{"id":9729,"date":"2026-01-28T17:17:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=9729"},"modified":"2026-01-28T17:19:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:19:27","slug":"queens-councillors-reject-proposal-for-four-airbnbs-on-port-medway-property","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2026\/01\/28\/queens-councillors-reject-proposal-for-four-airbnbs-on-port-medway-property\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens councillors reject proposal for four Airbnbs on Port Medway property"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9731\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9731\" class=\"size-large wp-image-9731\" src=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/fostertownrd-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/fostertownrd-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/fostertownrd-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/fostertownrd-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/fostertownrd-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9731\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Region of Queens councillors rejected a property owner&#8217;s application to build four short-term rentals on this property on Fostertown Road in Port Medway. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Region of Queens councillors made probably one of their easiest decisions at their regular meeting on Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They rejected a bid to build an Airbnb that almost nobody wanted in their community.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Listen to the audio version of this story:<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-9729-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/portmedwayairbnbjan2826.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/portmedwayairbnbjan2826.mp3\">https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/portmedwayairbnbjan2826.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Residents signed a petition against it, the region\u2019s planning advisory committee recommended that council deny it and even the region\u2019s planning staff said it should be rejected.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Under the municipality\u2019s 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\u2019s land use bylaw to rezone the area.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shelly Stevens is a Port Medway resident, who lives next door to the property.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stevens told councillors that the road to the property is narrow, so it couldn\u2019t accommodate increased traffic safely. She said the property owner\u2019s proposal was also light on specifics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThere&#8217;s no information on building size or sizes or layouts. There doesn&#8217;t appear to be any plan for garbage or recycling, or parking solutions, and no information on how many people the structures would accommodate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In addition to the petition, councillors said they also received a number of emails from residents opposed to it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThere have been a lot of concerns raised about short-term rentals and how it affects our housing stock \u2026 this has been really problematic in Queens County. \u2029And so, we&#8217;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&#8217;t make sense to entertain something like this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">District 4 Coun. Vicki Amirault\u2019s area includes Port Medway. She said the development would not fit with the location and characteristics of the small fishing village.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAs we have seen, many things such as the width of the road, the stone walls, the ditches, the flooding. There&#8217;s just so many points that stick out to deny this proposal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2025\/12\/10\/region-of-queens-to-launch-comprehensive-review-of-land-use-rules\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Councillors voted in December to hire<\/a> an outside consultant to overhaul parts of its land use rules. One of those areas was the regulation of short-term rentals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The consultant hasn\u2019t 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Email: <a href=\"mailto:rickconradqccr@gmail.com\">rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[1644,3752,378,3756,3754,671,95,238,49,186,24,3755,3753,1646,96],"class_list":["post-9729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-airbnb","tag-airbnbs","tag-development","tag-fostertown-road","tag-hans-martin-klein","tag-land-use-bylaw","tag-maddie-charlton","tag-port-medway","tag-queens-county","tag-real-estate","tag-region-of-queens","tag-rental","tag-shelly-stevens","tag-short-term-rentals","tag-vicki-amirault"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9729"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9735,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9729\/revisions\/9735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}