Council will once again be discussing the issue of user fees for short-term rentals in the city.
The previous council approved the user fees, but a motion of reconsideration at the new council’s meeting Tuesday night passed by a vote of 7-4.
Councillor Mark King then put forward a motion to have the issue go back to committee for further discussion.
“I don’t think it’s fair for an individual renting a room to pay a $600 fee,” he says. “It should be on some sort of a sliding scale, whether it’s based on the number of bedrooms, square footage, maybe room rates.”
King says he’s not opposed to user fees.
“You have to recognize there’s a cost incurred in order to make that work from a staffing standpoint so you have to figure that out,” he says. “But, at the same time, you don’t want to discourage people from doing it, which is what I thought was going on there.”
King also filed a notice of motion to invite Integrity Commissioner George Valin to council.
It stems from a code of conduct investigation, report and recommendations done during the last council term.
“It’s absolutely important for the new council to hear what he has to say, I’m interested,” he says. “I would hope to learn something through the whole process.”
King says he’ll now go to work on seeing how a meeting with Valin can happen, from a procedural standpoint.
