Isabel Mosseler
Tribune
Despite receiving a petition with over 750 signatures, West Nipissing town council passed its controversial bylaw to license, regulate, and govern short term rental accommodations (STRA) within the municipality, during the April 2 regular council meeting. The initiator of the petition opposing the bylaw, Roch Pellerin of Verner, a STRA owner himself, said in an online video that the petition continues to garner signatures and has now reached over 1000 signatories. He says he and his backers will continue until they gather 4000 signatures, in the hopes that council will reverse its decision. Some of the petitioners attended the April 2 meeting hoping to have a voice, but procedure only allows for a petition to be discussed at the meeting following the one at which it is received. After several vocal outbreaks, the audience was advised that no discussion from the floor was permitted.
The bylaw was discussed piece by piece at the previous council meeting, amendments were made, and a majority seemed to have achieved consensus by the end of that evening (see article in the March 27 issue of the Tribune). Coun. Jérôme Courchesne had voiced concerns during that discussion, and on April 2, he still wasn’t keen on the bylaw as drafted. He asked council to hold off until September 2024, citing new information he received via “a lot of phone calls, good conversations, texts, Facebook messages, emails (…). If I follow my gut feeling on this, I wouldn’t be prepared to vote tonight because (…) it is going to have an effect, either positive or negative on people.”
Courchesne noted that many STRAs are already booked for the season, and a deferral would allow for a final round of public consultation. “We’ve worked kind of hard over the past few months to work out a draft and I think we’re all in agreement with the final draft (…), but just pushing it back a little bit and giving our residents more time to adjust on what’s coming (…). 2024 could become like a transition year where, you know, we get some feedback, we finalize the bylaw and then we put everything into place (…). If for some reason or another, one person doesn’t qualify or doesn’t have a license and already has a half summer full of bookings, that person is actually liable for 50% of the fees (…). I wasn’t aware of that even about a month ago,” he argued. Coun. Fern Pellerin supported Courchesne’s position, as he had during the previous meeting.
Coun. Jamie Restoule countered that further consultations were unnecessary. “I think we’ve done enough (…) We have a subcommittee who took all of the comments that were made (…), we’ve spoken about it. (…) We took the majority of the [last] meeting to go through every single point and have our own discussions on it (…) This has been going on since 2021, we’re going on three years on this (…), it’s time we got to start moving forward and accepting this.” Interjections from the audience interrupted the proceedings, compelling Mayor Kathleen Thorne Rochon to remind attendees that “there’s no comments permitted from the floor.”
Coun. Dan Gagné agreed with Coun. Restoule. “We did have consultation, online consultation. We took the feedback. We have an open forum here in the Council chambers. I think we’ve kicked the bucket enough times. People had a chance to say their comments, to call their councillors a lot of times, I think it’s time to move forward, put regulations in place,” he stated. Still, he offered hope for future amendments to the regulations. “It’s not in stone. We can change them. If there’s anything major, it can come back. You can adjust it. But I think it’s time to move forward and to put this bylaw in place.”
Coun. Pellerin made a final appeal, saying that awareness of the consultation was limited, “I don’t think it was advertised enough.” He noted that the petition of several hundred signatures dwarfed the 59 people who provided feedback during the consultation. Coun. Anne Tessier, who was on the ad hoc committee to form the bylaw, added her voice in favour of a delay. “The more I hear from people, there’s new information that comes up (…). If it was to pass now, they could lose money through the summer (…). The final draft to me, when it’s ready to pass, I think should have another consultation to make sure we captured everything that needs to be considered.”
Courchesne’s Motion to Defer was defeated and council then proceeded to vote on the proposed bylaw as is. Councillors Courchesne, Pellerin and Tessier voted against, while Councillors Gagné, Kaitlynn Nicol and Restoule voted in favour. Mayor Rochon broke the tie in favour. Coun. Roch St-Louis was absent, and Coun. Kris Rivard abstained from all debate and voting as he had previously declared a conflict of interest on the matter.
What followed on social media were comments bordering on accusations of special interest. Coun. Kris Rivard was questioned as to why he declared a conflict. In a follow-up with the Tribune, Coun. Rivard declared, “I was absolutely in conflict of interest.” He filed his papers before each meeting and withdrew from all proceedings. Rivard works for the North Bay Mattawa Conservation Authority. “My belief is that there is an indirect pecuniary interest/conflict of interest, because my employer would be collecting fees for sewage system permits. Some permits may be prompted by this new bylaw. Therefore, I do not want to risk my career that supports my family, in order to vote for a bylaw,” he explained.
Several attempts were made to speak to Roch Pellerin, who initiated the petition. He was not available to the Tribune, but he made public comments in online interviews with David Lewington, former candidate for mayor of West Nipissing. “I myself, a short-term rental owner, or you should say Airbnb owner, and I am very opposed to the bylaw that the Council and the mayor is implementing towards us, all Airbnb owners (…) It’s going to hurt us with all of these bylaws, including 19 pages of restrictions.” He felt that a large number of businesses in West Nipissing would be affected negatively, as people may close their operations rather than deal with the bylaw, reducing tourism dollars. “I was told by a few restaurants that they’re on the verge of maybe closing with the price of rent, the price of food, price of taxes, etcetera.”
Lewington and Pellerin indicated that the consultation period was only 9 days, and very few people knew of it. Pellerin said, “When I was told that those bylaws were going to be put in at the agenda April 2nd (…), I had eight days to get as much signatures as I could get against those bylaws.” He indicated he did have help in his endeavours. “I had eight days, which I only took six days. I did not want to bother anyone on Good Friday and on Easter Sunday (…) Well, we took those six days to gather up over 850 signatures. As we’re speaking now, we have (…) over 1000 signatures against these bylaws (…). I have 97 messages in my inbox [asking] where can I sign this? (…) I felt like April 2nd (…) like we were being cheated (…) and they did not even mention the amount of petition that were signed. They only mentioned there was a petition and it was only at the end of the meeting, where they made it really, really fast.”
Pellerin gave some of his particulars, including that he was physically challenged as a result of an accident and depended on his STRA for his livelihood. He also stated he was a lifelong resident of the area, and alluded to a situation where he might have to sell. “We are not giving up on this subject. I know some people are already taking their listings down and I know already 6 have put their properties up for sale (…). I’m reaching out to everyone, that we’re not done fighting the fight. We’re not giving up.”
