A Newfoundland and Labrador adjudicator sent two tourist-rental refusals back to Bonavista because the town had not considered whether the properties qualified as legally existing non-conforming uses. In Ken Sooley v. Town of Bonavista, appeal No. 15-006-094-006, the July 31, 2026 decision directed the town to determine whether those uses legally existed on March 27, 2023, when its short-term rental regulations were adopted.
The outcome was conditional. If the uses qualified, Sooley had to be allowed to continue them without the short-term rental regulations applying. If they did not, the refusals should be confirmed because the town otherwise applied those regulations properly. The decision did not establish the legality of either earlier use or approve a permit.
Earlier operations did not settle legality
Sooley had extensively restored two formerly derelict residential properties for tourist accommodation. The adjudicator accepted that operations began in 2005 at one property and 2017 at the other, with guests staying for three to five days. He said pandemic-related losses led him to file a business-closure form to stop business taxes. The adjudicator accepted that the August 2023 closure was not intended to be permanent.
He applied to resume the rental uses on May 1, 2025. The town refused on May 5, relying on the rules then barring rentals on streets with fewer than 10 residential dwellings, limiting rentals to 10 per cent of dwelling units on a street, and prohibiting permits for properties in tax arrears. One property was on a street below the minimum size; the other was on a street already above the rental cap. Tax arrears also applied.
The decisive question was whether those restrictions applied to these earlier uses at all. Section 108 of the Urban and Rural Planning Act, 2000, and section 45 of the town’s development regulations protect qualifying non-conforming uses that legally existed before the relevant rules. Prior operation alone was not enough: the use had to have been lawful.
The decision explained that the act generally limits resumption of a discontinued non-conforming use to six months unless regulations provide otherwise. Bonavista’s development regulations extend that period to three years. The adjudicator found Sooley’s application was within that period.
But neither party supplied evidence establishing whether the earlier uses legally existed. Sooley could not recall having municipal permits, although he described a general provincial tourism-business approval. The town acknowledged it had charged business taxes but had not considered the non-conforming-use question and did not know whether permits had been issued. The adjudicator directed it to make that determination for each property, with Sooley retaining a right to appeal the town’s answer.
Other challenges did not undermine the refusals
Sooley argued that long-term commercial leases between the property-owning and operating companies took the properties outside the short-term rental rules. The adjudicator disagreed. The operator’s actual rentals to tourists lasted three to five days, were not owner-occupied and were not residential tenancies. That use met the regulations’ definition despite the companies’ longer leases.
She also rejected the argument that extensive restoration made the properties new, purpose-built tourist accommodation. They remained renovations of existing residential dwellings, not new builds. In any event, the new-build exception to the townwide conversion cap did not remove the separate street restrictions.
The application did not require a council vote in these circumstances. The adjudicator found the chief administrative officer applied objective criteria already adopted by council, under authority to decide development applications that Sooley had not contradicted. That did not eliminate council’s role in discretionary applications generally.
Sooley’s subsequent payment of the taxes did not establish that the May 2025 refusals were wrong when made. Changed circumstances could support a new application, but the appeal concerned the original assessment. That reasoning remained subject to the unresolved question whether a protected earlier use made the short-term rental rules inapplicable.
Street rule changed before the decision
Bonavista amended its street-level rule on June 29, 2026, after the refusals and June 24 appeal hearing but before the July 31 decision. The amended regulations retain the 10 per cent street cap while allowing a maximum of one short-term rental on a street with fewer than 10 dwelling units, subject to all other requirements. A July 2 town notice announced the change and said it was effective immediately.
That conditional exception is not an automatic permit. The July 31 order sent the historical-use question back to the town; it did not decide whether either property qualified under the amended rules.
The decision also gives notice of an appeal to the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador on a question of law or jurisdiction, with a filing deadline of 10 days after the appellant receives the decision.
