In the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, the hurricane of tourists gave way to the winter winds. And if life seems to be slowing down, the discussions are going well on this Tuesday evening at the end of January. On the Zoom platform, dozens of people are connected to listen to the mayor of the Magdalen Islands and the acting director of the Territorial Development and Urban Planning Department talk about a subject that is a source of concern for many islanders.
“Over the past few years, we have seen the Islands gain in popularity,” says the mayor, Jonathan Lapierre. However, this good news brings its share of “very real challenges and issues”. If people are gathered that evening, it is to discuss the virtues and defects of a draft regulation that would limit the creation of tourist residences in the future.
“The rest of us have children,” says a Madelinoise who participates in the consultation with her spouse. “It scares us a bit to see how difficult it is to have access to a property or land,” she said, echoing the concerns of many.
There is a lack of housing in the Magdalen Islands, a deficit that the municipality estimated at 200 in 2018. As elsewhere in Quebec, some people buy a second home in the Islands and take the opportunity to rent it for short periods to visitors. The pandemic has also fueled the rush of people from the city to the regions, to live there or as tourists, while telecommuting reigns supreme and foreign travel is limited.
This contributes to overbidding, underlines the mayor, and removes from the market houses that could be sold to people who live year-round on the Islands. For example, a buyer will not hesitate to pay a high price for a house if he estimates that he can get $20,000 to $30,000 a year in return by renting it out to tourists. “The resident here who earns a modest salary cannot pay between $400,000 and $500,000 for a house, whereas, without the higher bid, he would have paid between $250,000 and $300,000”, explains in interview at Duty Jonathan Lapierre.
Resident dissatisfaction
Discontent is present, and Madelinots have pressed for elected officials to intervene. A poll with favorable almost Stalinist results in support, the municipality would like to modify the zoning with its draft by-law, by limiting to very small sectors the possibility for someone to rent their second home to tourists for less than 31 days . This would make it less attractive to buy a house for people who then want to rent it out. Those who already do so outside these zones would benefit from an acquired right and could continue their activities, if they are registered in good and due form with the Corporation of the tourist industry of Quebec (CITQ).
“It comes to put the lid on the pot,” explains the mayor. “What we want to avoid is ending up with ghost towns. That would distort what the Islands are. We don’t want to become just a vacation spot. »
In the next few years, 1,500 jobs will have to be filled, probably by people arriving from outside, all of this being coupled with an increasing demographic curve, he adds. Hence the need to act on this front, while building more housing for long-term rentals and revising the development plan.
“In this type of place, there is a strong demand at certain peak times of the year to be there and benefit from the quality of life of the place. But the number of options is limited,” says Jean-Philippe Meloche, professor of urban economics at the School of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Montreal. “We are going to protect the landscape and the heritage. But the perverse effect is that it becomes complex to construct buildings, which contributes to scarcity,” he adds.
He points out that tourists are often willing to pay a larger sum of money for accommodation when they are on vacation. “They are ready to pay a lot of money per night when it’s only for a few days, so it becomes advantageous for an owner to rent them out for not very long,” he says, adding that platforms like Airbnb have greatly facilitated these transactions.
In L’Anse-Saint-Jean, a small village well located on the coast of the Saguenay fjord and popular with tourists from here and elsewhere, the issue is talking, and the mayor wants to change the existing regulations. “I have a team working on the file to ensure that everything is done according to the rules of the art”, mentions to the Duty the mayor, Richard Perron, who says he makes it a priority.
Some are struggling to buy a house, and owners of tourist industries are having difficulty housing their seasonal workers. “The main problem is that often people who live outside the area will buy a house and put it on the short-term rental market without living there all year. It devitalizes our neighborhoods and drives up prices,” he says, adding that there are also noise issues for neighbors.
He hopes to change the regulations “as soon as possible”, ideally this spring. Everything is on the table, including banning short-term rentals in more areas.
Nearby, in the village of Petit-Saguenay, where these problems were anticipated, it has already been done since the end of last summer.
“I think it prevented certain situations”, mentions to the Duty the mayor, Philome La France. “It’s hard to measure, but of all the people who bought a house last year, none applied to make it a tourist residence. »
Not against tourists
However, we are careful not to say that these regulations are a frontal attack on tourists. “Our goal is to reach a point of balance,” underlines Jonathan Lapierre. “The tourism industry is fundamental to the social and economic fabric. But our people are our reason for being and our identity. »
However, this does not convince everyone. “I think that we are coming to attack an important part of our tourist industry, because we know that this type of accommodation is more and more popular”, mentioned in particular a Madelinot, Élie Chevrier, during the consultations. “I think we took an elephant to crush a mouse, he thinks. This solution is not going to help in any way the housing problem we have. »
According to Jean-Philippe Meloche, the post-pandemic period could calm things down, since people will once again be traveling outside of Canada. But the professor believes that the demand for residences in pastoral landscapes will actually increase in the future, due to the aging of the population, people retiring and telecommuting.
“It pushes people towards regions that have less interesting jobs, but which have landscapes and resorts as assets,” he explains.
The challenge for the villages to meet the demand will be to develop real estate without disfiguring the landscapes or perverting the places, he thinks.