Montreal has passed tighter restrictions for short-term rentals on platforms like Airbnb in a bid to ease the city’s housing crisis.
City council adopted a new bylaw Tuesday to allow people to rent their homes for short stays only between June 10 and Sept. 10.
The new rules come two years after seven people died in a fire in an Old Montreal building that had listed illegal short-term rentals on Airbnb.
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Quebec has taken steps to curb illegal rentals since then, but the city said in January that despite those efforts, more than half of the 4,000 units on short-term rental platforms were listed illegally.
The new bylaw allows inspectors to issue fines of $1,000 a day for listings that pop up outside the summer season, and $2,000 a day for repeat offenders.
Airbnb has criticized the bylaw, saying that it will harm Montreal’s tourism industry and that the platform has a negligible impact on housing availability.