BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter from Elizabeth Layzell is an open letter to Oro-Medonte Mayor Harry Hughes about the short-term rental situation in Oro-Medonte.
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I, like many of my neighbours, have long suffered at the hands of short-term rental operators. We fully supported the Oro-Medonte bylaw that clarified that temporary short-term accommodations are not a residential use of a property.
We were dismayed that this clarification has been called “overreach.” It is very difficult to see how anyone can reach this conclusion when it has been abundantly clear that short-term rentals have been destroying our formerly peaceful and very livable residential neighbourhoods.
For the record, I am one of thousands of home owners who oppose short-term rentals in residential neighbourhoods. I was one of the canvassers who went door to door in October 2019 and asked people to consider signing our petition.
The petition asked Oro-Medonte council to enforce the existing zoning bylaw and stop short-term rentals from disrupting our neighbourhoods. In a very short period before winter and COVID suspended our outreach, over 1,500 home owners signed the petition.
Getting signatures was the easy part. Getting council to acknowledge that short-term rentals are not allowed under the existing zoning bylaw took another nine months. It wasn’t until June 2020, when the clarifying amendment was first proposed that the township finally agreed with an independent planner’s opinion obtained by home owners and acknowledged that short-term rentals were not permitted in residential zones.
Nobody wants these unsupervised hotels as a neighbour. The lobbyists call it NIMBY-ism. The overwhelming majority of home owners and I say, “Not in anybody’s backyard!” That’s because many people aren’t just afraid of some of the transients, they are fearful of the short-term rental operators.
They are afraid to speak up and report problems fearing reprisal from the operators. On three separate occasions, one STR operator tried to intimidate a residential home owner who has repeatedly reported problems to the township.
Think maybe we are dealing with just one bad apple? Think again. There are dozens and dozens of these disruptive rentals out there that have been reported to the township. In one neighbourhood there were four highly disruptive short term rentals operating within a few hundred metres.
Mr. Mayor, the time is long past due for you and your council to step up and protect us. You could have put an end to this way back in 2017 when the more than 12 disruptive short-term rentals were first reported to the township. Instead, you chose to generate a series of excuses, never even attempting in any meaningful way to protect home owners or their neighbourhoods.
You have been quoted as saying, “We will find a solution.” Mr. Mayor, we already have a solution and a precedent. You need look no further than the Town of The Blue Mountains. It has been working at this for more than 12 years. They already solved the problem in 2009.
We will not accept any solution that weakens our existing zoning bylaw or permits short-term rentals in lower-density residential zones. We will not accept any attempt at grandfathering existing prohibited uses. The solution to the problems of short term rentals is already in place. We just need council with the decency and the courage to ensure that our existing zoning bylaw is enforced.
If the present council can’t get the job done, then we will just have to elect a responsible council that will. People should never be afraid in their own homes and they should never be afraid to speak up.
Elizabeth Layzell
Oro-Medonte Township
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