Publicly-owned affordable housing a priority for NDP on P.E.I.

The NDP of Prince Edward Islandmade a housing announcement in Charlottetown Tuesdaymorning, which includes a focus on publicly-owned affordable housing and generating income from atax onshort-term rentals.

NDP Leader Joe Byrne said the current practice of offering grants, loans and incentives to private developers isn't an ideal way to create long-termaffordable housing on the Island.

"To put the investment in the private sector, when that place gets sold, what happens with that contract?" Byrne said.

He said publicly owned and operated housing initiatives withgeared-to-income rental rateshaven'tbeen constructed on the Island in many years and that's contributed to the lack of affordable housing available now.

"Public housing needs to be publicly owned and publicly managed because [private development is]done with a different objective than to take care of people," said Byrne.

Byrne said units are needed urgently Island-wide, and the NDP would begin by identifying funding sources from all three levels of government and working to secure available land.Once these buildings were constructed and operational, Byrne said, ahousing bank would be createdto connect those in need with available units.

The short-term rental market has to be taxed like it's a commercial establishment. Joe Byrne

"The vacancy rate goes up and there's less of an incentive for landlords to say,'I'm going to move from long term to short-term rentals,'" said Byrne.

Byrne said private-sector construction projects would also be required to meet a provincial definition of affordable housing through measures such as tax relief.

Short-term rentals

Byrne said more can be done to increase access to housing for Islanders through regulation, including bringing short-term rentals into a regulatory framework similar to what's used for hotels.

Byrne saidthat his party would apply a room tax on short-term rentalsin addition to the provincial portion of the HST.

Short-term rentals would also see the commercial tax rate applied, even if it is a private home or small building.

"The short-term rental market has to be taxed like it's a commercial establishment," said Byrne.

"If you're in a place that has a room levy, the short-term market should also charge the room levy.That's money that is used to support the whole industry, so we should be doing that."

To limit the number of short-term rentals, the NDPplan on restricting short-term rentalsto principal residences only.

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