The doctor is in after Chase council approved a temporary use permit (TUP) to provide housing for medical professionals.
The TUP applicant, Dr. Ben Robinson whose been a family physician in Chase for seven years, requested the TUP to have short-term rentals (STRs) at 319 Lakeshore Drive, where the use isn't currently allowed under R-1 Low Density Residential zoning.
“The thought was to purchase this property on Lakeshore Drive as an opportunity to bring locum physicians, medical residents, nurse practitioners that frequently come in for one to two weeks at at time, sometimes even more, and have a place for them to stay,” he explained.
The long-term goal would be to have them see the beauty of Chase and being right on the water and potentially decide to bring their practice there full time. Robinson told council how he’d had a similar experience as a medical resident in Nakusp, where he stayed at a house owned by a doctor there, adding "it almost convinced me to go to Nakusp instead of Chase.”
Proving some background on the application, corporate officer Sean O'Flaherty, told explained why this came as a TUP rather than a zoning amendment for a couple of reasons, one being that it's a faster process and he got a sense of urgency in speaking with Robinson.
"The second reason for this... is this is a bit of a departure from council’s zoning bylaw which says that short-term rentals are an accessory or an ancillary use in a house," O'Flaherty said. "And what this applicant is looking for is to use the whole house as a short-term rental.”
Robinson commented on both reasons, explaining the house doesn’t have a basement suite or separate living quarters, so for the short time physicians stay, a longer term rental situation wouldn’t work. He added that the urgency of the situation is because the house is currently for sale, so the approval of the TUP is contingent to him moving ahead with the purchase.
“And I will add that again, this is just a three-year approval just to test if this is even effective or not. In order for me to afford it, I would need to have the opportunity to potentially have other short-term rentals as well," Robinson said. "I just want to be very open about that, but the primary goal is to have physicians, professionals in the medical world, to stay there for a good chunk of the year.”
Having had doctor shortages in the past, council was unanimously on board with this initiative and approved a motion to move forwards with the referral process and prepare a TUP, which is good for three years, to allow STRs as the primary use.
“The goal is to support physician locums and nurse practitioners – we owe it to our community to explore more ways of attracting health-care professionals," Coun. Dan Stevens said. "And I think this is awesome.”
Coun. Fred Torbohm agreed, saying that as council had previously looked at buying a house for doctors to stay in, “this is right up our alley.”
“That would be a great asset in town, I think, for the town to have a place like that."
