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Legalize short-term rentals, polled North Shore residents say

Needed accommodation for tourists or exacerbating the housing crisis?
North Shore News
airbnb listings web
A screengrab shows available Airbnb listings in North Vancouver, April 1, 2022Airbnb

For the most part, short-term rentals like Airbnb and VRBO aren't permitted in any of the North Shore's municipalities but enforcement of the rules is rare to non-existent.

With the tourism industry champing for a comeback and the housing crisis continuing unabated, North Shore News polled readers with the question: What should the North Shore do about short-term rentals like Airbnb?

The poll ran from March 16 to April 1. Of the 1,622 votes, we can determine that 662 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:

Seek them out and shut them down. They are making the housing crisis worse. 21.15% local, 26.5% total    
Set up rules to legalize and regulate them, with business licences and zoning rules. 57.85% local, 51.66% total    
Leave them alone. We need more tourist accommodation. 21.00% local, 21.82% total    
  Local   Total

Results are based on an online study of adult North Shore News readers that are located in North Vancouver and West Vancouver. The margin of error – which measures sample variability – is +/- 2.42%, 19 times out of 20.

North Shore News uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.