Mono’s deputy mayor would like a bylaw to regulate short-term rental properties to be elevated to a high-priority issue for council.
A line item dubbed short-term rental (STR) accommodations bylaw has been listed among unfinished town council business since November 2023, listed as being of low priority. It was elevated to a medium priority rating this year.
Fred Nix, the deputy mayor, suggested during council’s May 28 meeting that the issue be elevated to high-priority status.
The issue has been a hot-button topic in many Ontario jurisdictions. Township councils in the Muskoka region and Haliburton County, some of the places typically thought of as cottage country, have been debating ways to regulate and capitalize on Airbnb-type cottage rentals for some time.
Mayor John Creelman said during a February council meeting that a strongly worded letter should be dispatched to the provincial government, suggesting STR properties should be assessed differently than residential properties.
STR operations are commercial income-generating properties. And Creelman said council has taken that question to the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation in the past.
The issue’s timeline for resolution is for the first quarter of 2025.
Fred Simpson, the town’s clerk, said that could be made sooner.
Simpson said he’s been researching a STR bylaw for Mono. That background research needs to be compiled and formalized into a report for council’s consideration.
Other municipalities use administrative monetary penalties (AMPs) to enforce STR regulations in their respective jurisdictions, he said. And all insist AMPs are necessary to the issue.
AMPs replace Provincial Offences Act penalties.
Dufferin County staff and other lower-tier municipalities are working together to see if an AMP system can be established, Simpson said.
Simpson suggested a “transient accommodation tax” could be levied. That’s much like a municipal accommodation tax charged to STRs by other Ontario centres. Those taxes would help finance the administration and enforcement of a STR bylaw.
Davie said council has the option of simply banning the practice of STRs in Mono.
Capes said residents who have complaints about STR tenants should call the OPP.