Region of Queens councillors rejected a property owner’s application to build four short-term rentals on this property on Fostertown Road in Port Medway. (Rick Conrad)

Region of Queens councillors made probably one of their easiest decisions at their regular meeting on Tuesday.

They rejected a bid to build an Airbnb that almost nobody wanted in their community.

Hans-Martin Klein, the owner of a vacant three-acre piece of land on Fostertown Road in Port Medway, wanted to build a single-family house for himself and four more single units to operate as seasonal rentals.

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Residents signed a petition against it, the region’s planning advisory committee recommended that council deny it and even the region’s planning staff said it should be rejected.

Under the municipality’s land use bylaw, fixed-roof overnight accommodations are not allowed in that part of the small village. It would require a change to the region’s land use bylaw to rezone the area.

Shelly Stevens is a Port Medway resident, who lives next door to the property.

“This area is made up of full-time residents who value safety, privacy and a quiet rural environment. Approving this rezoning would fundamentally alter the character of our community and reduce its liveability.”

Stevens told councillors that the road to the property is narrow, so it couldn’t accommodate increased traffic safely. She said the property owner’s proposal was also light on specifics.

“There’s no information on building size or sizes or layouts. There doesn’t appear to be any plan for garbage or recycling, or parking solutions, and no information on how many people the structures would accommodate.”

In addition to the petition, councillors said they also received a number of emails from residents opposed to it.

Deputy Mayor Maddie Charlton, who is a member of the planning advisory committee, said she was against the proposed development, especially since the region is planning a review of its land use bylaw and regulations around AirBnBs.

“There have been a lot of concerns raised about short-term rentals and how it affects our housing stock … this has been really problematic in Queens County. 
And so, we’re going to be looking at best practices to regulate those, where we want to encourage those, where we may not. And so that will have a really comprehensive review. So it didn’t make sense to entertain something like this.”

District 4 Coun. Vicki Amirault’s area includes Port Medway. She said the development would not fit with the location and characteristics of the small fishing village.

“As we have seen, many things such as the width of the road, the stone walls, the ditches, the flooding. There’s just so many points that stick out to deny this proposal.”

Councillors voted in December to hire an outside consultant to overhaul parts of its land use rules. One of those areas was the regulation of short-term rentals.

The consultant hasn’t been chosen yet, but the last time the region reviewed its land use bylaw and planning rules about eight years ago, it was expected to take about 18 months.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

The Region of Queens is moving ahead with plans to impose a levy on all short-term rentals. (Photo by InstagramFotoGrafin via Pixabay)

The Region of Queens is going to introduce its own extra charge on people who stay at hotels or other short-term rentals like Airbnbs in the area.

The accommodation levy would be up to an extra three per cent per night on top of what the property already charges.

Under provincial law, municipalities can use that revenue only to promote tourism in their area.

If the region required the maximum three per cent, it would generate about $240,000 a year, Richard Lane, a project officer with the Region of Queens, told councillors at their regular meeting on Tuesday.

“Now there are some accommodation providers who are as busy as they want to be, so they’re not particularly interested in additional promotion work. There are some accommodation providers whose business relies on construction workers and such like, and they’re not interested in additional promotion,” Lane said.

“So, on the one hand, you could say the furtherance or the promotion of tourism would be something that accommodation providers are interested in, but that’s certainly not a universal view.”

The municipality sent a survey to 128 registered accommodation providers in Queens last April. 

It also allowed members of the public to have their say.

The survey got 97 responses, 54 of which were from owners of accommodations.

About 67 per cent of owners were strongly opposed to a levy, though the other 33 per cent said it would either have a positive or no effect on their business.

Deputy Mayor Maddie Charlton said she supports the marketing levy. She said some people may have been confused about what the extra charge was all about.

“When people don’t understand what the funds could be used for, then when you hear the word ‘tax’ again, it’s a negative context. And so I think that people didn’t understand the full picture,” she said.

“And we are one of the few who don’t have (a levy). And I think in speaking with people about this, lots of residents who go to Halifax or Cape Breton, for example, they didn’t know they even pay this. It’s on every invoice where you stay. (Halifax and Cape Breton) have had these for a long, long time.”

Charlton said that while some property owners may not need any extra business, many small businesses in Queens County would benefit from more promotion of the area.

“And I really, really want to see more events happen throughout Queens County, specifically at Queens Place. And I think that this is a way to give our residents excitement and more events at no cost to them.”

Mayor Scott Christian said he’s opposed to the levy, especially after speaking with some local hotel and property owners.

“It feels premature to me when we don’t have our economic development strategy in place. We don’t exactly know how we’re going to market the Queens County. And I’ve just heard strongly from some of those operators about some of the impact that an accommodation levy would have upon them.”

Many other Nova Scotia municipalities already have some kind of levy on hotel rooms.

Lane told councillors that the Town of Bridgewater is the only municipality on the South Shore with a charge that also covers short-term rentals. There are 30 registered properties there, compared with the current count of 165 in Queens County, Lane said.

Bridgewater relies on operators to self-report and remit the proceeds to the town monthly. Owners can be fined if they send inaccurate reports.

The Town of Yarmouth, and the municipalities of the districts of Argyle and Yarmouth contract with a third-party service from the Ontario Restaurant Hotel and Motel Association to collect the fee on their behalf. That organization already works with 35 municipalities in Ontario, collecting more than $30 million annually. 

Lane said that the Association of Municipal Administrators of Nova Scotia is working on potentially coming up with a service that would collect the fee on behalf of all 49 municipalities in the province.

“If it is the will of council to have an accommodation levy in Queens County, … the likelihood is that by the time that bylaw is ready to be implemented, there may well be an automated system that we can adopt.”

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Listen to the audio version of this story below

Region of Queens Municipality administration building. (Rick Conrad photo)

By Rick Conrad

Fire trucks and Airbnbs are on the agenda as Region of Queens council meets Tuesday evening in Milton.

Council has four meetings a year in a community facility in a different part of Queens County. Tuesday’s meeting begins at 6 p.m. at the Milton Community Hall, 168 Tupper St., Milton.

Councillors will discuss a policy to help the county’s five fire departments with vehicle purchases according to a set schedule.

The current schedule expired last year. And council will be discussing a new timetable that will expire in 2035. 

The Mill Village fire department has asked the region for $275,000 in loan payments over 10 years toward a new $711,810 fire truck.

Under the proposed new funding arrangment,  the maximum amounts available to fire departments for the next two fiscal years for new equipment would remain at $275,000 for pumpers, tankers and aerial trucks and $100,000 for rescue and utility vehicles.

From 2026/27 to 2034/35, those amounts would increase to $425,000 for new trucks and $200,000 for rescue vehicles.

The amounts would be reviewed with fire chiefs every two years.

Also on council’s agenda Tuesday evening, owners of short-term rentals in Queens County may get a chance to have their say on a tourism accommodation levy.

The Nova Scotia government made it possible in 2022 for municipalities to tax all tourist lodging up to a maximum of three per cent.

Since last April, all short-term rentals must sign up with a provincial registry. They must also follow municipal land-use bylaws.

According to a staff report to council, a three per cent levy could raise about $240,000 per year. The extra revenue would go toward boosting local tourism efforts.

But first, staff is suggesting that the region consult the owners of such properties.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com