A group representing condo owners urged caution in any government reaction to a study commissioned by the City of Vancouver that concluded more than one in 10 condos sits empty.

The study appeared to dispel the idea that foreigners were snapping up homes in Vancouver and leaving them vacant, as only about one per cent of single-family homes and duplexes were vacant, a number that remained steady between 2002 and 2012.

However, the study raised questions about the nearly 10,000 condos that were found to be vacant, and led to renewed calls for taxing vacant properties to aid in opening them up for purchase or rental.

Condominium Homeowners Association of B.C. executive director Tony Gioventu said it’s important to think carefully about doing away with, for example, the ability for condo strata organizations to retain rental restrictions, as it could have unintended consequences.

He said rental restrictions have helped provide “predictable and sustainable” communities with a lot of low-rise walk-ups in places such as East Vancouver, Kitsilano and the West End.

Remove the rental restrictions and a flood of investors will come knocking, and prices of condos will increase and rents will go up as investors recoup costs, said Gioventu.

He also questioned whether the data from the study is creating a fulsome picture, noting that while some condos are held by foreigners or for investment purposes, others are owned by British Columbians outside the Lower Mainland that use the properties infrequently for business or recreation.

In an interview Wednesday morning, he said about 30 people had sent him emails following the release of the study the day before, saying they owned condos in Vancouver they used from time to time.

These people live in the Fraser Valley, the Okanagan, Whistler, the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island, noted Gioventu.

“We kind of have this inverted mentality that Vancouver is this place everybody lives and everybody goes elsewhere for a weekend getaway,” he said. “But you know, for these people, Vancouver is their getaway place.”

Nizam Dossa, executive director of the Strata Property Agents of B.C., added that some condos are bought by parents for their children attending colleges or universities and are not used the full year.

Dossa said those condos are bought close to universities and colleges and along major transit routes, including SkyTrain. He said it was not a new trend.

“We are not seeing the empty-empty units, but more of the seasonal emptiness,” said Dossa.

It’s unclear whether those properties would have been caught in the BC Hydro electricity-consumption data used by the city’s consultant, Ecotagius, to determine vacancy.

A home was deemed non-occupied in a given month if its electricity use showed little variability for 25 or more days, a number selected to allow for infrequent use of a home. If a home was not occupied for each of four “non-heating” months — August, September and the following June and July — it was deemed empty for a given year.

Phil Dougan, a director with the Canadian Condominium Institute’s Vancouver chapter, which provides education to strata councils, said the issue of vacant condos is worth examining to see if there are policies that can help release these units for sale or rental.

From his office in downtown Vancouver he can see empty apartments in Coal Harbour that do not have a stick of furniture in them, he said. “It certainly is an inefficient use of an important commodity.”