According to a new analysis by Statistics Canada, there were 880 short-term rental units in Prince Edward Island that could have been used as long-term housing in 2023.
This corresponds to 1.3 percent of all housing in the province. Only BC recorded a higher percentage of 1.38 percent during the review.
For the study, Statistics Canada examined listings on the short-term rental sites Airbnb and Vrbo.
To be considered as a potential long-term residence, a listing had to be available for at least 180 days per year and had to be an eligible listing type, such as a house, apartment or condominium, rather than a vacation home or bed and breakfast.
In total, Statistics Canada found 4,636 short-term rental listings in Prince Edward Island in 2023, of which 880 would have been suitable for long-term accommodation.
“I think it speaks for the priorities”
“I think it reflects the province’s priorities to keep a street of unregulated hotels open during the tourist season while we’re in a housing crisis, even though these units could be returned to the long-term housing market and serve as homes for people,” said Cory Pater of the group PEI Fight for Affordable Housing.
Cory Pater of PEI’s Fight for Affordable Housing wants to see restrictions on short-term rentals expanded and better enforced across the province. (Tony Davis/CBC)
Nationwide, 107,266 potential long-term apartments were offered on the short-term rental market, representing 0.69 percent of all housing units.
Marie-Christine Bernard, deputy director of Statistics Canada and co-author of the report, noted that the study, which used data from Statistics Canada and short-term rental tracking platform AirDNA through 2023, did not examine the impact of short-term rentals on affordability or vacancy rates.
“We wanted to put it into perspective in terms of the housing market. We didn’t necessarily want to say it’s not significant. It depends on the community,” she said.
Restrictions in Charlottetown
This year, BC introduced a restriction that applies to dozens of communities across the province, limiting short-term rentals to accommodations only in the owner’s primary residence.
The City of Charlottetown passed a similar bylaw in November 2023. It is not clear whether the figures collected by Statistics Canada for the report took into account any impact the bylaw might have on the number of short-term rentals in the capital.
Following the passage of the ordinance, Charlottetown City Council granted an exemption for existing short-term rental units.
Pater said Charlottetown’s bylaw needs to be better enforced, adding that he believes PEI should have a province-wide law similar to that in BC.
“The entire province is now a tourist province, so we have to look at the bigger picture,” said Pater.
“We have been in a widely recognized housing crisis for years… and we have not done anything at any level of government regarding short-term rentals.”
New legislation to be debated in autumn
In a statement, the province said it recognizes that “a one-size-fits-all policy does not meet the diverse needs of local communities” and believes local governments are best placed to regulate short-term rentals.
The province’s statement said that for short-term rentals in municipalities with planning authority, written approval must be obtained before a license for a tourism facility can be issued.
The Prince Edward Island provincial government believes that municipalities are best placed to regulate short-term rentals. Charlottetown passed a bylaw to that effect, which came into effect last November. (Julien Lecacheur/Radio-Canada)
“Tourism PEI has compliance officers who review and investigate these matters,” the statement said. “Tourism PEI also monitors booking sites and marketing platforms to ensure that all advertised accommodations display their license number.”
Proposed legislative changes to the Tourism Act would require online listings to have a valid licence number and would require online booking platforms to remove unlicensed listings within seven days of notification from the province. These changes are expected to be debated in Parliament in the fall.
PEI entries have doubled within 2 years
Last year, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation measured a vacancy rate of just 1.1 percent in Prince Edward Island. That’s the lowest rate in the country’s province – and even lower than the percentage of homes used as vacation rentals, according to a new study.
Statistics Canada examined seven years of data and found that in Prince Edward Island, the number of short-term rental listings doubled in two years, from 2,435 in 2017 to a peak of 4,878 in 2019.
According to Statistics Canada, 1,080 of these 2019 listings would have been suitable as long-term housing.
