Council changes approach to MAT proposal

Chris Van Paassen, Ward 4 Councillor

Luke Edwards

Grant Haven Media

It turns out Norfolk councillors weren’t quite ready to approve an added fee for visitors staying in local hotels and other overnight accommodations.

Councillors at the Feb. 24 council meeting backtracked on a motion they supported at a previous council-in-committee meeting that approved a municipal accommodation tax (MAT) in principle, and laid out some prerequisites before the fee would start being collected. Instead, after a lengthy and convoluted discussion, council narrowly approved a motion from Chris Van Paassen that requests a staff report on the potential implementation of a short term rental bylaw, a detailed business case for a tourism entity that would be involved with the MAT in the form of a municipal development corporation, and deferred the implementation of the MAT until those things have been “dealt with to the satisfaction of council.”

Van Paassen’s rationale was that the previous motion approved at the committee meeting offered an unclear series of steps, comparing it to a farmer out in the fields.

“I don’t start the harvest first. First I prep the land, then I seed the ground, and then I will wait for harvest in the fall,” he said.

“It looks like we got a combine out there first before we got the planter out there and we haven’t even prepped the field yet for the planter.”

However, others pointed out the initial motion provided for all that prep work, and would have been done in conjunction with staff developing the MAT policy.

The initial motion approved at the Feb. 10 committee meeting, put forward by Mayor Amy Martin, included a section that said staff should “not initiate any collections of funds until the Municipal Development Corporation has been established with a governance structure that includes members from the tourism sector as set out in the terms of reference. 

“And further that short-term rental policy be created and approved by council, so collection is equal across the sector. 

“And further that no dollars be spent until such time as a full priorities list be established and community consultation has occurred on identifying priorities to fund.”

At the Feb. 24 council meeting, Martin said Van Paassen’s new motion was a way to bow to public pressure and scrap the proposed MAT without actually voting against it.

“We’re elected and put in a position where we are supposed to action items, yes or no, one way or another, and the deferral, I believe, is a no and this council just doesn’t have the political will to say it,” she said.

Van Paassen disagreed. 

“It lays out a logical series of steps to achieve the goal that we want to achieve,” he said, adding his requests should be something staff can put together quickly and allow them to move forward with a possible MAT.

Part of the issue may simply come from calling the policy a “tax” and confusion around it, some councillors suggested. A MAT is a fee, typically set around four per cent, for most visitors staying in overnight accommodations. The money collected is then shared between a tourism entity that will use it for marketing efforts and the municipality, which can use the money for any infrastructure work related to tourism. Director of Economic Development John Regan said municipalities have latitude as to what tourism infrastructure is, meaning the money could be used for a lot of different projects.

While councillors described an outcry on social media and messages of concern from residents following the Feb. 10 committee meeting, those who spoke as deputations at the Feb. 24 council meeting all lent their support to a MAT. They said the policy would provide much needed marketing dollars for Norfolk’s tourism industry without putting it on the backs of taxpayers.

“It’s a great place to invest and our visitors make that investment for us,” said Kirby Shieck, president of the Simcoe and District Chamber of Commerce.

At four per cent, Shieck said the fee wouldn’t dissuade people from visiting Norfolk and staying overnight here, adding at $200 a night, visitors would pay an extra $8 with the proposed MAT.

“The idea that it would stop people from coming here or that’s eight bucks they don’t have to spend somewhere else, that seems hard to imagine that would have a profound effect on anything,” he said.

Coun. Adam Veri also offered his support of a MAT, which has been implemented in 80 municipalities across the province.

“I have been looking high and low to find any verifiable facts about why it wouldn’t work, and I have not found any and I feel like if there was some kind of real case for it then somebody who’s against this would have found it by now,” he said.

At one point, Veri tried to put forward an amendment he thought would combine Martin’s original motion and take into consideration concerns raised by Van Paassen’s motion. Martin and County Clerk William Tigert ruled Veri’s amendment was appropriate to put on the floor, however, Van Paassen challenged that ruling. Councillors voted in support of Van Paassen’s challenge, meaning the amendment was dropped. They then voted in support of Van Paassen’s motion.