The Where’s Brian Project
Proving to The City of Victoria, that I do in fact live where I live.
What’s this all about?
Firstly, allow me to introduce myself, my name is Brian and I own and live with my dog in a condo in Victoria at 848 Mason Street. I work remotely from my condo in Victoria, doing sales in the technology space; a job that requires me to travel frequently for in person events and meetings. In my spare time, I enjoy surfing and being outdoors, which is why I was so excited to save up and purchase my first and only home in Victoria several years back.
The City of Victoria’s bylaws allow for one to rent their principal residence on a short term basis, to a maximum of 160 days in a calendar year. This allows individuals such as myself who’s work demands that I travel, the flexibility to offer their unit while they are away on rental platforms such as AirBnB. This, in turn, allows visitors of Victoria, more affordable and family friendly accommodation options, in a home that would otherwise sit empty while I am travelling for work or personal reasons.
Despite living in my unit, due to The City of Victoria’s subjective process and criteria, they have come to the conclusion that I do not.
The Application Process (a 3 month ordeal)…
Reading through the short term rental website at the City of Victoria, I diligently prepared my short term rental business application with all of the required documentation. This documentation included such things as government issued identification, utility bills, etc; all designed to provide objective proof that the home for which you are seeking a short term rental license for is in fact your principal residence - fair I thought!
Upon submitting my application, I was shocked to learn just how slowly the application would be processed. There are three basic steps in said process, I will provide the dates here for each, to give you a sense of how this process played out for me personally.
Formally Submit Written Application - July 30, 2024
In Person home inspection - Oct 9, 2024 (9 weeks after original application)
Application decision - Nov 1, 2024 (over 12 weeks, or three months, after original application)
Not only was the application process absurdly drawn out (over three months), but the in person home inspection was incredibly subjective and in many ways a violation of ones privacy. Bylaw officers have been known to make assessments of such things as the number of shoes one owns, and the type of art hanging on the wall to determine the fate of an application.
The Denial & Appeal (anticipating a 6 month ordeal)…
On November 1st 2024, three months after my original application, I received a letter from the City of Victoria informing me of their decision to deny my principal residence short term rental application.
In this letter, there was no information as to the reason for being denied, outside of the fact that they believed that my condo at 848 Mason St, was not my principal residence. Several attempts to reach out to the bylaw team for further clarification on how they came to this decision, fell on deaf ears, and I was never offered even a response.
I satisfied the objective documentation/criteria that the City requested in the application process, and there should have been zero question to an inspector that my residence at 848 Mason is in fact my home. Any reasonable person would see that my house has a tremendous amount of personal items, and it looks well lived in. I invite any City of Victoria staff to come over for a coffee at their leisure and see this for themselves.
This leaves me with my one and only option which is to appeal this decision, but do so with ZERO context or information about how the decision was made, and therefore leaves me with no understanding of what information would satisfy the City that this is in fact my home.
Furthermore, I have learnt from others who have also faced this situation with the City of Victoria that the appeals process itself on average takes around 6 MONTHS! Combine this with the original application process taking 3 months, and we are looking at 9 MONTHS of bureaucracy and not to mention my time and tax payer dollars.
The Campaign was born…
Left with no reasonable other way to prove that my condo is my principal residence, as the City of Victoria has provided zero context as to why I am being denied, I am being forced to violate my personal privacy to prove (without any doubt), that 848 Mason St is my residence.
Without a clear objective criteria for doing so, the only way I know to prove my residence is to allow the City of Victoria to track my every movement. With that in mind, the “Where’s Brian Project” was born - I enabled location tracking on my personal cell phone using Google Maps, created this website, and take screenshots of each and every day between now and the resolution of this matter.
Yes, that’s right, much like a criminal wearing an ankle bracelet, I am permitting City of Victoria, and anyone else who may be interested, to track my every movement. This should serve as a notice to The City of Victoria of how broken the overall process is here; do we want to live in a city where such drastic measures are required?
My goal here is two fold and simple:
To highlight the flaws in this process and hopefully create meaningful change so that others aren’t forced to face such a situation (City of Victoria staff, if you are reading this, reach out, I am happy to work with you on constructive change and suggestions)
To prove without a doubt, at the cost of my personal privacy, that 848 Mason St is my one and only place of residence.
