SUBMITTED BY JASON CLEMENTS, NOTL.
OPINION

Dear editor:

I am writing in response to the letter to the editor headlined, Who wants to live beside a party house? (May 9), which expressed concerns about villas and homes with hot tubs or pools.

I just want to provide some numbers.

I downloaded the list of licensed short-term rentals in the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Here is the breakdown:

Bed and breakfast: 153

Cottage rental: 124

Country inn: 12

Vacation apartment: 10

Villa: 29

Total: 328

Owner-occupied (B&B or inn): 165

Unhosted (cottage/apartment/villa): 163

Villas (aka party houses) are only 8.8 per cent  of the total licences (29 out of the total 328).

If I look on AirBnB, there are eight homes listed with a hot tub and 13 homes listed with a pool in Old Town.

Not exact numbers, but NOTL is maybe 10 kilometres square, so the recommendation that they be spaced no less than one kilometre apart would mean maximum 100 short-term rentals in total. And Old Town is maybe three kilometres square, so that’s no more than nine short-term rentals in all of Old Town. 

Jason Clements

NOTL