May 18, 2011
Last week, Waterloo City Council took the momentous step of adopting a revised Rental Housing Licensing By-law, bringing our 25 year-old efforts in this area into the 21st century.
Given the lengthy and healthy debate over the past several months, I thought it was important to provide all of you with an understanding of why the revised by-law was one I supported.
In the campaign and in my own experiences in this great city, I heard loud and clear from tenants that the living conditions many faced were cramped and were deteriorating. Many also did not know where to turn when they had problems. I also heard from neighbours all over the ward about the unchecked growth of large rental units into their low-density residential neighbourhoods and the challenges that caused.
I promised all of these residents that we as a City would get behind them and address these concerns, now that the province gave us the tools of rental housing regulation to tackle these challenges more effectively.
The goals of the by-law as approved were to:
(a) protect the health and safety and human rights of the persons residing in rental units;
(b) ensure that certain essentials are provided in residential rental units such as plumbing, heating and water, and,
(c) protect the residential amenity, character and stability of residential areas.
There were certainly challenges with the original draft, and I believe that staff and Council listened and found reasonable compromises that still supported the goals. These were:
(a) permanently recognizing existing licensed lodging houses;
(b) recognizing all legally existing low-rise rentals with respect to maximum floor area devoted to bedrooms;
(c) removing dining room living room, kitchen floor area requirements (recognizing there are standards in the Ontario Building Code);
(d) removing the limitation on the number of occupants in boarding houses and removing the Minimum Distance Separation provision (recognizing that other MDS provisions exist in the Zoning by-laws);
(e) developing license fees based on bedroom numbers and incorporating a sliding scale for block townhomes held under single ownership;
(f) removing some license conditions (i.e. leases and corporate income tax records not required);
(g) requiring criminal record checks, parking plans, and maintenance plans to only be required every five years rather than every year;
(h) requiring landlord education sessions only at the time of licensing on a one-time basis, delivered on-line;
(i) modifying the university/college exemption such that only units on lands zoned for institutional uses (BI) would be exempt, and;
(j) modifying the bedroom limit for Class A and B licenses to four bedrooms from three bedrooms.
The complete report and all reports on this issue are available at http://www.waterloo.ca/rhlr
Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Four-bedroom limit on Class A and B
The most important thing to recognize is that there are no bedroom limits in the approved by-law. There are, however, higher health and safety standards for higher numbers of bedrooms, which are reflected in different requirements for different license classes.
It was important, in my view, for the bedroom threshold above which a Class C license was required match the Ontario Building Code and the Ontario Fire Code. These regulations indicate that boarding houses (Class C) are those with more than four bedrooms. This is something that has changed since the original lodging house by-law passed in 1986, and it was reasonable to align the bedroom caps of Class A and B licenses to the current standards.
I understand that the Ontario Human Rights Commission is concerned that there is any limit on Class A and B licenses because of its potential impact on large families. However, it is clear from what I have seen and heard from residents in this city is that a no-limits policy would affect small, lower-income families. This is because any small house could be converted into a 10-bedroom rental property, which would be out of the price range of that small family. It would also change the amenity, character, and stability of our residential neighbourhoods.
I know that some are worried that without a three-bedroom limit on Class A and B licenses, their neighbourhoods would be adversely impacted. I do hear and understand those concerns, but it is important to remember that there are a number of requirements for licensed properties to better manage property standards issues and enforcement capabilities that should limit the impact of this change. In my view, the three bedroom number was also no longer tenable given the changes to the Ontario Fire Code.
Given those considerations, a four-bedroom threshold, above which the higher health and safety standards of a Class C license, seemed to me a reasonable compromise with a view to all of our goals.
Maintaining the Criminal Record Check
By a thin majority, Council agreed to maintain the revised provisions around requiring a criminal record check for rental housing owners every five years.
Requiring such record checks are common place for licensing regimes in other municipalities. This is important because, were the City to issue a license where there was a known or knowable issue and an incident occurred, it would be a significant liability for the City and would undermine our licensing regime’s commitment to improved safety. For rental housing owners who hire others to administer the day-to-day activities, they would each have their own liability issues to manage and undertake as part of their own due diligence to minimize their own legal risk.
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In summary, there were many goals the City set out to achieve when it began this process in 2008, which I believe this by-law will go a long way toward achieving. It is by no means the last word, of course, as we have a Land Use and Community Improvement Plan study in Northdale and on-going education and by-law enforcement activities to develop in support of our broader community objectives. As many members of Council said that evening, this by-law was not perfect, but it is an honest and honourable compromise that strikes the right balance.