By James Matthews
Interest in operating short-term rental properties in Highlands East for the summer tourism season has increased.
Kim Roberts, the township’s junior planner, gave council during its April 8 meeting a snapshot of the recently-launched short-term rental (STR) licensing program.
Of 41 short-term rental applications received by the township, 22 have been approved. Ten have been rejected and there are nine applications being considered.
Roberts said the rejections are largely due to building code infractions and septic capacity issues.
“We’ve definitely seen an uptick in enquiries around short-term rentals,” she said.
The municipality is gearing up to send first warning letters to existing STR operators who are identifiable by the township that are non-compliant with licensing.
Roberts said the township will soon have an idea of its share of the municipal accommodation tax (MAT) collected during the year’s first quarter as part of the new STR regulations.
As part of the new bylaw to regulate STRs, Haliburton County attached a four per cent MAT to STR property owners. Money from the tax is to go toward implementing and enforcing the STR bylaw and to tourism promotion.
Half of the tax collected by the four lower tier municipalities will be kicked up to the county to be used in promoting and initiatives to build the local tourism industry.
“We’ve had the first payment come in already, actually,” she said.
Reminders will be sent to remind license holders about the MAT and that it will need to be paid and recorded by the end of the month, she said.
Roberts said the township might be interested in knowing an Ontario municipality, Tiny Township, recently won a legal action brought to superior court by a group of STR property owners.
The applicants petitioned the court in October 2024 behind an argument that licensing bylaws should be quashed for illegality as per a section in the Municipal Act. The judge ultimately ruled that the licensing bylaws are not illegal and should not be quashed.
“This was kind of a much-anticipated decision,” Roberts said and added that Tiny Township’s STR regulations are more strict than Highlands East’s in some degree.
Enforcement of Highlands East’s STR bylaw will begin in earnest in June, she said.
Deputy Mayor Cecil Ryall asked about the collection of the MAT and the licensing fees from local operators.
“Depending on how it’s received, it all comes into our coffers,” Roberts said. “We do have accounts to receive the MAT payments as well as the licensing fees.”
Ryall said he’s aware of the MAT’s 50-50 split with Haliburton County, but he isn’t certain about the mechanism or process to do that.
“Or is it just in a holding account of some kind until, I believe, we need a corporation or something to basically determine how that will be dealt with,” he said. “Do you know if we’ve progressed to that point yet?”
The county is working through the legalities of establishing the municipal corporation that will handle the 50 per cent of the MAT for tourism-related uses, she said.
“My understanding is that we’re receiving the monies and holding them,” Roberts said. “As more MAT fund comes in, we’ll be setting up a sort of reserve fund for 50 per cent of those monies to go into so that when we’re ready to start transferring to the county everything is sort of sitting in that account ready to be transferred once that process is ready to go.”
“For those who are operating their short-term rentals right now without a license, what would we say to them?” Councillor Angela Lewis said.
“We’re really, really encouraging folks to get their applications in,” Roberts said. “We are starting to more vigorously review where we’re seeing listings, where we’re seeing revenue coming into short-term rentals.”
A host compliance program has been “scraping websites” to gather that information for the township.
“So we’re starting to see where folks are still kind of actively renting and we haven’t received something from them,” Robert said. “Those folks are going to be the first ones to receive their warning letters.”
To local STR property operators: It’s always better to voluntarily comply with the regulations and to provide the required information, she said.
“It’s much more affordable to start work through the process with us now,” she said. “We’re doing our best to help people sort out situations where maybe they have concerns about shore road allowances or septics, stuff like that.”
It’s more costly for operators if the municipality has to take legal action against them, she said. Problems with such things as septic systems are best to be worked out before it gets too far gone.
“A lot of people get their water from the lake,” she said. “A lot of people have small kids and things like that playing in the water. Nobody wants pollution of that type entering our waterways.”
