By: Elliot Fung
Landlord licensing for rental housing may be coming for students in the near future. If approved by Hamilton city council, a two-year pilot project in wards one and eight will subject landlords to a $200 annual fee and city inspections for their rental units.
In September 2018, the rental housing sub-committee voted in favour of pursuing a rental housing licensing by-law pilot project. Other options considered at the time included increasing rental housing by-law enforcement and introducing a rental registry.
A draft of the by-law is in the works for approval and will be presented to the city council and the public later this year.
This is not the first time landlord licensing has been proposed in Hamilton. In September 2013, a controversial proposal for a city-wide rental housing licensing system was submitted to city council. The draft was abandoned amidst heavy opposition from landlords and affordable housing advocates.
This time, if implemented, the pilot project will only affect wards one and eight, where a significant number of McMaster and Mohawk College students live in rental units.
It is worth noting that McMaster students continue to express frustrations over negligent landlords who do not maintain rental properties and adhere to proper standards of health and safety.
Stephanie Bertolo, the vice president (Education) of the McMaster Students Union, has been involved with extensive consultations about the by-law pilot project and ardently supports landlord licensing. In particular, Bertolo believes that landlord licensing will significantly improve students’ safety and rectify many problems stemming from absentee landlords.
“The MSU has been a strong advocate for rental housing licensing because we believe it will help ensure safer housing for students,” she said. “Landlords should be held accountable by the municipal government for adhering to municipal and provincial laws to ensure students’ quality of life, who are paying to live in the landlords’ properties.”
While the rental housing by-law may serve to strengthen and ensure standards of health and safety are being met, critics of landlord licensing suggest that affordable housing issues would emerge if the pilot project were pursued.
For instance, at the December 2018 planning committee meeting, Arun Pathak, the president of the Hamilton and District Apartment Association, explained that the licensing by-law may result in increased rent for tenants and students looking to rent.
The rental housing sub-committee will be taking into consideration the potential financial implications of landlord licensing.
“[Financial] offsets [for stakeholders] will be discussed with various departments within the city of Hamilton’s economic development department,” said city of Hamilton communications officer Marie Fitzpatrick.
City council will likely update the approval status of the landlord licensing pilot within the next few months. In the meantime, the MSU has been working to introduce other initiatives aimed at addressing McMaster student housing issues.
For instance, a new website for rating rental houses just launched this month.
The MSU hopes that once the wiki garners more popularity, students will be able to make more informed decisions about their housing situation. Students can access and add to the rating system at https://yomes.com/review/mcmaster.
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If you have been pushing the parking limits in Westdale and Ainslie Wood, consider this your heads-up.
On Dec. 14, Hamilton city council voted to increase the number of bylaw officers in the communities surrounding the McMaster campus. Aidan Johnson, the councillor for Ward 1 which includes many McMaster students, submitted the motion. The motion was approved after it was tabled eight days earlier.
Johnson spoke at a city council meeting on Dec. 6 about the need for more enforcement.
“I won’t go into a big speech about how bad it is, I won’t go into a big speech about all the noise problems and hygiene problems that are bylaw violations. I think it’s fairly well-known that throughout the community that McMaster neighbourhoods — Westdale and Ainslie Wood — have special challenges in terms of by-law enforcement,” said Johnson. He also said the neighbourhoods are “really suffering” because of bylaw violations. The issue of absentee landlords was not mentioned in his opening remarks as part of a reason why there are neighbourhood issues but other councillors brought it up.
The original motion called for “one full-time Environmental By-Law officer, assisted by one part-time officer and student help in the summer” because the current structure “is not sufficient to deal with ongoing noise pollution and and hygiene problems associated with bad student housing.” The expenditure would be $113,000 for the employees and $26,000 for the vehicle.
Johnson asked McMaster University to contribute money to fund a second full-time by-law officer, but the university said they were not able to fund it right now. Johnson told city council that Mac would be “genuinely interested” in funding it after a one-year pilot project, which is what the councillor is proposing. In an email, McMaster University spokesperson Gord Arbeau said they support the hiring of co-op students, but “we’ve been clear that we will work with the bylaw enforcement officers to help support their work but we are not in a position to contribute funds towards their hiring.”
During the Dec. 6 meeting, ward 5 councillor Chad Collins pointed out that a bylaw enforcement team was created between three wards in 2013 to address these issues in a proactive manner. It was clarified that Johnson could use this program, but residents tell Johnson that “it does not feel” like there is proactive enforcement. Another councillor mentioned that there was an existing program that used Mohawk College co-op students.
Johnson tabled the motion to get more information.
“I will go back to McMaster for more conversation, I will go back to my excellent two neighbourhood associations for conversation,” said Johnson.
These neighbourhood associations are the Ainslie Wood/Westdale Community Association and the Ainslie Wood Community Association. Students are represented by the McMaster Students Union.
“It’s my policy to treat the MSU as equivalent to the ‘other’ neighbourhood associations in the ward,” said Johnson in an interview with the Silhouette this summer. However, Johnson’s website does not list the McMaster Students Union as one of those neighbourhood groups on his website.
The bylaw officers are being brought in specifically to address concerns with students, but the MSU says they were not consulted. Johnson asked the union to endorse a motion that asked for the university to contribute more money, but the MSU did not. This new motion was not brought to the MSU.
The Dec. 14 meeting saw the motion reintroduced, asking for the Mohawk co-op students to police McMaster students. At the Dec. 6 city council meeting, it was noted that the Mohawk co-op program issued $68,200 in tickets, with wages costing $42,400 for a positive difference of $25,800 from Jan. 2016 to Aug. 30, 2016.
