TEHKUMMAH—Tehkummah Township council has passed the first two readings of a bylaw to licence trailers in the township, the latest Island municipality to do so.
“The main thing we did at our meeting, was to look at establishing a bylaw to licence trailers,” said Reeve Dave Jaggard, following a council meeting last week. He explained that Assiginack Township introduced a trailer licence bylaw more than a year ago, and Tehkummah’s proposed bylaw is the same. “The only big difference is that we have to establish what the annual fees are going to be and what fines are going to be,” said Reeve Jaggard. He explained that “around 1980, the Planning Act came into affect but it didn’t include having travel trailers parked on
vacant lots.”
Reeve Jaggard said even if a person can find accommodations and a lot to park their trailer, there can still be no sanitary standards to meet health unit requirements. And if you have a waterfront property you could be paying $5,000-$7,000 in taxes on a home or cottage in a year. But a person with a trailer, who just parks their trailer on a lot, is paying a fraction of the taxes.”
“And there are cases where people are unhappy about others using their vacant property to park their travel trailers, without paying any type of fee or taxes,” continued Reeve Jaggard.
Reeve Jaggard said that council will be looking at finalizing the bylaw at its next council meeting.
