Balance between residents and tourists front and centre during debate on Albert Street inn

The triplex at 220 Albert St. was denied a zone change that would allow the building to be licenced as a three-unit inn.

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Is Stratford for visitors or for residents? Can it be for both?

While not expressly discussed at the Stratford city council meeting on Sept. 8, those questions were perhaps at the heart of the debate on an inn designation for 220 Albert St.

The Albert Street triplex is owned by Sally Headley, who runs several “mid- to long-term” short-term accommodation units on Ontario Street, which 220 Albert St. backs onto. She wanted to zone the property as mixed-use to allow the property to be properly licenced with the city as an inn.

As Headley’s agent, Richard Kelly-Ruetz of GSP Group Inc., had explained, her business Sally’s Place offers a niche service in the city, offering short-term accommodations that focus on long-term stays, such as tourists making a longer stay, workers for local factories that need more than just a hotel room or residents that are doing extensive renovations in their homes, to name a few examples. Due to the city’s licencing bylaws, she would not be able to run her business as intended since she is an American citizen and must live in the United States for periods of time (short-term accommodators must live at the unit they rent out).

At a public meeting for the site on June 23, many neighbours expressed concern about what the designation would mean for their street. They had issues with the “precedent setting” decision, the “commercial traffic” that will threaten the neighbourhood, the potential for a through-driveway to be constructed that connects Albert Street and Ontario Street and property decisions the owner has already made, like the removal of a mature tree and the dividing fence between the three properties.

Sue Satchell, an employee of Sally’s Place, spoke at the most recent meeting to assuage some of those concerns.

“We have respectfully considered the concerns of the surrounding neighbours and city staff and want to address these issues and bring forth solutions for your consideration,” Satchell said. “We want to work with the city and neighbours, not against you.”

Satchell said that no loud parties or disturbances have been at Headley’s properties, many travellers would be walking throughout the city (meaning that traffic may be less busy from tourists) and that Headley would install a coded gate for the through-driveway connecting Albert Street and Ontario Street, to name a few points.

Despite Headley and Satchell’s plans, many councillors could not get over losing three rental units in favour of short-term accommodations.

“This is the only part that I'm really opposed to, is the fact of taking a three (unit) apartment building and wanting to make it short-term,” Coun. Bonnie Henderson said. “… To lose three more apartments, I just can't get my head around that. I have no other problem with all the other stuff.”

Coun. Jo Dee Burbach pointed out that the property would not need a zone change to operate two of the three units as those “mid- to long-term” stays, so long as they were 28 days or longer. The third unit, if she is residing there as she is now, could be used as a short-term rental, even if she was living there for a limited period.

“I feel like this zoning change is unnecessary for most of the use that’s intended by Sally,” Burbach said. “My concern – I have two concerns. One is that this property isn't always going to belong to Sally, so somebody could come in and (host) short-term rentals all year round, and then we could have completely different guests … Who knows? Nobody can guarantee the type of guest that's going to rent these short-term rentals. The other issue that I have is that this does set a precedent for other residential areas. Then other people will be asking, ‘Why can't I have my three-unit or four-unit property turned into short-term rentals?’ And that's exactly what we're trying to prevent.”

Coun. Larry McCabe saw things differently, however. While apartment units and housing in general is greatly needed in the city, the tourism economy is hugely important to Stratford’s prosperity and it cannot be neglected. The units Headley would provide with 220 Albert St. would benefit the city’s housing stock, by his reckoning.

“It's the unnecessary complexity that we've built into our bylaws here and our zoning that makes no sense for a community that needs way more flexibility in its solutions,” McCabe said.

Following the staff recommendation, council voted to deny the zone change. McCabe and Coun. Brad Beatty were the only ones in favour of granting the change. As Beatty said, reiterating a point made earlier by Coun. Taylor Briscoe, neither side of the argument is wrong or right.

“We’re splitting hairs here,” Beatty said. “… We are blessed that we have this challenge, that we have such a great economic development team … that we have a tourism (industry) that needs these spaces. But we also have residents that need housing.”