Fort Erie Short-Term Rental Zoning Bylaw Regulation

Fort Erie Neighborhood Preservation Group

Short-Term Rental Bylaw Amendment Update

First and foremost, Thank You to everyone who has contributed to fund our fight to appropriately regulate Fort Erie’s Zoning Bylaw, and to control the proliferation of Short-Term Rentals (STRs). For the past four years, the Fort Erie Neighbourhood Preservation group has worked to ensure that dedicated commercial STRs are not allowed to operate in our residential neighbourhoods.

Recently, you may have heard that our efforts to appeal the Fort Erie Town Council’s decision to allow STRs in our waterfront residential neighbourhoods had been dismissed by the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT). The appeal dismissal was based on the recently passed provincial Bill 185, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act which came into law in April of this year. It was somewhat surprising in that our appeal was filed well in advance of the legislative changes. In light of this, we engaged additional legal counsel who identified two paths to remedy this situation. Based upon the advice of counsel, this week, we filed a Notice of Motion for Leave to Appeal in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. In addition we filed a Judicial Review Application in the Ontario Divisional Court.

The fairness of Bill 185 is being raised by many appellants throughout the province. We are hopeful that our ongoing efforts will ensure a just review of how the Town of Fort Erie has mishandled the whole process of creating Short Term Rental zoning bylaws.

Many of you have very generously supported our efforts financially. Again, thank you. We are very grateful.

Our ongoing litigation will create mounting expenses. The appeals filed this week are not expected to be prohibitively expensive, but the costs are difficult to predict. At this moment, we are sufficiently funded to take this process to the next step. However, we will continue to need your support to ensure we are properly funded to complete our litigation. Our initial fundraising goal is an additional $30,000.

If you haven’t already done so, please consider a donation.

If you prefer, please send your personal checks to:

Fort Erie Neighbourhood Preservation Group

1715 MacDonald Dr.

Fort Erie, ON

L2A 5M4

The following is a timeline of events that brings us up to the present and outlines how we will be moving our appeal forward:

• 2020 – Present – Our ad hoc committee has spent countless hours lobbying and consulting with legal and land use professionals to prevent the proliferation of STRs in our waterfront neighbourhoods.

• January 29, 2024 - The Town votes to amend the zoning bylaws related to STRs.

o Staff recommendations and the Town’s independent planning consultant recommended STRs to be allowed in Mixed-Use Commercial/Residential neighbourhoods and Crystal Beach’s R2B Residential Zones only.

o “Owner Occupied” STRs could be in any residential neighbourhood.

o A last-minute amendment to allow commercial STRs in all Waterfront Neighbourhoods between Kraft Rd and Mathews Rd. was proposed by Councilor Tom Lewis. Along with the inevitable increase in the number of licenses available this will be very disruptive to the waterfront neighborhood.

o These amendments were approved even though they ignored the Town’s own professional planning staff and the outside consulting firm that council engaged to shepherd the Town through this process.

• February 20, 2024 – Our ad hoc committee formed a legal Not-For-Profit neighbourhood group and filed an appeal with the OLT.

o Our group was formed to efficiently fundraise and give our individual members some legal protection. It is a common practice making it easier for the OLT to respond to a single entity rather than a group of individuals.

• April 10, 2024 – The Province of Ontario announced the introduction of Bill 185, the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act.

o The Bill is intended to be developer friendly. It removed our right to appeal because our group did not directly own property that was affected by the zoning amendment even though all members were Fort Erie property owners impacted by the amendment.

o The Bill’s provisions were made retroactive to April 10th, even though we had already filed for the appeal and were officially in the OLT appeal process.

• May 29, 2024 – Notice was received by the OLT that our appeal was officially in the system and our Case Management Conference was scheduled for July 4, 2024.

• June 6, 2024 – Our appeal was postponed, pending review of Bill 185.

• June 28, 2024 - Our Lawyer, Alex Ciccone made the submission to the OLT “that the Tribunal should not dismiss the Appeal” of Fort Erie Neighbourhood Preservation Group.

• July 15, 2024 – Our submission asking for our appeal to be considered was denied.

• July 30, 2024 – We added Eric Gillespie to our legal team. Eric is an experienced litigator in municipal matters. A Notice of Motion for Leave to Appeal the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the OLT was filed.

• August 13, 2024 - We filed a Notice of Application for Judicial Review.