One city councillor used the discussion of bylaw enforcement to discuss larger student issues. Lloyd Ferguson, councillor for Ward 12, Ancaster, said that some students “terrorize” the community and suggested that McMaster academically suspends people who violate property standards bylaws. For a city that has made a lot of noise about trying to retain post-secondary graduates, the latest actions suggest that is not very high on their list.
Debate over potential licensing by-law continues
On of Nov. 27, the City of Hamilton will be releasing its recommendations for a new housing by-law. While the housing rental by-law is not specifically aimed at targeting students, potential changes include the introduction of a $150 licensing fee, a property standards checklist and a six-person occupancy limit.
These recommendations come after months of consultation between City officials, landlords and the McMaster Students Union. Councilor Brian McHattie spoke to The Silhouette in September and reiterated that the introduction of a licensing fee would guarantee higher property standards and hold landlords accountable to providing safe housing.
“The focus is safe housing. We have unsafe and unpalatable housing across the city,” said McHattie.
However, landlord associations, such as the Hamilton and District Apartment Association (HDAA), have spoken out against the rental licensing costs.
Arun Pathak, President of HDAA, told The Hamilton Spectator on Nov. 7 that the City is not using all of its current tools to crack down on substandard rental units.
In particular, Pathak highlighted Project Compliance, which has seen municipal by-law enforcement officers cracking down on illegal rental units since 2010.
Project Compliance is a pilot project that targeted specific wards, including Ward 1, which includes Westdale.
The MSU issued a press release to alert students to these changes on Nov. 20. Additionally, they have created an online survey for students to list their preferences when it comes to cost of rent, quality of rental property and number of occupants in the rental property.
One third-year Social Sciences student has already been impacted by the controversy surrounding the proposed changes.
This student had been in communication with their landlord and was made aware that a licensing fee was potentially being introduced. The landlord told the student that she would be taking locks off the doors in the rental property and trying to put all the tenants on one lease for the next year, so that the rental property could be classified as a “family dwelling unit” and therefore not be subject to the licensing fee by-law.
In response to this, the student told the Silhouette that he strongly favoured the City licensing and more careful regulation of landlords and rental properties. He has also been in contact with Councillor McHattie’s Office.
While property standards are one part of the controversy, students could also incur additional costs. Currently, the City appears to be setting the fee at $150 per year. The concern is that this cost could be downloaded to students.
Huzaifa Saeed, MSU VP Education, spoke to the Sil in September, stating, “From one angle…this is a good deal for students. This would avoid horror stories with absentee lanlords. From an economic standpoint…what would this do for affordability of rental housing?”
While Hamilton appears to be pursuing the $150 fee, other cities, such as North Bay and Oshawa, have set prohibitively high fees of $300 and $500 respectively.
Both North Bay and Oshawa have also come under fire from the Ontario Human Rights Commission for targeting students in their by-laws and therefore discriminating specifically against student rentals.
Councillor McHattie told The Spectator that he is committed to keeping licensing fees low. The MSU has also continued to be involved in consultations with the City in order to advocate for student interests.
In the near future, students will likely encounter a much more regulated environment when searching for student rental properties.
On Sept. 18, a report proposing a new by-law will be presented to the Planning Committee at City Hall. The proposal seeks to address issues in regulating rental units across the city, and is believed to include a licensing program for all rental units (excluding those in apartment buildings) in the City of Hamilton.
The proposed by-law would begin to be drafted following the Planning Committee meeting and would most likely take shape by the end of November.
Discussion of regulating rental units has been ongoing. The current proposal looks to regulate rental units under the provincial Municipal Act. The intention of the licensing program is to ensure uniform standards for all rental properties across the city.
Rental licensing programs in other municipalities such as the City of Oshawa have sought to monitor property maintenance and ensure proper documentation and insurance.
Student rentals are not the sole target of this proposed by-law but the Westdale Ainsley-Wood and Mohawk-Buchanan-Bonnington-Southam neighbourhoods were specifically identified in earlier planning discussions in 2008.
Both neighbourhoods cater to student populations and experience an influx in residency as a result of the short-term nature of student leases.
Because the by-law itself has yet to be drafted, there have been concerns that another provision may be included which would seek to limit the number of bedrooms in a dwelling unit.
The City of London is the only municipality in Ontario to have limited number of bedrooms to five per dwelling.
Because this type of inclusion falls under a different provincial act, the Planning Act, Councilor Brian McHattie believes that a limitation on number of bedrooms would be discussed under zoning or as a separate by-law.
“The focus is safe housing. We have unsafe and unpalatable housing across the city,” said McHattie.
MSU VP Education Huzaifa Saeed reiterated the positive intent of the proposed by-law and the benefits to students.
“From one angle … this is a good deal for students. This would avoid horror stories with absentee landlords,” said Saeed.
Saeed raised another important question: “From an economic standpoint…what would this do for affordability of [rental] housing? That depends on the licensing fee.”
However, he also noted that it is difficult to fully comment on how this by-law would affect availability of rental property to students until the Sept. 18 meeting.
Both Councilor McHattie and Saeed stated that the MSU would be and has been a part of the consultation process in the discussion regarding regulating rental units.
A more concrete plan of action will be developed by the MSU following the report to the Planning Committee.
Until the by-law is officially before City Council it remains unknown how deeply this will affect students. While the goal is higher quality student housing, potential repercussions remain a latent issue.
