{"id":25287,"date":"2019-11-22T20:14:24","date_gmt":"2019-11-23T01:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25287"},"modified":"2019-11-29T15:30:50","modified_gmt":"2019-11-29T20:30:50","slug":"tightened-restrictions-eyed-for-auroras-airbnbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/tightened-restrictions-eyed-for-auroras-airbnbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Tightened restrictions eyed for Aurora\u2019s Airbnbs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aurora has begun the process of examining regulations on\nlocal Airbnbs and other short-term rentals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council last week unanimously approved a motion from\nMayor Tom Mrakas calling on staff to \u201cexamine the feasibility of passing a\nbylaw to license, regulate and govern Airbnb and short-term rental\naccommodations\u201d within Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Short-term rental accommodations in residential areas\nhave resulted in concerns over excessive noise, fire safety and mischief in\n\u201cmany municipalities,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas, and beginning this process will help\nfill a bylaw gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it behoves us to be proactive in this instance\nand ask staff to look at how we can come up with some regulations,\u201d he said.\n\u201cRight now, we have none so let\u2019s take that step, let\u2019s ask staff to look at\nit. I can assure you right now we\u2019re not hearing anything [in the way of\ncomplaints]\u2026but once other municipalities \u2013 and they are \u2013 pass regulations,\nthe problem Airbnbs [tend] to flock to where people don\u2019t have any regulations,\nso that\u2019s why I think it is important for us to move forward on this as quickly\nas possible and have staff look at something that can come back to us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mayor stressed that he is in no way trying to ban\nshort-term rentals, but following conversations with York Regional Police, the\nCentral York Fire Services, and other stakeholders, having no bylaw pertaining\nto Aurora could prove challenging in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf there is a call and [Police] need to go out to an Airbnb or short-term rental accommodation, that bill for the YRP gets sent to the property owner,\u201d Mayor Mrakas concluded. \u201cIt is something we need to look at because it puts the onus on the property owner to say, \u2018if you\u2019re going to rent out your property, then you\u2019re going to make sure you\u2019re not renting it [for it] to become a party house.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking in support of the motion, Councillor Rachel\nGilliland said she welcomed the opportunity to address the issue \u201cbefore\nsomething bad actually happens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have heard stories through certain friends and family where they have been part of Airbnbs where bad things have occurred and we don\u2019t want them to happen,\u201d she said. \u201cI also think the people who do run [these accommodations]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

out of their homes do follow the rules and do comply,\nthat they want these regulations. They don\u2019t want the bad apples to ruin it for\nthem. I don\u2019t think a total ban is something that we would want to walk down,\nbut they are asking to have some sort of licensing or regulation that we can\nfollow and kind of respect so we can avoid that.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHopefully [the report] will explore the idea of charging [any fees occurred by the York Regional Police in responding to Airbnb issues] the property owner. I think it does make them think twice about who they are actually renting to and it develops an accountability. At the same time, it is important that we do offer short-term rentals for various reasons and I think there is a need for it. I am really looking forward [to the report]. \u201c <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Councillor Wendy Gaertner: \u201cI think this is an important idea. We\u2019re not talking about reinventing the wheel. We have some good examples of what municipalities have been doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora has begun the process of examining regulations on local Airbnbs and other short-term rentals. Council last week unanimously approved a motion from Mayor Tom Mrakas calling on staff to \u201cexamine the feasibility of passing a bylaw to license, regulate and govern Airbnb and short-term rental accommodations\u201d within Aurora. Short-term rental accommodations in residential areas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6zR","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 10:33:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}