At its May 28 General Committee meeting, councillors voted in favour of limiting short-term rental accommodations (STRAs) allowed in Huntsville to 250 per year on a first come, first served basis.
On average, that number, according to Chris Nagy, the Town’s Chief Building Official, represents a small increase of ten more than the average number of STRA licences the municipality has issued over the past few years.
“Applications will start being accepted November 1. In order to be considered, a complete application must be submitted with all of the required information, including payment and, when applicable, a site inspection arranged,” noted Nagy in his report to the committee.
Councillors also approved adding floating accommodation to the list of what the municipality does not consider a dwelling unit for the purposes of STRAs. That list now includes floating accommodations in or out of the water, along with a tent, yurt, trailer, mobile home, bunkie, or a room or suite of rooms in a boarding or rooming house, a hotel, or a motor home.
“This clarification [has] been added to the restricted section of this by-law as this is a question
that gets brought forward by the general public on a regular basis. This has also been heightened as
there have been companies advertising the sale of these accommodations and the unpermitted use
of these accommodations through STRAs,” states the report.
Other changes to the bylaw include:
- A definition of what is considered a “complete” application.
- No Licensee shall advertise the ability to discuss number of occupants on any marketing platform.
- No person shall use or operate any Short-Term Rental Accommodation dwelling until the property has been in their ownership for a minimum of 12 months.
- The number of strikes against an STRA provider will be recorded for a period of two rather than one year, and after three strikes, the municipality will revoke the licence instead of after two strikes.
Nagy noted that non-compliance with the bylaw could lead to a monetary fine. He also said applicants can appeal to the Town’s STRA appeals committee.
Huntsville Mayor Nancy Alcock and Councillor Dione Schumacher agreed with the changes as part of the municipality’s Housing Action Plan. Alcock also questioned how the amendments to the bylaw would be communicated to the community, which she said was very important. Nagy said the municipality has a list of STRA providers and can communicate with them via email as well as on the Town’s website. Councillor Scott Morrison suggested the information also be shared with real estate brokerages.
Councillor Helena Renwick asked about the extent of questions received regarding floating accommodations. Nagy said inquiries have been made by potential providers, and some enforcement has taken place. “It is becoming kind of a niche right now. There’s a couple of providers in the area, I think one as close as Gravenhurst, that’s creating these floating accommodations. It’s actually them, like the providers, that are reaching out going ‘hey can we advertise this,’ which we love because we can get that message as early as possible on what we support or not.”
Renwick reasoned that if there is a demand for floating accommodations, the municipality might want to consider it. She said in Holland, there are houseboats everywhere, “and it’s an experience as well, so is this something that we’re definitely saying no to? Or is there a discussion that we would have that potentially, in the future, we could do this?”
Nagy said currently, the idea is not to allow STRAs in accessory buildings. He said there are companies that offer boat rentals, allowing someone to travel around the lakes and have accommodations that way. “That wouldn’t be a defined short-term rental because it’s not connected with a property directly…” Nagy also stated that the rationale for requiring a property to be owned for 12 months before it is rented on a short-term basis is to prevent it from being purchased for that purpose when it could be rented on a long-term basis instead.
Prompted by a question from Deputy Mayor Dan Armour, Nagy explained that the changes would become effective when they are ratified by council. The next Huntsville Council meeting takes place on June 23.
You can find the staff report HERE.
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Air B&B’s are a business. Usually without any owner/operator present, so they are an unsupervised business. I understand the desire to “do what you want” with your own property, but there are zoning restrictions that should be used to stop these businesses from being in our neighbourhoods.
How incredibly disappointing and frustrating it is to watch Huntsville Council/Staff handle the affordable housing file. Here we are 9 years after the City of Toronto estimated that Airbnb alone had drained 6500 homes from the housing stock (.65%). This realization has been repeated literally hundreds of times in other Ontario communities.
But here we are, as the housing crisis worsens and Huntsville Council and staff are dithering around the edges of the issue with false data, information and understanding. They want you to believe that there are 252 short term rentals in Huntsville. But those are only “licensed” short term rentals (i.e. those willing to pay a licensing fee and MAT. But a quick survey of AirDNA (a company that’s only business is to collect and analyze short term rentals), lists 542 short term rental WITH kitchens, dining rooms, bathrooms and heat (i.e suitable for year round living……housing). This represents over 6% of Huntsville entire housing stock. It is shocking that Huntsville pays more than $60,000 per year to find and license less than 50% of short term rentals (i.e. losing more than $116,000 in licensing fees and $250,000 in MAT)
Why We should care?????
Mr Blackwell……There are countless reasons why we should care. Primarily housing is not a commodity in a rich culture….it is a right. In any community, all efforts need to be made to ensure housing is available and affordable to all. A great deal of research over the past 13 years has been conducted around the world and in Canada specifically (McGill University). Amongst what we know is that:
By removing 550 housing units from the town’s supply; rents are $297 a month higher than expected (Merante and Horn (2016)}/
By removing 550 housing units from the towns housing supply. average cost of a home in Huntsville is $211,000 more than expected
According to Tim Welch Consulting (2024), Huntsville is in need of 890 new housing units of which 392 need to be income affordable.
Lastly it is important to note that as the median age of Huntsville residents rises, more lower income support will be desperately needed……and with it affordable housing. The Town needs to act (probably years ago). And in doing impose the community’s needs on the freedoms of the individual.
Instead we get 660 unit developments (1700 new residents?), with no guarantees of ANY affordable housing and silly talk of whether Houseboats should be counted as short term rentals. I fear this will all end badly and we will all suffer.
Where is the plan, Huntsville?
People should be able to do as they wish with their property. There are existing bylaws about noise that could be enforced if some of these properties are disruptive. If the goal is to create more long term rental properties, this is not the right approach. The market should be allowed to sort that out. Restricting one type of use for a property does not translate to another use being adopted.