these new "TA-zoned" subdivisions cost millions of bucks. Add the house and we are talking a minimum of 3 million dollar 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) homes. When people are parking that sort of coin into a chalet and personalizing it for their exquisite/rustic tastes, do you think they need/want to rent it out for "nightly" or weekly rentals to strangers to help defray the mortgage? In other words, the riff-raff that Barratt would have us believe are being re-located from the "old" non-TA zoned neighbourhoods? Of course not. A better question is what mortgage? Also, where are the new TA rental pools coming "onstream"? There aren't any.

Reality # 6 - Where are most of the new subdivisions opening up that are zoned "TA rentals"? Higher up the mountain of course. Beyond existing "non-TA" zoned subdivisions of course. Does this strike you as a bit odd? Inequitable? That is, permitting increased "short-term rental" traffic to flow through and congest one neighbourhood, in order that the "better/newer" neighbourhood can exercise its short-term rental rights, that the "older" neighbourhood is not permitted to have?

To summarize my point. What is the myth and what is the reality on the non-TA neighbourhoods going to the dogs, as Barratt would like the public to believe? After all, he purports to be protecting us from the unruly hordes at the gates. When Barratt is espousing his rhetorical point of view, my question is this. Is he being foolishly naive, blissfully unaware, easily confused, cynically manipulative, or deliberately misleading? You be the judge.

Craig Marshall
Vancouver

Whistler Home Owner News at http://whistler.resortac.com/homeowners