Most of us wouldn’t live beside a 55,000-square-foot industrial building or a busy four-storey hotel and event venue. So expect change in the Old Town.

Once the Shaw finishes erecting its trophy on Victoria and Benny Marotta’s Parliament Oak Hotel rises on an entire block facing King Street, odds are high all but a few neighbouring places will be houses no more. Rather, they’ll be ghost rentals. And why not? Our town is what Airbnb dreams are made of.

As mentioned here before, NOTL is one of the few burgs in the nation allowing (and encouraging) the conversion of residential housing into “unhosted” short-term rentals. Yup, little hotels nobody actually lives in. They’re for the nice folks from Albany, Dearborn and Toledo.

In godless Toronto, by way of contrast, Airbnbs only happen in principal residences. B.C. has a similar rule covering almost the entire province. In Montreal, nobody can rent out a room or a house beyond summer.

But here? Nah. Go ahead. You’re good. In fact, a freeze on new rentals has just been lifted.

That’s prompted more debate. A certain crusty columnist has taken shrapnel in the crossfire for suggesting houses should be for families, not Trump refugees.

“As former minister of national revenue, Turner should have a good financial sense and understand the economics of owning a home and why long-term rentals are scarce — and why short-term rentals make sense in a town like ours,” says Jason Clements.

Besides being snooty, he’s a realtor, the owner (with spouse) of a local property management company for short-term rentals, a former B&B operator, marketing guy for the local industry and part of the town’s advisory board on this hoary issue.

So, Jason, school me.

“Let’s start with the math,” he says. “The average home price in Niagara-on-the-Lake is about $1.2 million. The mortgage payment alone would exceed $4,000 per month, with another $1,000 for property taxes and roughly $300 for insurance. That’s before considering maintenance, utilities, or a down payment easily exceeding $200,000.”

“A landlord renting that same home for $3,000 a month would lose money. And they must still account for vacancies, repairs and the risks of Ontario’s heavily one-sided Landlord and Tenant Act. The numbers simply don’t work. So when critics point to high rents and claim property owners are greedy, they overlook the real issue: it’s expensive to own a home here.”

You bet, so turning a house into a commercial enterprise is far more profitable than renting it out to a couple, their kid and golden retriever. In a world that’s all about money, it makes perfect sense.

But it’s also true that by embracing unhosted rentals the town has increased the market value of properties — making them too costly to rent to that family.

But wait, says Jason. This is a tourist town. Always has been. Always will be. It’s why we have a vibrant economy, so suck it up.

“Anyone moving to Niagara-on-the-Lake should understand what kind of community they’re joining. Just as those who live in the rural areas accept the sounds of bird bangers during harvest season, residents in town should recognize that NOTL is — and always has been — a tourist community.”

Bird bangers equal tourists. He said it, not me.

But phooey, counters Bob Bader.

He’s a longtime passionate foe of uber-development, tree massacres and all things Marotta — as well as short-term rentals. Already, he says, 10 per cent of the entire Old Town housing stock has been consumed by folks like Jason. And the town just made it worse after a confusing meeting that lifted the freeze and bowed to the Airbnb cartel.

“By the time this gets around to another decision, maybe 20 per cent of housing in Old Town will be short-term rentals,” Bader said in his very paper last week, “…a great way to deal with the housing crisis and keep the full-time residents of NOTL happy.”

Meanwhile the construction at Parliament Oak continues. What was a school will be a ballroom. But that’s OK. No kids left.