People running Short Term Accommodations or STA businesses such as bed and breakfasts will soon have to get licensed in the City of Belleville.
City staff had suggested hiring an outside firm to dig through websites by such operators as Airbnb to find exact locations and owners names to provide a list of the city’s STA businesses.
However, council agreed with Mayor Mitch Panciuk who said it made more sense to put a licensing bylaw in place first that would require STA operators to register and meet certain requirements.
Panciuk says Short Term Accommodations businesses are popping up everywhere and changing neighborhoods.
“they thought they were living in a quiet residential neighborhood with stable families that are around them and that’s just not happening so we need to do something and we are not the only ones, this is a problem everywhere so we’re deciding we’re not going to study the issue to death we’re going to take action”.
Licensing with regulations will naturally lead to the city being more easily able to collect the 4% Municipal Accommodations Tax (MAT) which many STA operators have been avoiding. Local hotel/motel operators have been paying the MAT.
A draft licensing bylaw will come to council as soon as its’ next regular meeting.
