"WHEREAS Owen Sound currently has no express by-laws for the regulation of short-term rental accommodations (STR);
WHEREAS non-owner occupied STRs are often plagued with capacity issues, noise by-law infractions, trash accumulation, and traffic congestion;
WHEREAS 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;
WHEREAS as such non-owner occupied STRs are completely incompatible with residential neighbourhoods;
WHEREAS Owen Sound is not primarily a cottage-oriented community;
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 neighbourhoods today and still proceed in the months ahead with its plans to regulate and tax other kinds and locations of STRs;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT City Council:
- Cause City staff to enact a by-law effective January 1, 2023, which:
- 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;
- provides for substantial penalties for infractions of such by-law;
- Cause City staff to widely disseminate and publicize such by-law; and
- Cause City staff to use all measures to enforce such by-law once enacted."