Concerned stakeholders met with the Township of Muskoka Lakes Council Tuesday in Port Carling and over ZOOM to discuss the contentious issue of short-term rental accommodations (STRA).
The Council has proposed a new bylaw that will license, regulate and govern STRAs and is aimed at addressing the critical concerns surrounding this booming industry. These concerns were identified through a number of community discussions and a public survey in the summer of 2023 with 488 respondents.
At its core, the problem isn’t the practice of short-term renting of properties but rather the behaviours that often accompany these rentals. Complaints range from nuisance behaviour, such as noise violations, to concerns about safety and health. Muskoka Lakes is known for its serene and peaceful environment, and vacationers sometimes fail to recognize the need for quiet and solitude valued by permanent residents and cottagers, explained Muskoka Mayor Peter Kelley in an interview with Muskoka411.
“In most cases, the actual landowner is not present, there’s nobody there representing the operator of the short-term rental business, and so it’s like an unsupervised commercial resort hotel, and it’s been leading to all sorts of issues,” said Kelley.
The draft bylaw, which could be modified after today’s discussions once the Council reviews the feedback they received, states that:
- A STRA is defined as 28 consecutive days or less. However, a premises rented for 14 days or less per year it is not considered a STRA.
- A STRA can only be rented out half the time. (50 per cent of the days in the summer months and 50 per cent of the rest of the year)
- For the summer months, the length of stay must be a minimum of seven consecutive days. For the balance of the year, the minimum stay must be a minimum of three consecutive days.
- A responsible person must be available to respond to concerns with a STRA within one hour.
- A license will be required to operate a STRA at a cost of $1000 for two years. With a license application, required submissions include proof of insurance, a site map, floor plans, proof of sewage disposal system maintenance, fire safety plan and photos.
- Non-compliance results in demerit points. Fifteen demerit points will result in a license being suspended.
- An inspection of the STRA may be required with the application or at any time after a license is given.
- The Township intends to utilize tracking software to monitor STRA activity with a 24/7 hotline to report concerns. This system comes at a cost of $ 75,000 per year for the Township.
- Fines of up to $10,000 per day and up to a maximum of $100,000 will be issued for violating this bylaw or any other bylaws.
The draft bylaw can be seen in its entirety here.
Jayne McCaw, President of Jayne’s Luxury Rentals, who has operated over 3000 rentals over the last nine years, was the first member of the public to raise and speak on the bylaw Tuesday.
McCaw and others who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting disagree with the Council’s assessment that short-term renters are a major source of noise disturbances. “Noise complaints can be anybody,” she told the Council. In her experience, it is often the property owners who are responsible for the noise, and the complaints that are levied at renters are the fault of a small handful of “negligent owners” who will “rent to anyone who will pay without regard for neighbours and the community,” McCaw said in an email to Muskoka411.
Others who spoke at the meeting made the case that the Township would be better served if the Council found a way to address the noise and safety concerns specifically without punishing responsible rental hosts.
“The proposed bylaw will do nothing to curb the main issues and complaints that were expressed in your survey that was conducted last summer and is simply an unfair tax on the vast majority of STR hosts that follow the rules,” said Dave Warner, a property owner on Skeleton Lake. “The Township of Muskoka Lakes doesn’t have a short-term rental problem. It has a bylaw enforcement problem.”
In our interview with Mayor Kelley, we asked why this new STRA bylaw is necessary when existing bylaws address noise and safety concerns.
“With our conventional bylaw enforcement (when we) try to enforce noise violations, we’re pretty powerless to do much about it other than issue a ticket, but we’re not issuing a ticket to a landowner,” said Kelly. In order to target the property owners when violations take place, the Township needs to know who owns the property and “the licensing system requires that kind of disclosure.”
Additionally, the consequences for repeat offenders need to be “more dramatic than a $50 fine,” Kelly expounded. The proposed bylaw would provide more “toothiness” to enforcement. “If you’re persistent and refuse to get on board, you’re going to lose your license to operate your business.”
Another issue raised was the economic impact this bylaw could cause. McCaw and others argued that “by over-regulating the licensing system, the council is risking making STRAs overly complicated and expensive, which directly risks the Township’s continued economic success,” said McCaw. “For every dollar a renter spends on accommodation, they spend two dollars locally.”
McCaw asked the Council to give exemptions and special treatment to cottage rental agencies like hers that are already licenced under the Travel Act.
Several community members spoke passionately about how rental income has made their dream of cottage ownership or homeownership a reality or allowed them to keep a property in their family for many generations. They worry that if this bylaw passes, the restrictions on short-term rentals and licencing fees would make it too costly to cover their property expenses.
“It’s allowed me to hold onto the family cottage, which I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise,” said Earl Gardner, who has owned a cottage on Lake Rosseau for 64 years.
One advocate at the meeting for the proposed bylaw was Laura Ender, who is a waterfront property owner in Utterson, and both her next-door neighbours are full-time Airbnb operators.
“As the majority of speakers this morning have mentioned, their focus is the economic impact. Few have mentioned all of the other impacts this has,” said Ender. She described a multitude of problems with having short-term renters next door, including the loss of privacy, garbage disposal, and the impact on private gravel roads, septic systems and watershed zones.
Her most significant concern was the safety of her children when renters let their dogs off-leash. “Each and every guest last summer on both sides brought a dog, or more than one dog with them, said Ender. “Every time when a new renter checks in, I have to ensure that me and my family are on guard to see if this new dog is friendly… (the renter’s dogs) often jump on our children, and I’m left to fear what are the risks here that I’m going to have to incur.”
The next step in the process towards STRA licencing is for the Council to review the comments made at this meeting and make the necessary revisions before considering approval.
