Council for the Municipality of Kincardine has sent staff back to the drawing board on a potential by-law to oversee short-term rental accommodations (STRAs).
Staff presented council with its first draft of a proposed by-law this week, which laid out how the licensing could be implemented in the Municipality starting next year. The by-law covered every aspect from licensing requirements, penalties for a failure to comply, and an initial fee structure.
Staff had also reached out to several third party companies which would be responsible for managing the licensing, ultimately settling on Granicus for a proposed annual cost of around $16,000.
In order to recover the costs associated with the system, which include additional by-law enforcement hours and the addition of a Licensing Coordinator contract position, staff proposed a flat annual license fee of $800, followed by a $500 renewal fee the year after.
Councillor Beth Blackwell said she was supportive of a licencing by-law, but not comfortable with the flat rate.
"One of the challenges I have is, as a tourist community, I would be hesitant to have a one-size-fits-all class," she said. "Some other places that have used only the one class have also limited short-term rentals only to principal residences. I don't think we want to do that because a lot of people have a secondary rental here, so if we were to limit it to principal residences, I think we'd be harming our tourism sector."
Collingwood is one municipality that has implemented a short-term rental licensing bylaw, and it has reportedly led to a massive decrease in STRAs and a tripling of the supply of long-term rentals available.
However, Councillor Bill Stewart said the communities are not apples to apples, and said he was skeptical the program could operate without incurring a loss.
"Being in Ward 2, we have a lot of seasonal people rent their cottages for two weeks to pay for the expnesive taxes we fit on them, so they would all have to pay the $800 and go through this process, I tink that's a little bit unfair," he said. "We're a little different community, we're not a Collingwood, we basically have three to four months of the year that tourists come... I think what you're going to see if the cost will definitely increase and we will not be able to go neutral with this."
An intital study from Granicus said that there are currently around 157 short-term rental listings representing 136 unique rental units in Kincardine.
Councillor Mike Hinchberger questioned if cost-recovery should even be a goal of the program.
"One thing I find a little unique about this, in some aspects, this is by-law enforcement and we're applying a cost-recovery principle. Yet on the remainder of our entire by-law program, we don't apply that," he said. "So I would like to see the budget considerations of that."
Mayor Ken Craig reminded him the that the Municipality recovers costs on other licensing systems, like dog tags and food trucks, but agreed that staff should examine the two-tier system.
Council directed staff to bring back a proposed bylaw with a two-tiered system, which will return at a future meeting.
