Tim Rhodes has always been a bit of a policy wonk when it comes to municipal affairs but his recent research into Bowen Island’s shortage of rental accommodation was much more personal — and public.
At the end of June, Rhodes and his wife Darcy Buzzelle found out that the owners of three-bedroom home they’d been renting for eight years needed it for a family member. When Buzzelle wrote about their search online, saying there was a risk they’d have to leave Bowen if they couldn’t find someplace to live, they became the face of a growing problem on the island.
As Meribeth Deen reported in last week’s Undercurrent, when real estate was in the doldrums, property owners who wanted to sell decided to bide their time by renting out their houses instead. Now that sales have warmed up considerably, a lot of renters are worried that they’ll have to find new accommodation if the new owners want to move in.
It won’t be easy.
As Rhodes is now painfully aware, there are very few rental opportunities on the island. Wolfgang Duntz is the only developer who has built rental spaces — apartments above businesses in Village Square and triplexes below the municipal hall — since the General Store was built in the 1960s/70s.
Secondary suites were allowed a few years ago but that bylaw primarily served to legalize existing rental spaces rather than create new ones, Rhodes says.
Even if the municipality decides to go ahead with an accessory building bylaw, the cost of construction won’t make them very affordable, he adds. Rhodes does the math: an 800 sq.ft. accessory building would cost $200 to $250 a square foot to construct ($200,000) and then there are permit fees, taxes and financing costs on top of that.
“Everything helps,” says the former mayoral candidate, “but “its certainly not going to make a dramatic difference.”
Most rental stock on the island is houses, which leaves tenants vulnerable. Already, many tenants have to find ways to cope with owners who want use of their houses during the summer months. The Rhodeses spent seven years on a month-by-month renewal instead of a yearly lease because rules otherwise make it difficult to evict someone who don’t want to leave, he says.
Rental housing security is therefore also an issue for Rhodes, who’s started using the term housing diversity instead of affordability to reflect the issues facing islanders.
He’s one of the lucky ones, having finally found a place last week.
Now he’s thinking of starting a renters’ group to give voice to some of these concerns, which are much more prevalent than many people think because people who rent aren’t often very vocal.
“Renters tend to be a little bit under the radar,” says Rhodes, who’d like the municipality to consider giving developers the option of creating rental units instead of donating parkland.
“If people assume you own your own home, you let them make that assumption because there’s a stigma.
“People tend to look at renters as a problem, not as fully vested members of a community.”
