Council agrees to some concessions on Short-Term Rental Bylaw

But proposed legislation still very restrictive and confusing.

Last night, council spent the bulk of their regular meeting on a single issue: The controversial desire to regulate short-term rentals in West Nipissing.

Nearly two hours was spent discussing the various provisions which led to some concessions on the bylaw. Council has now used at least 5 meetings and an incalculable amount of staff time on this policy. And their work is not done yet.

Private Roads

The first item discussed last night was the prohibition of STR operators on private roads. Councillor Pellerin and Courchesne proposed removing this restriction as it affects so many operators in a town such as West Nipissing.

Most other councillors agreed that this prohibition was not necessary.

When it came to a vote all councillors except for Mayor Kathleen Thorne-Rochon and Deputy Mayor Jamie Restoule voted to remove the restriction.

Singing Aloud

Councillor Jerome Courchesne proposed that the paragraph forbidding singing be struct from the bylaw and that the policy simply point to the existing noise bylaw. The noise bylaw already prohibits excessive noise anywhere in West Nipissing but the STR bylaw was attempting to apply stricter requirements forbidding all singing and outdoor backyard gatherings specifically for those renting AirBnBs.

Although the mayor seemed to object, most other councillors were satisfied with Courchesne’s recommendation.

1 KM Radius

Unfortunately beyond singing and private roads, council did not want to budge on any other severely restrictive and unique aspects of this bylaw.

Council discussed the restriction that will forbid any AirBnB within a 1km radius of another. Although some councillors were in favour of loosening this restriction, most agreed to keep it in place.

There was a discussion and general agreement that those who are already operating and who qualified to be “grandfathered” would be given first access to new licences and may or not be allowed to operate within 1km of another STR.

In many parts of West Nipissing, this restriction will prohibit almost every existing STR operators except for the lucky firsts who apply.

According to just one website (AirBnB), in Sturgeon Falls nearly a dozen STRs are located within a single 1km radius. This means that if one applies, the other 11 will automatically become ineligible for a licence.

The same applies along the shores of Lake Nipissing and in Lavigne.

Maximum of 100 Licences

On the topic of limiting the number of licences, council seemed to have more questions than answers. Multiple councillors asked very pertinent questions that still remain unanswered. Such as how many existing STRs are there in West Nipissing? And, how did staff or the mayor come up with a limit of 100?

Mayor Thorne-Rochon who seems to have been the one who designed this section of the bylaw clarified that “100 was just kind of a nice round number”. She further stated that she doesn’t think there was “any kind of mathematical calculation done to support that number”.

Currently on AirBnB.ca there are 99 properties listed in West Nipissing. This does not include properties that may currently be unlisted for the winter season. VRBO has over 30 properties as well. Kijiji and other short-term rental website also list properties in West Nipissing.

Mayor Thorne-Rochon also shared that her desire to limit the number of licences was to promote compliance.

Grandfathering

When the subject of grandfathering came up, again it appears that many questions were left unanswered. Council came to an agreement that once the bylaw is adopted, existing STR operators would have a period of two months to apply for a licence to get priority over new operators.

But council did not address how they would deal with two or more (or 12) existing STRs that are within 1km of each other. They also did not address the issue of existing cottages or cabins that may not necessarily conform to the most recent building code requirements.

Will all 100+ existing STRs operators have to update their buildings to recent building code requirements upon applications or will they be allowed to benefit from a legal nonconforming status?

When the question arose as to whether grandfathering would apply to a property or an owner, the mayor chimed in to state that it would apply to the owner only and that any transfer or sale of a property would void a grandfathered property. This is a big concern to STR owners who ever want to sell. With the 1km restriction in place, any new buyer will never be allowed to get a STR licence which will drastically affect resale values on properties designed to be STRs.

Next Steps

Although many questions still remain, staff seem very eager to pass this bylaw. The CAO yesterday mentioned he would like to have this bylaw in place for the upcoming camping season. This seems very inappropriate considering there has still not been any real public consultation yet and a final draft has not even been drafted for the community to see.

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