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London’s anti-short-term lettings ordinance is protecting the local housing market, City Hall’s ordinance chief says, even as new figures suggest the ordinance is having little impact in most communities.

A recent report from Statistics Canada examined the impact of short-term rentals, or rentals for less than 30 days, typically found on websites like Airbnb, on Canada’s housing market. It specifically looks at rental properties, such as houses or apartments, that could become a permanent home for a person.

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Potential homes tied up as short-term rentals are common in tourist resorts like Whistler BC, the report said, but in most major cities such rentals make up less than one percent of the total housing stock. In London, there were 308 potential permanent homes on the short-term market out of 174,968 homes, or 0.18 percent, according to 2021 figures.

““The role of short-term rentals in Canada’s housing problems remains a subject of ongoing policy debate in many Canadian cities,” the report says. “Although the notion that such rentals limit the availability of long-term housing is widespread, empirical analysis of their impacts has produced mixed results.”

The report finds that there has been a 60 percent increase in short-term rental housing supply and more than 80 percent increase in potential permanent housing supply between 2017 and 2023. However, the numbers remain low across the country.

London passed a regulation in 2022 to regulate short-term rentals, requiring a license from the city, the imposition of a four percent hotel tax and, more importantly, limiting rentals to the owner’s primary residence or a residential unit within it. Authorities saw this as a way to suppress problematic party houses and combat the housing shortage.

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Orest Katolyk is head of City Hall’s bylaw department. He says the bylaw was passed despite complaints from landlords and minimizes the number of potential permanent apartments taken off the long-term market – a step he says several other cities have already taken.

“The reality is that I’m sure some properties have either exited the rental market entirely and been sold or they have returned to generating rental income,” he said.

Katolyk said the city has 251 licensed short-term rentals. Currently, 40 of them are under review and 20 have been rejected. City Hall uses an AI tool to identify London listings from hundreds of short-term rental websites. The addresses of listings may or may not be visible until reservation is made, he said.

The data is used to track down property owners and tell them they must either license their unit or stop short-term rentals before fines are levied. So far, City Hall has issued 165 fines under its short-term rental ordinance totaling $82,000.

“In my professional opinion, we have a pretty good overview of where (short-term rentals) are in London,” Katolyk said.

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