The Town of Brome is attempting to implement a new bylaw that aims to give the municipality more control over short-term rentals.<\/p>\n
A registry was held on May 27 and 28 that provided citizens with the opportunity to sign against the bylaw (Bylaw 596-12). Only 218 signatures were needed to determine how the town was going to move forward, but over 300 signatures ended up being collected. As a result, the municipal council will be deciding at its next meeting on July 4 if they are going to hold a referendum.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe go back probably three years or so. People were doing Airbnb, they got a permit from the Centre de transfert d'entreprise du Qu\u00e9bec (CTEQ). We had a couple of complaints, we didn\u2019t have many, we probably had five complaints. Out of those five, there was one that was really a delinquent owner,\u201d explained Richard Burcombe, mayor for the Town of Brome Lake. (\u2026) \u201cSo finally, we worked on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Burcombe added that they did a survey and a public consultation to collect the opinions of citizens across the municipality and what they look for regarding short-term rentals. They used this information to create Bylaw 596-12.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat would happen in this bylaw is that we would be the controlling part. Before you could get your permit from the CTEQ or Airbnb. We came up with a bylaw to accommodate certain people and certain restrictions for others,\u201d noted Burcombe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Burcombe noted that if people conformed to the criteria within the bylaw, which includes having to have a property measuring minimum 1,500 square meters, respecting the number of parking spaces and bedrooms that come with the property, amongst others, that they will have access to a permit from the town and then they can apply for their permit from CTEQ.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf there were complaints, you\u2019d get a warning. If there is another one, you\u2019d get a warning and then we could pull the permit. We advise the CTEQ that they don\u2019t conform to our bylaw, so they would pull their permit,\u201d said Burcombe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n After making changes to Bylaw 596-12, a registry was held, a typical process when changes are made, and Burcombe said that people were misinformed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPeople thought that by signing the register, that they were signing to keep Air Bnb, but it wasn\u2019t. They were signing against the bylaw. There was a communication problem there, at what level we aren\u2019t sure. (\u2026) They (those against the bylaw) managed to get 373 signatures opposing the bylaw, which would force a referendum, and they only needed 218,\u201d he emphasized.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As a result, the town will evaluate whether they will move forward with a referendum.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe referendum will be, if there are enough votes to accept the bylaw, the bylaw will go into effect; that\u2019s the end of the line. If there\u2019s not enough votes to adopt the bylaw, it\u2019s out, it\u2019s finished, it\u2019s terminated,\u201d mentioned Burcombe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If they decide against a referendum, other options are on the table.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe can look at amending the criteria there. (\u2026) We could also say \u2018look we\u2019re going to form a committee with pro and con, and neutral people.\u2019 We could form a committee like that also, it\u2019s an option. This is something that will be discussed by council, but like I said, our main decision is do we go to a referendum or not,\u201d said Burcombe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Listen to the full interview below:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Town of Brome is attempting to implement a new bylaw that aims to give the municipality more control over short-term rentals. A registry was held on May 27 and 28 that provided citizens with the opportunity to sign against the bylaw (Bylaw 596-12). Only 218 signatures were needed to determine how the town was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":99798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,225],"tags":[3434,3437,15562,15561,15563,15558,15559,15560,3435],"radio":[246],"origine":[274,259,260],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100515"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100594,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100515\/revisions\/100594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100515"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=100515"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=100515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}