Adam Prudhomme
Editor
A staple in Greater Napanee will soon have a moniker as the Strathcona Paper’s naming rights to the ice rink expire, giving way to Best and Bash Developments.
At the April 9 meeting Greater Napanee council received a report from manager of community and economic development Annie Manion, which noted the town had struck a deal with the housing development company for 10 years at a cost of $30,000 our year. Effective Sept. 1, the current SPC will be known as Best and Bash Arena.
The arena isn’t the only mark they’re making on town as they’re currently developing the Springside Meadows subdivision, with 545 homes slated for construction.
“We welcome this company to our area and thank them for the investment they are making in this area and hopefully they’ll be around for awhile,” said mayor Terry Richardson. “We’d like to thank the Strathcona Paper Centre for their continued support. They’ve had the SPC on the arena since it was built. That was 20ish year ago if I’m not mistaken. We’d like to thank them for their support and continued support in our municipality.”
Indeed, the arena has been known as the Strathcona Paper Centre since the twin ice-pad and banquet hall building first opened its doors in 2004-replacing the York Street arena as home of minor hockey and figure skating within the community.
-Little progress was made on the town’s ongoing efforts to development a short term accommodation (STA) policy.
The matter was on the agenda again, with council opting to direct staff to continue to investigate and consult residents about a possible STA license requirement. Staff is then to report back to council with revenue and forecasting what enforcement of any by-law relating to STAs might cost.
Before council debated the matter they welcomed two deputations on the topic, both from residents against the idea of implementing a by-law.
“This by-law will end up costing the town more than expected revenues will bring in while providing little to no additional benefit to tax payers that current by-laws better enforced would do,” said Tony Balasevicius, who noted he had experience renting properties in other provinces. “The question council should consider when looking at this by-law is whether the problems with STAs in Greater Napanee is such that it would be worth the significant extra cost to tax payers to bring in and enforce and will it be the best use of staff time to constantly continually monitor for non-compliant STAs.”
Alice Carlson, who rents a century old farm house regularly throughout the summer said any additional costs would no longer make it feasible.
“Because my profits are modest, extra taxes and fees will feature into my future decisions about continuing to rent the farm house,” she told council.
Council members themselves were divided on the issue. Among the negative impacts of some STAs are guests that use them for nuance parties that can disrupt residents who live nearby.
“I personally know of some (STAs) that cause a great deal of negative impact in the immediate community and even down the road if you will,” said councillor Angela Hicks. “The question becomes how are we going to address the ones that are causing the problem? The next question is are there public safety issues occurring due to the growth of unregulated STAs?”
Hicks referenced a fatal fire in an unregulated Airbnb in Old Montreal that left seven people dead in March 0f 2023.
“One of the reasons I would like to have the short term accommodations regulated is so we know where they are so that there can be fire inspections done,” added Dave Pinnell Jr. “In my professional career of being a realtor I see many times in a basement someone wishing to call a room a bedroom that does not have a window. Or if it does have a window it’s too small to provide egress, or the window’s too high and there’s nothing around to get to yourself up to.”
Councillor Mike Schenk noted the difficulties in enforcing these regulations.
“I hate to make a by-law that we can’t enforce,” said Schenk. “If we have to go down a by-law road, we have to be able to enforce it and it’s not going to cost us to the point where it’s why did we even go down this road?”
Richardson said if they were to draft a by-law, they’d have to accept the fact that they’d never recover the costs of enforcements through fees and fines.
“We need to keep in mind that any kind of enforcement is never cost recovery,” said Richardson. “Policing is never cost recovery. By-law is never cost recovery. We do have an onus to our landowners, to our homeowners to try and regulate and control the activities going on.”
The matter is expected to come before council again, though no formal date was set.
-In a narrow vote of 4-3, council ruled not to implement a Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT) at this time-remaining one of just two of 25 communities of its size in the province not to have one.
Councillors Pinnell Jr., Bob Norrie and Bill Martin, along with deputy mayor Brian Calver all voted not to bring in the MAT, with Richardson, Hicks and Schenk in minority supporting the idea.
The MAT is a tax applied to hotel, motel or inn stays of under 30 days which is used to generate revenue to be put towards tourism.
For the purposes of their discussion, council was looking at implementing a four per cent MAT.
Earlier this year the town hosted an open house to hear input from the community about a MAT.
“This is a revenue stream that is currently not being used to bring in additional monies,” said Hicks. “Whether or not short term accommodation is taxed at the same time, but the hotel chains didn’t even show up at that meeting because it’s already built into their software. The smaller motels that showed up to the public meeting, many of them do long term rentals. They’re part of the housing program if I’m not mistaken…they don’t charge. They would not be charging that. Anything over 31 days would not be charged the municipal accommodation tax. I am in favour of it because I think even if it turned out to be $40,000 a year, it’s $40,000 that we don’t currently have that could be spent on planning an event or fixing up the signage on the 401.”
Pinnell Jr. said with the Carbon Tax and the rising cost of everything else, a MAT didn’t make sense at this time.
“I don’t think we need to be taxing people to come and visit our town,” said Pinnell Jr. “I know I’m going to hear an argument about this from others that say our neighbours are doing it. I’m not concerned about the neighbours. I’m concerned about Napanee.”
-Council voted to declare May 12 as Fibromyalgia Awareness Day in town. The chronic illness affects about five per cent of the Canadian population, often leading to chronic pain, fatigue and social isolation. By recognizing the day, the town hopes to show suffers and their families and caregivers that they are not alone.