Dear editor:
Our town council and staff have fumbled the ball on this major issue yet again.
A process begun in December 2024 looks like it will easily drag into next year’s municipal election. Hopefully, the voters will remember.
In December last year, council directed staff to prepare a pause on the issuance of new short-term rental licences and undertake a detailed analysis on an appropriate limit for short-term rentals across the town.
On May 27, that report came forward which showed a total of 399 short-term rentals across the whole of Niagara-on-the-Lake and recommended that cottage and villa short-term rentals be frozen at 231.
Staff attempted to determine how many buildings within each area might be eligible to apply for a short-term rental licence using census data, but were unable to do so.
One wonders how our staff don’t already know how many residences there are in each area? Personally, it took me about a half-hour to determine there are 2,292 residential units in Old Town simply by consulting Canada Post.
Given their report shows a total of 230 short-term rentals are located in Old Town, that means more than 10 per cent of Old Town housing stock is used for short-term rentals.
On July 22, the staff came with the recommendation that the short-term rental bylaw 2025-032 identified in FES-25-013 be approved and that the draft short-term rental bylaw amendment be forwarded to council for adoption.
Said action was deferred to October with the limit on cottage rental and villa rental licences being held at the existing 231 licences and not allowing any new properties to replace any existing licences.
Then, on Sept. 16, another staff information report came to council suggesting yet another “engagement” be completed by the second quarter of 2026.
The Oct. 21 committee of the whole meeting was confusing and confounding to say the least.
The staff recommendation from July 22 was brought back again to be forwarded to council for adoption.
The meeting was confused and befuddled by the discussion of the delegation by James Mitton to correct his licence and the procedural shutdown of Norm Arsenault of the NOTL Residents Association delegation on the issue and apparent mass confusion of the council members, resulting in the staff recommendation being only “received” instead of accepted, and apparently, this meant the freeze was lifted.
The town sent out a notice Oct. 30 that they were again accepting short-term rental applications, so by the time this gets around to another decision, maybe 20 per cent of housing in Old Town will be short-term rentals … a great way to deal with the housing crisis and keep the full-time residents of NOTL happy.
Bob Bader
NOTL
