Dear editor:
I have followed the recent discussion regarding proposals to limit short-term rentals to owner-occupied properties, with interest and sadness.
We have visited Niagara-on-the-Lake on a number of occasions, since our eldest son decided to build his life in Canada and to get married in NOTL.
Like others of your correspondents, we have rented licensed cottages to enable extended family get togethers for special occasions, when family members from across the Atlantic could join those who live in Canada.
In fact, if it were not for the current COVID pandemic, we had planned to be renting at least one cottage for a celebration of my husband’s 70th birthday in January.
We shop in your supermarkets, eat in your cafes, pubs and restaurants, and visit your vineyards and breweries. Our grandchildren play in the playground and pester us to buy things in the local shops.
We are very conscious of the time, energy, money and, dare I say it, love ploughed back into these often historic properties, to maintain them to the highest standards.
We wouldn’t come if the only accommodations were sterile hotel rooms or owner-occupied bed and breakfasts.
I fully appreciate the frustration caused to residents by rude, anti-social visitors, but fail to understand why you would wish to ban licensed, non-hosted rentals, particularly when these already have to meet stringent criteria and constitute only a tiny percentage of your housing stock.
In your editorial you choose to do a comparison with the problems in Venice. As someone who has visited Venice often, for 40 years, I can tell you that the biggest complaints from residents relate not to those who rent apartments or stay in the city’s hotels, but the hordes of day trippers, who don’t contribute by spending money in ordinary shops, hotels, cafes, bars and restaurants, but treat the city as if it was Disneyland.
Residents see their grocers, butchers, bakers and pharmacies replaced by shops selling tourist tat, whilst day trippers drop their rubbish and disrespect churches, which they see simply as places to get a selfie.
The “backwash” as you put it, from Niagara Falls will not keep your vibrant restaurants, pubs and cafes open to provide local jobs and for you to enjoy, it will simply clog up Queen Street.
The very real issues arising from the explosion of the Airbnb phenomenon across the world are not going to be dealt with by destroying your small, highly regulated, licensed rental sector.
Those of us who are repeat visitors do care about the health of your lovely community and hope we are not to be excluded.
Dr. Sally Carman
Rochester, Kent
England