Back to the Drawing Board on Short-Term Rentals. Again...

Overly restrictive AirBnb bylaw scrutinized by council.

“I find this policy so restrictive… It sucks the air out of Joie de vivre." - Councillor Fern Pellerin on the proposed new STR bylaw.

This week councillors got to review and discuss the most recent version of the Short-Term Rental (STR) bylaw proposed by an ad hoc committee that was struct two months ago.

In January, after it appeared like so many aspects of the bylaw were not understood, staff recommended that council create an ad hoc committee to come up with a final version of the STR bylaw.

In a memo accompanying this week’s agenda, staff outlined the newest changes that this committee came up with and presented a new draft bylaw.

As I reported earlier this week, this new proposal added a number of restrictions and likely made the STR bylaw the strictest in the country. It also quietly removed any mention of legal non-conforming status or “grandfathering” existing operators.

Councillor Fern Pellerin was the first to speak to this new draft by condemning it. He said the policy was so restrictive that it “sucked the air out of Joie de vivre”, making reference to West Nipissing’s famous slogan.

He pointed out the various restrictions requiring AirBnb hosts to get liability insurance when the municipality does not require this of any other business (such as hotels or lodges) to operate within city limits. He also questioned why there must be a provision that mandates that only parking on “hard- surfaced materials” be imposed for STR operators.

Then, councillor Jerome Courchesne and Roch St-Louis voiced concerns that they have heard from constituents. St-Louis noted that many AirBnbs are on private islands that don’t bother anyone and wondered why those would be forbidden to operate. St-Louis also questioned why we would disallow someone from operating an STR on a private road considering there are so many in West Nipissing. He opined, if it was okay for them to live there, then why can’t they have guests there?

When the subject of “grandfathering” existing operators came up, staff replied that there was never any intention to grandfather existing operators in the bylaw. This was a very bizarre statement considering council and staff had a long discussion on the topic of grandfathering and what that would entail in November.

Councillor Anne Tessier (who sat on the new ad hoc committee) proposed that more public consultation be undertaken. She stressed that since the new proposed draft is much different than what was shared with the public nearly six months ago, getting more feedback would be beneficial. The original public consultations also received criticism for not being properly advertised or soliciting adequate responses. The municipality only shared their online survey for STRs the day before it closed and only solicitated 57 responses from West Nipissing’s 15,000+ population. Staff have been relying on the answers of 57 individuals for all their suggested provisions.

Other councillors seemed in agreement with Tessier’s suggestion however Mayor Kathleen Thorne-Rochon wasn’t. She appeared to take over the meeting at this point and with the help of the CAO, they proposed that council bring back the bylaw line by line at a future meeting and vote on each provision. It was not clear if this would occur after another round of public consultation occurred.

Among the other items questioned by councillors this week were the inspection requirements and the necessity for creating site plans in order to get a licence. Council still didn’t seem to understand how the demerit point system would work or how someone with multiple existing STRs or tourist operators would be accomodated. Especially if these were within 1KM of each other.

Other Municipalities Backing Down

Last month, the city of Callander scraped their long-delayed plans to regulate STRs. At a meeting council unanimously concluded that “Most of the complaints that could arise from these rentals, such as loud noise or parking issues, are already covered by existing by-laws, so adding another would be very time-consuming and perhaps redundant”.

Another item discussed at this week’s meeting was the relaxation of the financial transparency requirements for staff whereas council will be moving to end monthly financial reports despite objections from two councillors. When justifying this amendment staff cited time constraints for providing reports to council. Many councillors agreed that they did not want to overburden staff.

This is definitely a conversation worth having when it comes to the STR bylaw. Multiple senior staff including the fire chief and building inspectors have likely contributed countless hours to this proposed bylaw so far and there is no end in sight.

When it is all said and done, the total time and cost of staff to create this bylaw will likely be in the hundreds of thousands. Many are wonder if council should consider Callender’s logic on this issue.

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