April 20, 2021, at 4:00 PM

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1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Hillier

That Items 2.1, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6 and 2.7 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

2.1   3rd Report of the Accessibility Advisory Committee

2021-03-25 ACCAC Report

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Hillier

That the 3rd Report of the Accessibility Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on March 25, 2021, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.2   3rd Report of the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee

2021-04-01 AWAC Report

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Hillier

That the 3rd Report of the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on April 1, 2021, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.4   Coordinated Informed Response (CIR) Spring Update

2021-04-20 SR Coordinated Informed Response CIR Spring update

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Hillier

That, on the recommendation of the Acting Managing Director, Housing, Social Services and Dearness Home, the staff report dated April 20, 2021 with respect to the Coordinated Informed Response (CIR) Spring Update, BE RECEIVED. (2021-S12)

Motion Passed

2.6   Amendments to the Open-Air Burning By-law F-7

2021-04-20 SR Amendments to the Open Air Burning By-law F-7

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Hillier

That, on the recommendation of the Managing Director, Neighbourhood, Children and Fire Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report dated April 20, 2021 related to Amendments to the Open Air Burning By-law F7:

a)     the above-noted staff report, BE RECEIVED; and,

b)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, being “A by-law to provide for the regulation of open air burning in the City of London and to repeal By-law F-7”, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council Meeting to be held on May 4, 2021. (2021-P01)

Motion Passed

2.7   Fire Safety Grant Transfer Payment Agreement

2021-04-20 SR Fire Safety Grant Transfer Payment Agreement

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Hillier

That, on the recommendation of the Managing Director, Neighbourhood, Children and Fire Services, the proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report dated April 20, 2021, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021, to:

a)     authorize and approve the Fire Safety Grant Transfer Payment Agreement, as appended to the above-noted by-law, between Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Ontario as represented by the Office of the Fire Marshall and The Corporation of the City of London;

b)     authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute the above-noted Agreement;

c)     delegate authority to the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, or written designate, to approve and execute any further amendments to the above-noted Agreement, if the amendments are substantially in the form of the above-noted Agreement; and,

d)     delegate authority to the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, or written designate, to undertake all the administrative, financial and reporting acts that are necessary in connection with the above-noted Agreement. (2021-F11)

Motion Passed

2.3   Update - City of London 2020-2021 Winter Response Program for Unsheltered Individuals

2021-04-20 SR Update - CoL 2020-2021 Winter Response Program for Unsheltered Individuals

Moved by A. Kayabaga

Seconded by M. Salih

That, on the recommendation of the Acting Managing Director, Housing, Social Services and Dearness Home, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report dated April 20, 2021 related to an Update on the City of London 2020-2021 Winter Response Program for Unsheltered Individuals:

a)     the above-noted staff report BE ENDORSED and BE APPROVED;

b)     the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to undertake all administrative acts which are necessary in relation to the above-report; and,

c)     the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to the Community and Protective Services Committee, as soon as possible, on additional actions that could be taken after the end of June, building on what we have learned from the temporary winter response, to support people who are experiencing homelessness;

it being noted that the following communications, as appended to the Added Agenda, were received with respect to this matter:

  • A. Luis;

  • C. Scott;

  • I. MacLean;

  • C. Davis;

  • A. Oakey; and,

  • E. Blaney. (2021-S14)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

2.5   Homeless Prevention Funding Received in 2020-21 and COVID-19 Response

2021-04-20 SR Homeless Prevention Funding Received in 2020-2021 and COVID-19 Response

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Hillier

That, on the recommendation of the Acting Managing Director, Housing, Social Services and Dearness Home, the staff-report dated April 20, 2021 with respect to the Homeless Prevention Funding Received in 2021-2021 and COVID-19 Response, BE RECEIVED. (2021-S08/F11)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

2.8   Security Video Cameras on Private Residential Property

2021-04-20 SR Security Video Cameras on Private Residential Property

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Managing Director, Development and Compliance Services and Chief Building Official, the staff report dated April 20, 2021 with respect to Security Video Cameras on Private Residential Property, BE RECEIVED; it being noted that a verbal delegation from D. Johnstone, with respect to this matter, was received. (2021-P00)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   Public Participation Meeting - Swimming Pool Fence By-law - Proposed Amendments

