Renting in Sun Peaks continually challenges newcomers and long-time community members as the winter population swells with an influx of tourism and seasonal employees.
Factors aside from the increase in seasonal population include permanent population growth, a lack of affordable housing options and the popularity of vacation rentals for visitors and owners.
Between 2016 and 2021, census data showed the population in Sun Peaks increased 127.9 per cent, jumping from 616 to 1,404. While the population has skyrocketed, housing for permanent residents has not. In 2021, there were 1,506 private dwellings in the village, but only 622 housed permanent residents.
In 2022, Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Municipality (SPMRM) said they could potentially break ground in 2023 on an employee housing complex on Parcel 74 that would include non-market options for purchase and rent, but the project has yet to start.
Additionally, short-term rentals (STRs) remain popular locally and province-wide.
In Sun Peaks there are 427 STRs with business licenses to legally operate according to municipal data. According to provincial data, the growth of houses-turned-vacation rentals has resulted in over 28,000 STRs in B.C. alone.
This has led to the province introducing sweeping new legislation aimed at putting existing housing stock back on the market.
One of the key requirements is that the STR must be the principal dwelling of the owner. The requirement doesn’t apply to resort municipalities but the local government can choose to opt-in.
SPMRM has yet to make a decision on its position.
Finding housing in Sun Peaks
Kate Culos and her partner are spending their second winter season in Sun Peaks. Culos spent her first winter in staff accommodations through Sun Peaks Resort LLP (SPR).
Over the summer, Culos and their partner lived in a short-term lease that required them to move out by mid-December. The choice worked at the time because Culos didn’t know whether they would put down roots. By the summer, the couple decided they wanted to stay, so she started looking for housing for the winter.
Culos approached hunting for housing methodically, starting with analyzing posts on Sun Peaks Survivors and other Facebook groups.
“They all kind of sounded the same,” Culos said.“It was, ‘in search of a place, please.’ There weren’t really a lot of listings for houses, people’s posts weren’t intriguing for me to click on.”
With a background in graphic design, Culos understands business marketing. So, she took a different approach and designed a social media post to catch eyes and hopefully, a home. She described the rental resume they put together as “colourful and eye-grabbing,” helping them stand out from the regular text posts that are more common on the groups.
The couple’s resume included information about themselves, how long they wanted to stay, life goals and a bit about their rental history, as well as photos and references.
Homeowners began to reach out and they started viewing properties with a list of non-negotiables in hand. Being experienced renters for years in Jasper, Culos understood the market would include high rents and few units available full-time year round. But she didn’t want to compromise on housing needs.
Culos required the space to be a legal suite and the conditions of the home were important. For example, one unit they visited had a cracked front window. When Culos and her partner mentioned it to the homeowner, they explained the previous tenants broke it when the door stopped working and they never got around to fixing it.
“That was a pretty big red flag for us because it showed that the landlord didn’t really care about the unit they were renting out,” Culos said.
Eventually, after viewing illegal suites – and being ghosted by numerous landlords – Culos found housing through word of mouth. By being vocal with coworkers and her broader network, she was ultimately able to connect with a homeowner before their unit went up for grabs online.
Culos was successful because she was looking early and had community connections. While her tips about pitching yourself and standing firm with your goals are useful, sometimes there’s the option of finding housing through an employer.
Employer sponsored housing
Word of mouth was also how Rob O’Toole, co-owner of Vertical Cafe and Sun Peaks Mountain Restort Municipality (SPMRM) councillor, started managing staff housing.
O’Toole has lived in Sun Peaks on and off for two decades, and he’s owned the cafe for five years. Housing has become so competitive that he started leasing properties for his staff in the last year and a half.
O’Toole works with a recruiting firm called Global Working Holidays which advised him the housing market in resort communities was tightening coming out of COVID-19, and employers who worked to secure housing for their staff have a better chance of gaining high-calibre workers. That matched what he saw online, with increasing numbers of people looking for accommodation come winter.
So, he leased a property after some of his employees left at the end of the winter season. O’Toole asked his staff to inform the property owner he was interested in signing a lease, which secured housing for his staff.
“That’s how we started out…I guess, for lack of a better term, becoming property managers.”
O’Toole now leases two properties and rents the rooms to his staff, which ensures his business can stay open throughout the busy winter season and steady summer. However, the choice means he’s subsidizing housing for periods of the year when he’s required to pay rent but doesn’t need to house as many staff members.
SPR also works to secure housing for their seasonal employees.
