sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½

Good landlords avoiding bad tenants

As a commercial and residential landlord in Victoria for more than 15 years, I have had lots of wonderful tenants but also a few bad ones.

Once you are dragged through a residential tenancy dispute by a tenant who knows how to weaponize the sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Residential Tenancy Act against an unsuspecting landlord, you can become extremely wary and fearful of “renters.”

Airbnb allows landlords to not only retain control of their property, but brings “guests” instead of “tenants” to your property who take extra good care of it.

Unlike tenants, they are publicly peer reviewed by the Airbnb community.

I use an excellent local vacation rental company that rented my properties to a nurse working at the Royal Jubilee cancer clinic, a UVic student, two families with children, and Islanders who sold their homes and are waiting to buy/renovate their next home.

We follow the 30-day minimum stay rules in Saanich, but if guests need a seven-week stay, or a student only needs September to April, do you charge them the extra weeks or months to satisfy the 30-day rule?

Or do you use Airbnb to fill short-term gaps to cover costs and save your guests money?

The increased Saanich property taxes, coupled with higher interest rates have raised my, and many other homeowners’, costs substantially! Allowing some flexibility in the short-term rental rules for good landlords would be welcome.

Barry Andruschak

Saanich

Short-term rental rules don’t solve anything

If you own a rental property in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½, big brother, also known as Premier David Eby, will tell you your plans have changed, and here are his plans!

Short-term rentals are taboo and those units under our dear leader’s vision, will now be available for long-term rent, assuming those looking to rent can afford it; this is the great unknown!

Many of these present owners want nothing to do with the one-sided Residential Tenancy Act, which they will be saddled with if they are forced into long-term rentals.

It is estimated that many of these landlords will opt out of this socialistic scheme and put their property for sale.

And many, if not most people looking to rent, probably can’t afford Airbnb type housing anyway, so who wins?

If they can’t afford to rent, it’s very likely they can’t afford to buy, resulting in a major disruption with nothing solved by this left-wing government.

This Eby idea does not address the affordable housing problem, these properties that will become available for rent or sale, will not be affordable for the average person/family wanting to live in a very expensive place like sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½!

If this plan fails because people can’t afford the rent, Eby may introduce some scheme whereby financial assistance will be extended to buyers by the government, creating more debt to be paid by the taxpayer.

If you can’t afford to live in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½, do the smart thing, choose elsewhere or at least plan a scouting trip before moving.

Jim Laing

Saanich

Government won’t help the housing crisis

The concern over short-term rentals and other uses of real estate is understandable given the housing crisis we are in. The newly announced legislation may or may not help with the rental crisis.

My suspicion is that it will not.

Though short-term rentals have risen over the last while, if you were to eliminate all of them tomorrow, you would take (according to TC reporting) only 16,000 units out of the short-term rental market.

Would that solve the rental crisis? Not likely.

The province anounced targets for 10 municipalities to add more than 60,000 units (over five years) to address the crisis. Those 16,000 short-term rentals will do little to solve the crisis.

And remember, that target involves just 10 of the many municipalities in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ We will need all municipalities to up the ante on new units to accommodate everyone and ease the vacancy rates.

The attack on short-term rentals is all of a piece with this government’s attack on private property. They destroyed zoning bylaws, attacked those who own multiple properties, and stoke class envy.

Typical of the NDP, they aren’t very democratic. They believe in government by decree and have no interest in the rights of private citizens.

By the way, this government also bought up many hotels for the homeless crisis, taking units out of the hotel market.

Did that increase hotel rates by reducing their supply as well? Did it solve the homeless crisis? I doubt this government will do much to solve the housing crisis.

I fully sympathize with those caught in the housing crisis. We are in a desperate situation, but it took years of government mismanagement to get us in this mess. More government mismanagement won’t get us out, though the NDP is bound to try (it knows no other game).

Don Johnson

Sooke

A reminder about where atheists aren’t found

God will, by government decree, no longer be a part of Remembrance Day ceremonies that are conducted by or participated in by chaplains.

