The Municipality of Leamington will be continuing conversations to implement a municipal accommodation tax - also known as MAT.
Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island (TWEPI) is looking for interest from surrounding municipalities in starting the tax - which is paid by visitors staying at hotels or short-term rentals. The MAT revenue would be split equally between the municipality and TWEPI.
During the August 26 meeting, administration had recommended that council not move forward with a MAT due to uncertainty with administration responsibilities. Leamington also does not currently have a short-term rental bylaw.
Despite administration recommending not to move forward, council unanimously agreed to have administration look further into the MAT before they fully agree to hop on board with TWEPI.
Data from TWEPI indicated Leamington has 372 short-term rental listings and 253 motel and hotel accommodations. If Leamington implemented a four per cent MAT, it's estimated that it could generate an added $610,000 in revenue at a 50 per cent occupancy rate.
Leamington mayor Hilda MacDonald says they're continuing conversations on the MAT.
"We need to talk about licensing short-term rentals, we need to talk about who would collect the money, we need to talk about enforcement, and none of those things come without a cost. So we need to know if we did it in house, would we have any revenue leftover to then pay for tourism aspects."
She says she's for a MAT to be implemented.
"Our park at the waterfront is used - to a large part - visitors coming from outside our municipality. And we're not against that, we love to see them, but there's no investment from the region into that. Those are our taxpayers that are paying for the building of the amenities in the park."
MacDonald says there are things that need to be done before moving forward 100 per cent.
"We have to do the short-term rental bylaw before we implement the MAT because otherwise it puts the hotels and the motel at a disadvantage. So that's definitely part of the whole process."
Only Kingsville has indicated that they do not wish to implement a MAT.
LaSalle, Lakeshore, Essex and Amherstburg councils have directed their respective administrations to proceed with discussions with TWEPI and the implementation of MAT.
Tecumseh council has indicated their interest in pursuing a MAT on hotels only.
TWEPI will now use the decisions from each municipality to lay out how the MAT program will be administered and the associated costs.
Municipalities will still have to give more approvals and determine the rate of the levy before moving forward.
-with files from CTV Windsor's Robert Lothian