Prince George City Council isn’t backing down on their goal of opting-out of the province’s short-term rental rules.
At tonight’s (Monday) meeting, Prince George City Council discussed a letter sent by Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon in response to Council’s request to opt-out of the short-term accommodations rules.
In that letter, Kahlon denied City Council’s claims that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s data was not “statistically reliable”.
“It’s not too often we, as a council, we vote unanimously to advocate to a government to do something, and opt-out of something,” said Mayor Simon Yu.
“We received a letter, with some explanations, I’m still not quite sure of the data.”
“I do believe we have a case to go for the second round, to ask the Ministry to see if they’ll change their mind,” Yu continued.
“I don’t know if we write another letter or not, but I think it’s really unfortunate, the response,” said Councillor Brian Skakun.
“We laid out our arguments for health care professionals, and all the other folks, including those with hospice care coming to our community, relying on these units.”
City Manager Walter Babicz also noted they don’t know how much municipalities will be asked to be involved.
It was also noted that Kahlon stated he would be willing to meet with Prince George City Council.
“I think that’s the first option, if that doesn’t work, we send a letter and see where it goes,” said Councillor Ron Polillo.
“I do feel that we have a little bit of a public back-and-forth with the Minister right now, and I would hope that an in-person meeting can help settle and rebuild that relationship a bit,” said Councillor Tim Bennett.
Other items discussed tonight included building permit statistics, and presentations from the BC SPCA and Share Hope.
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