Gabriel Leclerc owns two cottages in Calabogie, Ont., with his family. He’s taking them off Airbnb after the township introduced short-term rental licensing rules in 2024.
He and some other cottage owners say between fees and a complex administrative process, it’s no longer worth renting out their vacation properties.
“We were frankly not surprised because we knew that a lot of different municipalities and communities were looking at those types of licensing,” he says. “But when we started going through it … the rules and the intrusiveness of the process just became more excessive.”
Short-term rental licensing rules are becoming a popular way for municipalities to regulate vacation homes in Ontario’s cottage country. But the new rules are causing frustrations among property owners, some of whom are pulling homes off the rental market rather than complying.
Leclerc says he already pays for insurance, cleaning and property maintenance. He’s frustrated by the added cost, and the fact that he’s required to provide documents to the township he says they already have. His family is now planning on selling both their properties.
“We had plans on renting them for a while, and then as the kids get older, using them for ourselves,” he says. “And now … that extra work and burden of licensing just doesn’t make it worth it anymore.”
It’s up to each municipality in Ontario whether to regulate short-term rentals or require a landlord to obtain a short-term rental (STR) or short-term accommodation (STA) license for properties being rented out for a certain number of days each year.
In Greater Madawaska, which includes Calabogie, short-term accommodation licensing costs homeowners $300 annually and covers the city’s administration costs. Property owners must provide a map of their septic system and the property layout, among other requirements, if they plan to rent their cottage or home for fewer than 28 consecutive days.
Currently, it’s the only municipality in Renfrew County with the fee. Other areas of the province have adopted similar policies. Both Prince Edward County and the City of Ottawa have had policies in place since 2021. Municipalities in Haliburton County have had their own policies in place since 2024.
According to the Township of Greater Madawaska’s website, the bylaws are in place to ensure safety standards are met and “preserve the character” of the community. By registering a rental, a municipality can ensure fire codes, maximum occupancy rules, and noise bylaws are being followed.
Other municipalities say the provincial housing crisis has created a need to regulate the number of short-term rentals.
But some cottage owners say the policies aren’t having the desired effect.
Kelly Percival-Green has owned her three-bedroom cottage, just steps away from Calabogie Peaks Resort, for more than four years. Her family bought it with the intention of using it as a winter ski cabin, and in the summer, renting it out occasionally to cover the cost of maintenance. But now, she says, she’s been forced to pull it from the rental market because of STA regulations.
She and her husband live two hours away. In order to comply with the bylaw, they would need to hire someone on-call who could respond to emergencies within an hour, and who could check the carbon monoxide and smoke detectors after every stay.
“It just became so that it was not worth renting anymore,” she says. “I’m all about safety, but that was a little bit overkill in my opinion.”
When she retires in a few years, she says she’ll have to re-evaluate ownership.
“It was very helpful to be able to rent it and see the bills partially paid. Now we’re just paying the bills and we’re cringing a little bit because it hurts financially.”
Not everyone is frustrated with the new rules. Meghan James, general manager of the Somewhere Inn in Calabogie, says the boutique motel already pays licensing and business registration fees. She says it’s only fair that other STRs pay them too.
“Change is always hard. But if you’re running your home or your second home or cottage as a business, I think there’s fees that are associated with that. So if you’re generating revenue from that, you should budget in those licensing fees as well,” she says.
“I think it puts everybody kind of on a level playing field.”
She says regulation is important, not only for managing noise to respect neighbours who live in the area year-round, but for safety as well.
“These guests … deserve that peace of mind. Knowing that if something happens, everything is taken care of, their water’s being tested, they’ve got smoke alarms,” she says.
“You should have these things up to par just like any other accommodator would have to.”
But STR licenses haven’t been applied evenly, according to J.T. Lowes, the owner of All Season Cottage Rentals in Haliburton County, which manages privately owned properties and helps to rent them out. Differences in application between municipalities mean some owners are paying more than others, and need to follow different rules, he says.
There is no uniform definition of an STR and different municipalities charge licensing fees at varying rates. The cost of a short-term rental license in Minden Hills is about $500, compared to a host permit in Ottawa, which costs about $116 every two years.
“It’s predominantly impacting owners that only rent a handful of weeks each year,” he says. “Investment owners that you see on Airbnb that are trying to maximize their rentals and income — this is just another … expense to running a business — at the end of the day, it’s not impacting them as much.
“It’s leading to a big black market of rentals,” he says. “They’re still renting, but they’re doing it quietly underground, you know, friends and family … to avoid having to license.”
The regulations are hurting Ontario tourism, he believes. Since the municipalities in Haliburton County enacted STR bylaws in October 2024, he says he’s lost half his business. He’s had to lay off one full-time employee, and estimates at least 20 cleaning jobs have been lost.
“Really we’re not against rentals licensing, there is a need for that,” he says. “But the devil’s in the details.”
Minden Hills Councillor Pam Sayne says because the rules are so new, it will take time to work out the kinks. Her township has its own policy, and she says municipalities in Haliburton County are working to find a balance between supporting jobs in tourism and managing the number of short-term rentals taking up valuable housing space.
“The short-term rentals are a big industry here providing lots of jobs for cleaning,” she says. “But we also need places for those people to live.”
Sayne says fine-tuning the bylaw would be faster with support from the province.
“I think that for every municipality to have to go through this process with all of our staff time and all of our legal time going into providing these short-term rental agreements and how to operate this — that’s something that could have been incorporated and done more at the provincial level,” she says.
CBC reached out to the ministry of tourism but did not hear back.
Leclerc in Calabogie doesn’t mind the regulations, but would like them simplified.
“It just became this overbearing overreach that just doesn’t make it worth it to continue,” he says.
Greater Madawaska did not respond to requests for comment. But Sayne says what the township does next will inform how similar policies are implemented across the province.
“We’re following all of the situations that come up with other municipalities and what we need to do change to make sure that this is working best for everybody.”
