Village of Sun Peaks/via Sun Peaks Resort

The Mayor of Sun Peaks will be making a request of Kamloops city council  Tuesday to help it circumvent federal rules surrounding home purchases.

Because Sun Peaks falls within the Census Metropolitan Area of Kamloops — essentially counted as part of the Greater Kamloops area — the Resort Municipality falls under the recently-extended federal rules surrounding home purchases by foreign buyers.

“Unfortunately, we’ve been lumped in with Kamloops, so the foreign purchase ban applies in Sun Peaks,” lamented Sun Peaks Mayor Al Raine in an interview with Radio NL.

Raine says they want support from Kamloops Council to help them convince Ottawa that the Village should be exempt.

“37 percent of all visitors are foreigners. That’s a great market for Sun Peaks,” noted Raine.

“We have about 17 percent foreign ownership. Most of the units in Sun Peaks are, in fact, made available for other people to live,” suggested Raine.  “A lot of the rentals are coming from property owners in Sun Peaks, including foreigners.”

Under Ottawa’s rules, foreigners who move to Canada are prohibited from buying properties for 2 years after their date of arrival, unless they meet certain exceptions, including the purchase of a home in a non-Census Metropolitan Area.

Raine says he hopes to convince the feds to have Sun Peaks exempt from the federal restrictions before the end of this year.