Northern Ontario towns say licensing trailers is 'fair' to cottage owners who pay property tax

More and more people are spending their northern Ontario summers in a trailer.

And more and more northern towns are looking for a way to control where they set up — and make them pay.

The Municipality of French River became the latest Wednesday night, with council approving in principle a plan to require people setting up a trailer on a rural or waterfront property to get a licence. 

"The intent isn't to take away the use of trailers, but to basically have more of a fair playing game," said town councillor Rick Malette. 

"We've got trailers all over the place, but we're adding the perspective of environment, esthetics, value of property and also fairness in taxation."

The bylaw would require anyone setting up a trailer for more than two weeks to get a licence and to follow new rules regarding how the trailers are positioned on the property and how the waste is disposed of.

The trailers have to be on a property that already includes a home of somekind and not on vacant land. 

"We didn't allow trailers, but we had trailers. Now, we're still going to have trailers, but we're going to have rules around them," said Malette. 

"We're probably not going to please everyone in this. It's a contentious issue."

There was some debate around the French River council table about how much to charge for a licence, with $200 being suggested initially, but many councillors preferring $400.

"We will need more enforcement officers to make sure that these trailers abide by our regulations, because if it doesn't, that means everybody else will have to pay for it," said mayor Gisele Pageau.

The bylaw still needs final approval at an upcoming council meeting and the town expects to not charge for licences in the first year.

This is an issue many northern Ontario municipalities are dealing with.

West Nipissing is debating a bylaw that would regulate trailers set up on rural lots, but not require a licence.

At a council meeting in May, the hottest topic was how many trailers should be allowed on one property, with staff suggesting a maximum of six and some town councillors wanting there to be no limit.

Several townships in the Almaguin Highlands area have had trailer licences for several years.

The Township of Strong, near Sundridge, started charging trailers in 2015 and the annual fee has now risen to $700 for a rural lot, $1,000 for a waterfront property. 

"In the beginning they weren't happy with us, but after we explained it to them, they thought 'Oh, okay,'" says Mayor Kelly Elik.

"It cost the same for us to maintain the road whether they're coming to their cottage, which they pay taxes on, or a trailer. So we decided to bring it a little more in line."

The campground industry would rather see towns not allow this kind of trailer use at all.

Camping in Ontario executive director Alexander Anderson says she's concerned at how environmental regulations will be enforced on these properties and how they'll look esthetically on the northern landscape.

"Our concern is that probably one of the most beautiful parts of the province has a really good chance of becoming, basically a dump yard," she says.

Anderson says the annual fees at the campgrounds run by her some 400 members across the province have been increasing with consumer demand in recent years.

"But a lot of it is simply to stay in business to meet government regulations," she says.

Anderson says a trailer with enough permanent structures can be charged property tax, something that is common at RV parks in southern Ontario, but not so much in the north.

She adds there is likely a way to find a "better balancing act" when it comes to how municipalities govern trailers and welcomes "more dialogue" with municipal and provincial governments.