Dear editor:

Niagara-on-the-Lake has always been a summer destination with Americans building large estates along the water. Chautauqua was founded as a cottage community.

In reference to Kenn Moody’s letter to the editor (“Hosted rentals don’t ‘hollow out’ our town,” June 25), he does not mention that subsequent to the meeting of the town with the Bed & Breakfast Association in 2008, vacation rentals were charged an additional fee, now for each bedroom, no matter how small.

Eventually with the increases in fees, insurance, taxes and listing charges, it was decided that it wasn’t really worth it anymore if you weren’t in the “business” of vacation rentals. We were just trying to offset the costs of our vacation home.

Many people buy one property before they move and they want to use it some of the time. You don’t really make any money unless you have multiple locations and this is perhaps what could be disallowed — multiple locations by the same owner run solely to make a profit.

If vacation rentals were capped at one per owner and numbered companies not allowed, there would be a lot less vacation rentals. I think it’s a matter of fairness. Business should not be able to profit from buying up residential real estate.

That in itself creates all the problems that Brian Marshall refers to in last week’s column (“Arch-i-text: We don’t need to axe rentals — just manage them”). It’s not about “hollowing out” the community.

There are plenty of houses in NOTL that are empty all winter while the owners get out of the cold, and plenty of houses that are second homes.

After all, this is a summer destination, too, a tourist destination and a place where locals make a good living catering to tourists and taking care of properties.

We need to balance tourism with residents’ needs and make the laws to do that fairly.

Jackie Bonic
NOTL