Our local township council recently posted an announcement of a proposed STR licence fee application/renewal increase of 200% or from $1,000-$3,000/yr and were holding a meeting to vote on it 12 days later! We never had much notice to prepare and they voted it through! They didn't allow us to question them as to why? Couldn't ask for a detailed accounting to support such a large increase and why are they pushing it through so fast! The rumors are that some of the council members were voted in with getting rid of STR's going to be there agenda. So what they are doing is making it so expensive that we, as STR hosts can't afford it.
This is precedent setting in Canada to charge this much for a licence fee and if it stands there will be a ripple effect across Canada! Every city, town, municipality etc will be looking at this as a revenue source! If this happens there will be less hosts which means less service fees for Airbnb! If that happens in large scale it hurts all of us!
We have formed a small group of STR hosts and retained a lawyer to bring this decision into a legal forum! We are going to need financial help to see this all the way through and stop this insane, precedent-setting increase! This is the fight Airbnb should be involved in otherwise it will start happening everywhere!