The short-term rental market is set to change in Calgary.

City hall has plans to make things safer and simpler for both renters and neighbours for places listed on sites like Airbnb.

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The city administration report is calling for tiered licensing based on the frequency of rentals, safety inspections, a registry as well as public education on short-term rentals. The market is currently dominated by Airbnb and used by people like Brandi Sidoryk, a professional musician.

“For me, personally as a host and Airbnb guest because I stay on both sides of it, I am fine with regulation but I do think they need to be fair and they need to be really tailored to who we really are as hosts and what hosting does for us in the community,” she said.

Coun. Ward Sutherland, who requested the report over a year ago, said he’d like to see licensing for Airbnb hosts.

“There are some people that just rent five or six times a year [and] in that case we don’t want to bug them, but people who rent 90 nights a year, that’s a different story. We should have licensing,” he said.  “We want to make sure, for example, we have fire inspectors coming … and they have smoke detectors and signs how to get out of the house, just [simple] stuff that should be there anyway.”

There are over 3,300 active short-term listings in the city and over half are filled less than 30 days a year.

If approved, the proposals will eventually become a bylaw.

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