Law 67 on collective housing, passed in March 2021, allows all owners to rent out their main residence for a maximum period of 30 days. The provincial government has given municipalities a two-year period to monitor, regulate, or ban the practice altogether.
Fearing tourist flows, some local authorities have enacted regulations on primary residence rentals in anticipation of the new measure coming into force.
In Estrie, Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley, Orford, Bromont and Magog have decided to regulate this practice.
More than two million people visit Bromont every year. With a population of 11,000, that’s a lot. We must therefore be careful, said Louis Villeneuve, mayor of this municipality.
The Quebec government is now allowing homeowners in all Quebec cities, with some exceptions, to rent out their primary residence for 30 days or less on platforms like Airbnb. Some municipalities have already put in place regulations to regulate this type of rental, but it is now becoming more complicated for others to do so. A report by Kim Vermette.
Further north, cities like Lévis and Saint-André-de-Kamouraska have also decided to restrict this type of rental.
During the pandemic, every second house was sold and converted. We fear for our village and we didn’t want it to become just a tourist village. We wanted to protect him, explained Gervais Darisse, mayor of Saint-André-de-Kamouraska, in an interview with Info-réveil on Radio-Canada.
We want a vibrant village that’s inhabited all year round, so we wanted to slow the pace by setting quotas per zone.
In its original form, the bill had met with strong opposition from local authorities, which would lose their zoning rights for short-term rentals. With the help of the Fédération québécoise des Municipalités, they have made significant progress and have finally been able to retain the regulatory powers that give them some control over the supply of accommodation on their territory.
Cumbersome and costly procedures
However, the new regulations are causing a lot of trouble for the people of Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury in the Quebec region.
After the municipal council’s decision to ban short-term rentals of main residences, some citizens mobilized. To decide the issue, the city must hold referendums in 30 of the 96 zones of its territory.
It’s like 30 choices. It’s obvious that we really didn’t need it. “I’m not sure the government realizes how much they are up against the wall with this law,” said Sébastien Couture, Mayor of Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury.
We already had a regulatory framework. If the citizens had wanted us to expand it, we would have done it ourselves, without the sword of Damocles that this law represents, Mayor Couture continued.
The town of Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury now has to spend considerable sums to organize referendums. Municipal authorities intend to forward the bill to Quebec for all law 67 litigation.
Sebastien Couture, Mayor of Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury
Photo: Radio Canada
But apart from the costs, Sébastien Couture fears the effects of the new law on his community. I think people will wake up when the law goes into effect and they’ll be like, ‘Oh! What is happening in our area? We should have done something.”
Joé Deslauriers, mayor of Saint-Donat and in charge of the short-term rental file at the Union of Quebec Municipalities, doesn’t really share that concern. He doesn’t think people will be as inclined to rent their primary residence where all their personal belongings are collected.
After discussions with several colleagues and mayors across the province, the issue [de la location à court terme] isn’t so much at the primary residence level, he says.
However, he recognizes the enormous challenges faced by local authorities looking to legislate in this area.
The process [de réglementation municipale] for primary residences is very difficult. It’s long, arduous and requires enormous resources from municipalities, resources they often don’t have, he explains. In each zone of a municipality several registers and several referendums with draft regulations are to be carried out. We’re not saying it’s impossible, but it’s quite a challenge. And it’s very expensive.
However, some municipalities perform surprisingly well. This is the case of Magog, where we managed to avoid the referendum in the 492 zones of the territory. Last January, citizens demonstrated in 51 zones against the municipal statute already in force, which prohibits the short-term rental of main residences. However, in none of them was the number of signatures in the register sufficient to initiate a public consultation process.
The actual problem
Like many other Quebec mayors, Joé Deslauriers’ biggest concern right now is the short-term rental of second homes that are illegally rented on certain accommodation platforms.
The entire municipal world has this problem, says Mr Deslauriers.
Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx recently reaffirmed her intention to further tighten the Tourist Accommodation Act. Mr Deslauriers hopes the Minister will act quickly.
Joé Deslauriers, Mayor of Saint-Donat and in charge of the short-term rental file at the Union des Municipalités du Québec
Photo: Radio Canada / Yoann Dénécé
We call on the Quebec government to adopt a regulatory framework that ensures that both Revenu Québec and the Corporation de l’industrie touristique du Québec [CITQ] and the Ministry of Tourism will have a “pogne” against those who do not respect the laws and municipal regulations.
He welcomes Airbnb’s decision to no longer publish ads from landlords who do not have a CITQ registration number and are therefore not authorized by local authorities. He wants this procedure to be generalized and, above all, to be respected.
In the case of an upcoming law, we should really give the various departments all the tools they need to be able to act. What citizens want is that the state can intervene quickly and that there are meaningful consequences if a denunciation occurs.
With information from Kim Vermette