Guelph council moves forward with plan to licence short-term rentals

Guelph City Hall is pictured on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014.

Those looking to offer accommodations for a short-term rental – such as through websites like Airbnb – will soon need a business license to operate in the City of Guelph.

This comes from a unanimous decision by council on Tuesday to approve a plan to create a licensing program under the city’s business licensing bylaw to better regulate short-term rental accommodations.

Short-term rental means all or part of a dwelling unit that is used to provide sleeping accommodation for any rental period that is less than 30 consecutive days and does not include a hotel, motel, or bed and breakfast.

Coun. Cathy Downer questioned how enforcement would work in ensuring those who are operating are licensed.

In response, a staffer said the city would be taking a reactive and proactive enforcement style – meaning complaint based would be reactive and proactive would be using a company to routinely provide the list of licenced operators.

Council will still need to approve an official licensing bylaw before the program can begin.

“Online short-term rental platforms have afforded homeowners an opportunity to make extra money by hosting guests for short stays in their home and has been a disrupter in our hospitality industry,” lone delegate Morgan Dandie said.

Dandie said she is grateful Guelph is set to regulate this business model which is dependent on the commodification of homes.

A staff report sent to council earlier this month found short-term rentals are typically considered an accommodation rental for less than 30 days. These rentals generally serve visitors to Guelph and are not intended to be permanent housing solutions for area residents.

In January of this year, a city data provider, who has developed tools to quantify the number of short-term rental listings across multiple online host platforms, found 212 listings associated with 169 unique rental units in Guelph, the staff report says.

“These numbers represent live listings, which are not the same as the total number of units available in Guelph as not all listings are available to rent at any given time,” the report reads.

According to the report, Guelph has seen a 28 per cent growth in short-term rental listings over the last two years, and Airbnb has over 90 per cent of the listings.

The decision to move forward with plans to create a licencing program comes nearly seven years after council directed staff to study the issues of short-term rentals in Guelph.