Tougher rules for short-term rental owners in Tiny Township

The Township of Tiny is bringing in regulations to deal with the ever-growing popularity of short-term rentals, but not everyone is happy with the solution.

Mayor George Cornell says they received several complaints from residents about the rental properties.

"Unfortunately, some of the behaviour and the changing character of our community, council and staff realized we needed to look into this a little bit further," Cornell says.

During a meeting on Aug. 11, council discussed the details of a short-term rental licensing bylaw, including requiring rentals to have a minimum of six consecutive days, up to a maximum of 28 days. Building, fire and sewage inspections will also be required.

"We have identified a number of different things that, if operators are at fault, there will be demerit points, and depending on the number of points, there will be license suspensions, or there will be actual withdrawal of the licenses," the mayor explains.

But some short-term rental owners don't agree with the new regulations, saying the one size fits all approach isn't fair.

"We always keep our neighbours in mind because we're very close together. We don't want to cause problems in our community. We decline people based on 'yeah, we think this might be a party group," says rental owner Tania Davies.

Jason Barham says he feels his voice isn't being heard by town council.

"I'm pro license. I agree there should be a licensing scheme, but it has to be reasonable, though," the rental owner says. "And for Tiny to say they had this task force and that they reached out to short-term owners to hear the details, I found out about this three weeks before it went into effect," Barham says.

Short-term rental owner Emily Jacobelli says the new $1,500 annual licence fee is the highest she's ever heard about and insists the vacation spots are not the problem.

"We generate revenue. We employ a lot of locals. Our cleaning lady, our lawn care, our snow plower, our maintenance guys - we spend money in Tiny," says Jacobelli.

"So do our guests because I can guarantee the permanent residents aren't visiting restaurants every day, whereas when you have a new group of visitors, they're going to the beach, they're visiting the restaurants," adds Davies.

With roughly 400 short-term rentals currently in the township, council will cap the number of licenses issued at 300 on a first-come, first-serve basis. The deadline to apply for a short-term rental licence is Nov. 15.