City politicians are seeking to crack down on scofflaws for both short- and long-term rentals across London as they endorsed measures Monday to enforce better standards.
Ward 5 Coun. Jerry Pribil brought forward a request to review the city’s bylaw on short-term rentals offered on platforms like Airbnb and VRBO, specifically focusing on how other cities handle licensing, penalties, and enforcement, as well as looking at things such as street parking impacts and minimum distances between rentals.
“It’s not a bad (bylaw), it is positive – the problem is, it’s dealing with the players that want to play by the rules of the game, and it doesn’t unfortunately address the ones that don’t,” Pribil said. “This needs to be revisited so we are not at the point when operators of these facilities, when they see the fines, they take it as the cost of business.”
Pribil’s request was driven by a desire for greater compliance with the 2022 bylaw, which grants licenses to would-be short-term rental operators and critically requires the rental to be in an owner’s primary home.
Politicians largely agreed the existing fines under the bylaw are insufficient. According to the city’s website, the fine for a first offence is $500, which can be double for repeat offences.
The debate came just hours after the city announced a $1-million grant from Ottawa to ramp up enforcement of the short-term rental bylaw.