Editorial: Speak out against unregulated vacation rentals on July 22

July 21, 2025

This Tuesday, July 22, Niagara-on-the-Lake residents have a chance to stand up for their community — and they need to take it.

Council will be hearing from Stay Niagara-on-the-Lake, the advocacy group for short-term rental operators, as it makes a pitch to protect the interests of short-term rental owners and preserve the status quo of exploiting NOTL’s valuable and limited homes for profit.

What’s on the table is a proposed cap on cottage rental and villa licences — freezing them at current levels with no new or replacement licences issued going forward. This is a good, common-sense decision that, hopefully, our council will support. Stay NOTL and its supporters want this stopped.

They’ll show up at council to make the case that this industry is essential, responsible and good for local business. But for years now, we’ve seen exactly how damaging the short-term rental industry can be, particularly with unhosted rentals.

Hollowed-out neighbourhoods. Displaced renters. Overflowing parking and noise complaints. Unfair competition with properly zoned accommodation businesses. Barely any oversight. A disappearing sense of community.

It’s disappointing — though not surprising — that the Niagara-on-the-Lake Chamber of Commerce would send out an email this week urging its members to show up in support of short-term rental operators.

The email says Stay NOTL “will be making a formal delegation to council regarding these last proposed amendments to the (short-term rental) bylaw, presenting concerns and encouraging thoughtful reconsideration of the amendments.”

In asking members to support the short-term rental industry, the chamber is lobbying in favour of a privileged group of property owners who profit by turning homes into unstaffed, unregulated and unfairly taxed accommodation businesses.

Because the chamber brands itself as a voice of businesses, we must ask: How does that help retail? Restaurants? Wineries? Where is the chamber’s advocacy for workers who can’t find anywhere to live in town? Or families squeezed out of their own neighbourhoods? Or legitimate, tax-paying hotels and inns that are forced to compete on an uneven playing field?

The simple answer, proven around the globe, is that an unchecked short-term rental industry actually hurts business. Hollowing out a community with a limited housing supply means less residents. This has a direct impact on business, both the tourism sector and the businesses we rely on as residents.

And let’s not ignore the conflict: the chamber’s chair, David Levesque, is also a current board member and past president of Stay NOTL. This call to action feels less like community-minded leadership and more like lobbying dressed up as economic development.

In a phone conversation with Levesque Monday, he said he does not own a villa or cottage rental. He owns a bed and breakfast, and doesn’t see the chamber’s email, which asks people to contact him for further information, as a conflict of interest.

He did concede that areas of NOTL are oversaturated with short-term rentals. And while it remains to be seen what the suggestions Stay NOTL has for council will be, it’s worth remembering that these are the voices of industry stakeholders.

We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again: Niagara-on-the-Lake is not meant to be a town of lockboxes and absentee landlords. It’s a place to live. To raise kids. To build a life. And while tourism is part of that identity, it should not come at the expense of neighbourhoods. We need balance — and we haven’t had it in a long time.

Bylaw 2025-032, passed in May, was a step in the right direction. It brought in an age requirement for short-term rental properties (eight years until a home can be used as a short-term rental), tougher parking rules, and gave town staff more tools to enforce violations. That was long overdue. But without caps on licences, the problems will continue. The town’s housing stock will continue to shrink — not just in volume, but in soul.

Tuesday’s meeting isn’t just about a bylaw amendment. It’s about whether NOTL wants to be a town of people or a town of investment properties. If you care about that future — if you’re tired of watching houses turn into ghost hotels and streets lose their character — then show up. Tell council you’ve had enough. That this town deserves better. That it’s time to put the needs of residents, workers and families ahead of speculative profit.

We know short-term rental operators will be there. The chamber has seen to that. Now it’s time the rest of us showed up, too.

This is your town. Fight for it.

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The Lake Report has reported extensively about the problems associated with unhosted short-term rentals. In 2022, an investigation found more than 10 per cent of homes in Old Town are used as short-term rentals. We talked to people who had no neighbours because they had rentals crop up to the left and right. This is on top of the many good reasons we’ve discussed in several editorials. Further, cities around the world have begun to ban or severely restrict their use in favour of long-term rentals, including New York, Venice, Oro-Medonte, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and some cities in California, such as Santa Monica and Los Angeles.

Here is a list of resources from this publication:

10 per cent of all Old Town homes are short-term rentals