Amy Blakeney, chief operating officer and chief financial officer for the SPR, broke down the resort’s winter employee and housing numbers for SPIN.
Each ski season, the resort hires 650 seasonal staff, and they have around 350 beds. Some are dorm-style accommodations, others hotel rooms in Sun Peaks Grand and a few private accommodations in the village. About 80 per cent of seasonal employees aren’t local, and about 75 per cent of non-local staff are in resort housing, according to Blakeney.
If staff can’t secure housing within the resort, Blakeney said they direct people to Survivors and other websites, but the concept of community connection came up once again as a reliable method for securing a roof over your head.
That’s easier said than done if you’ve never been to Sun Peaks or are already from here.
“The reality is for some people, if they’ve accepted job offers and they can’t find accommodation, then they won’t be coming,” Blakeney explained. “We’re keenly aware of that.”
To meet the rising needs, SPR has a new staff accommodation that will add almost 60 more rooms for their employees and is slated to open in fall 2024.
The resort is looking into an incentive program that Aspen’s ski community has implemented, called Tenents for Turns. The program provides free ski passes to homeowners who rent their properties to staff.
“I’ve asked our team to investigate and make a recommendation,” Blakeney said.
The municipality has also stepped in to encourage long-term renting throughout the community. In response to concerns over the lack of housing for staff this winter, SPMRM called for homeowners in single-family residential zoning to lease legal suites to employees and employers long-term.
Mayor Al Raine told SPIN multiple homeowners approached the municipality, but few businesses reached out.
“Only one came forward, which was shocking to me,” Raine said.
While Raine said SPMRM could improve its messaging around housing needs, the offer is still available for businesses and homeowners to connect through the municipality.
What are landlords looking for?
Pam Duval has rented her property seasonally and as an Airbnb. She was clear that having deep conversations about what each person’s needs are helps her decide on who to rent to.
“It’s really good to go and have a heart-to-heart with them and see what they need and to really lay out expectations about how you want your home to be cared for in regards to being peaceful with your neighbours,” Duval said.
She recommended landlords understand some people are first-time renters and mentioned it helps to explain the legalese in a tenant agreement to the tenant so they understand their rights and responsibilities.
Tricia Landry and her husband, Peter Buchmuller, are homeowners who rent their property out long-term but previously rented the property as an STR. They echoed what Culos had to say about wading through rental units on Sun Peaks Survivors, and they had advice about what helps them decide who to rent to.
“We like to see mature people, someone who has a full-time job up here, someone who is not a seasonal worker,” Landry explained. “We do want to have a relationship with our tenants.”
Landry and Buchmuller like renting to employees who help the year-round community function.
“We want to be able to keep our firefighters,nurses, doctors and teachers…and if we can’t house our essential service workers, we’re not going to be a community,” Landry said.
As landlords, it also gives them the security of knowing their tenants won’t be out of a job when a season ends, which could impact their ability to pay for rent moving forward.
Emma Hull is another property owner who rented her studio suite out. The impetus for Hull was seeing the volume of people looking and her desire for a functioning economy.
“I enjoy there being businesses here that I can go and get a coffee or buy chocolate, go out for a meal, even having people running a ski lift, and I know that they need somewhere to live,” Hull said. “So I want it to be part of the solution, not just part of the problem.”
Hull was contacted by an acquaintance after posting her unit on social media. Landry and Buchmuller said when a long-term tenant leaves, their previous renter often has a list of applicants already in hand. And Culos found their housing through a network before it was posted online.
By the time landlords post their unit on Sun Peaks Survivors, it immediately becomes inundated with comments tagging people who are still on the hunt, increasing competition while swamping homeowners with rental applicants.
That could be one reason why landlords prefer to connect with people already in the community. Still, it doesn’t solve the issue for newcomers or long-time residents renting in Sun Peaks.
One solution could be increasing the affordable housing stock for long-term residents to rent and buy.
Construction on Parcel 74 hasn’t broken ground because the wastewater infrastructure is already at capacity, Raine said. A project this size would have to wait until the wastewater treatment plant is upgraded, which is happening in phases and started this year.
“It would be springtime at the earliest,” Raine explained. “A lot depends too on the marketplace and real estate. We’re trying to make sure that housing is dedicated for employee rentals, that makes it tougher to get built in terms of finances.”
The municipality also applied for a CMHC housing accelerator fund, but has yet to hear whether its proposal has been accepted.
Editors note, Jan. 22, 2024: This article has been updated to correct the number of short-term rentals in Sun Peaks.
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