A letter from a resident about Air BnB-type houses in residential neighbourhoods was included in Monday night's Council agenda package. City Manager said the issue would be discussed along with the Municipal Accomodation Tax later this year, but Councillor John Tamming had prepared a motion he will bring to the next council meeting, calling for more immediate action. The full text of is motion is here:WHEREAS Owen Sound currently has no express bylaws for the regulation of short term rental accommodations (STRS);
AND WHEREAS non-owner occupied STRS are often plagued with capacity issues, noise bylaw infractions, trash accumulation and traffic congestion;
AND WHEREAS, as such, non-owner occupied STRs comprise the de facto injection of roving motel-like establishments into residential
neighbourhoods - bereft of, even minimally, an on-site manager;
AND WHEREAS as such non-owner occupied STRs are completely incompatible with residential neighbourhoods;
AND WHEREAS Owen Sound is not primarily a cottage oriented community;
AND WHEREAS other communities such as Goderich, Ontario have seen the wisdom in an outright ban on STRs in residential areas save and except for traditional bed and breakfasts
AND WHEREAS notwithstanding this motion city staff and council can both ban these obvious threats to neighborhoods today and still proceed in the months ahead with its plans to regulate and tax other kinds and locations of STRs;
THEREFORE I HEREBY PROVIDE NOTICE THAT AT THE NEXT REGULARLY SCHEDULED CITY COUNCIL MEETING TO BE HELD JUNE 27, 2022, I WILL MOVE THAT CITY COUNCIL:
1. Cause city staff to enact a bylaw effective January 1, 2023, which i) expressly prohibits STRs from areas zoned residential, save and except for
traditional bed and breakfast operations where the dwelling is owner occupied at the time of rental and only part of the dwelling, not its
entirety, is subject to rental, and ii) provides for substantial penalties for infractions of such bylaw.
2. Cause city staff to widely disseminate and publicize such bylaw; and
3. Cause city staff to use all measures to enforce such bylaw once enacted.