Pity that the enlightened authors of this edict were never given an opportunity to experience first-hand that there are no atheists in foxholes.

Hans Rysdyk

Qualicum Beach

Saanich should work with its residents

In a time when both housing and parking are in short supply, it seems that Saanich might have wanted to consult their taxpayers about how to improve parking along many streets that are not up to par for city streets.

Many of the roads in Saanich do not have sidewalks, let alone proper parking availability.

Many Saanich owners have opened their homes to tenants, which is wonderful. However, most homes do not have enough space to offer tenants or their guests a place to park.

Saanich had the opportunity to increase parking in the areas around Swan Lake when they did water main replacements.

Instead of levelling the sides of the roads and paving them to create parking for residents and their visitors, they decided to put up more no-parking signs and take away many of the parking spaces previously used by residents and guests.

This resulted in some owners being upset with residents parking on any road without no-parking signs.

Perhaps in the future, taxpayers will be consulted on projects that could greatly improve an area and the lives of those who live in Saanich.

The no-parking signs could still be taken down and the areas levelled to create parking and make everyone happier. Let’s try to work together to make things better for Saanich instead of causing neighbour to be angry at other neighbours.

Susan Shentaler

Saanich

Measure the impact of the carbon tax

I don’t claim to be an expert economist but here are a few things I know for sure.

Interest rates have skyrocketed from where they were only a short time ago with no seeming effect on rising prices, especially when it comes to food prices.

The people who grow our food now have to pay a carbon tax. The people who ship the food to the processor have to pay a carbon tax and the people who process the food have to pay a carbon tax.

The people who produce the packaging for the food have to pay a carbon tax as do the people who ship that packaging to the processing plants.

Once the food is packaged, the shippers who ship it to the distribution centres have to pay the carbon tax and of course the distribution centres have to pay their fair share, too.

The shippers who ship from the distribution centres to the retail locations pay the tax and so do the retail locations.

This applies to everything we buy and, being the end consumers, it is borne by all of us.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of our food costs are made up of the carbon tax and CEOs’ multi-million-dollar compensation packages.

So, is it demand vs. supply issues that are driving the price increases, or a brand new tax on just about everything we buy, applied all the way through the supply chain?

Bob Broughton

Saanich

Restore paid education for ferry employees

The crewing shortages at sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Ferry Services could be mitigated by bringing back paid education leave for employees.

The current system reimburses employees for the cost of Transport sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ exams for higher certification. Employees wishing to study for higher certificates for deck or engine room officer often have to use their vacation time to attend courses at the Marine Training Centres.

In bygone years employees were approved for education leave and were provided with their base wage while attending school. Returning to this type of program would go a long way toward improving employee morale and empowering long term loyal employees to get higher certificates.

The company would be more forward thinking by taking this initiative and investing in the future with current employees who have ambitions but are stymied by the financial pressure on their family life.

Capt. E. Allen (retired)

Quathiaski Cove

Water, waste, passengers across the water

In regard to ideas needed on the Gulf Islands to withstand the incoming ravages of climate change, I wonder if they ever considered building a water import pipeline that connects to Salt Spring Island via a suspended cable bridge above Sansum Narrows, or imported via a set of short subsea connections that could feed all of the Southern Gulf Islands?

If feasible, then twinning it with a commercial sewage export pipeline should also be considered along with employing the on-Island corridor for co-installation of an elevated transit monorail or passenger gondola system paid for by private financiers as an initial component of an overall project for Vancouver Island that finances buildout of merchant pumped hydroelectric plants that also source and treat industrial wastewater, urban stormwater and/or seawater.

Dick Tennant

ex OakBay-ite

Coquitlam

Be on guard for red‑light runners

It is an absolute free-for-all out there as far as running red lights. So many use the countdown lights as a excuse to go on a red.

I’m surprised there are not more accidents. We all need to be on guard because there are so many who don’t care.

Brock Carbery

Victoria

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