A bylaw regulating short term accommodations in the City of Belleville could be approved and in effect sometime next month.
At a council meeting Monday several councillors worried about the effect the enforcement of the regulations would have on city staff’s workload and the city’s finances.
Director of Corporate Services Matt MacDonald said other communities that already had a short term accommodations bylaw learned a hard lesson about enforcement and workload.
“They don’t really know what the impact is until they get into the regulation because some of our neighbors thought they knew kind of what the scope of the issue was but almost universally they have had their eyes opened that they were wildly underestimating it.”
Meanwhile the bylaw is expected to contain provisions to encourage short term accommodations businesses to register and to provide options on penalties for those that do not register.
MacDonald warned council that penalties would have to be carefully considered because large accommodations businesses like Airbnb have no qualms about taking municipalities to court to fight their regulations.
Councillor Paul Carr and others believed any costs for staff time in enforcement should be covered by fees and fines and not be paid by the general taxpayer.
Under the draft bylaw the initial registration fee would be $1,000.00 and the annual renewal fee would be $300.00.
