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Coun. Ward Sutherland urged city staff to begin looking at options to regulate such rentals in late 2017 after hearing about a dozen complaints in his northwest ward.

“What we’re obviously concerned about is the safety of those buildings and the people using them,” Sutherland said. “At least when you have a hotel or a bed and breakfast, there’s fire codes, there’s smoke detectors in every single room, the requirements are very strict.

“Right now, you go and use these other places and there’s zero rules for safety.”

Coun. Druh Farrell noticed a pattern to the complaints coming from her inner-city ward, which has the second-highest share of short-term rentals in the city.

“They’re renting them for one day, and what’s happening is people are renting them for parties, and so there’s a fair amount of disruption.

“You can rent a unit for a big party and leave it afterwards.”

She’s also concerned about some of the less obvious impacts the proliferation of the rentals could have on communities.

“We’re trying to develop a sense of neighbourhood and community connections, and if people are unaware that they have basically a hotel beside them, then that doesn’t help build community connections,” said Farrell.

Many of Ward 7’s short-term rentals are clustered in brand new condos in the burgeoning East Village, Farrell said.

“It does impede the sense of neighbourhood if we see a huge influx of these in any particular building.”

Sutherland hastened to add that there are still relatively few complaints given the growing size of the market.