2021-04-20 SR Swimming Pool Fence By-law - Proposed Amendments

2021-04-20 SR Swimming Pool Fence By-law - Proposed Amendments - REVISED BY-LAW

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Hillier

That, on the recommendation of the Managing Director, Development and Compliance Services and Chief Building Official, the revised attached proposed by-law, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law No. PS-5, being “A by-law to provide for the owners of privately-owned outdoor swimming pools to erect and maintain fences”;

it being noted that no individuals spoke at the public participation meeting associated with this matter;

it being further noted that the communication from B. Robertson, Pool and Hot Tub Council of Canada, as appended to the Added Agenda, was received with respect to this matter. (2021-C01)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Voting Record:

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Hillier

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by S. Lewis

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

3.2   Public Participation Meeting - Administrative Monetary Penalties - Application to Municipal By-laws

2021-04-20 SR AMPS - Application to Municipal By-laws

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Managing Director, Development & Compliance Services and Chief Building Official, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report dated April 20, 2021, related to the Administrative Monetary Penalties System:

a)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law A-54, as amended, for the purpose of applying the Administrative Monetary Penalties System By-law to various municipal by-laws;

b)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law PH-12, referred to as the Pit Bull Dog Licensing By-law, to add a new section in Part 6;

c)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law PH-3, referred to as the Animal Control By-law, to add a new section in Part 15;

d)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law PH-4, referred to as the Dog Licensing and Control By-law, to add a new section in Part 9;

e)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law PH-7, referred to as the Dog Off-Leash Areas By-law, to add a new section in Section 7;

f)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law PS-6, referred to as the Fence By-law, to add a new section in Part 17;

g)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law PS-5, referred to as the Swimming Pool Fence By-law, to add a new section in Part 7;

h)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law B-1, referred to as the Naming of Highways and Numbering of Buildings and Lots By-law, to add a new section in Part 7;

i)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law PH-18, referred to as the Public Nuisance By-law, to add a new section in Part 7;

j)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law PW-12, referred to as the Sound By-law, to add a new section in Part 7;

k)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law PR-2, referred to as the Parks and Recreation By-law, to add a new section in Part 7;

l)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law S.-5868-183, referred to as the Sign By-law, to add a new section in Section in 3.12;

m)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law L.-130-71, referred to as the Vehicle for Hire By-law, to add a new section in Part 18;

n)      the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law PW-2, referred to as the Abandoned Refrigerator, Freezer and Containers By-law, to add a new section in Part 3;

o)      the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law WM-12, referred to as the Municipal Waste & Resource Materials Collection By-law, to add a new section in Part 12; and,

p)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on May 4, 2021 to amend By-law S-1, referred to as the Streets By-law, to add a new section in Part 9;

it being noted that no individuals spoke at the public participation meeting associated with this matter. (2021-C01)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by S. Lewis

open ppm

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by E. Holder

close ppm

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   Councillor M. Cassidy - Animal By-law PH-3

2021-04-20 Sub. - Animal Bylaw Motion - M. Cassidy

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by E. Holder

That the communication, dated April 1, 2021, from Councillor M. Cassidy, with respect to By-law PH-3, being “A by-law to provide for the regulation, restriction and prohibition of the keeping of animals in the City of London”, BE REFERRED to the Civic Administration for review and a report back at a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee related to revisions or updates that could be made to the by-law; it being noted that a communication from K. and K. Beattie, as appended to the Added Agenda, with respect to this matter, was received. (2021-P14)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

5.1   Deferred Matters List

CPSC DEFERRED MATTERS as at April 12, 2021

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Hillier

That the Deferred Matters List for the Community and Protective Services Committee, as at April 12, 2021, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

6.   Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 5:28 PM.

Full Transcript

Transcript provided by Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive. Note: This is an automated speech-to-text transcript and may contain errors. Speaker names are not identified.

View full transcript (1 hour, 43 minutes)

Deputy Chief Heptich, it looks like you’re having some issues connecting to the audio. Could you do a test for us? Audio check. We can hear you.

Thank you. Thank you. Hi there. We have someone on the Zoom meeting named Co-Agenda.

Can you please identify who you are? I’m going to call this meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee to order. This is a virtual meeting during the COVID-19 emergency. Meetings can be viewed by live streaming on YouTube and the city website.

The City of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for council standing or advisory committee meetings and information upon request. To make a request for any city service, please contact accessibility@london.ca or 516612489 extension 2425. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact cpsc@london.ca. First I’ll look to see if there’s any disclosures of interest from the members of committee.

Use your hand on the Zoom. Okay. I don’t see any. That brings us to, sorry, I got the wrong agenda in front of me.

And send items and I’ll just look to see colleagues that there are any items that you’d like to have told. I know Councillor Van Holst indicated he wanted to pull 2.3, which is the update on the City of London winter response program for unsheltered individuals. Any members of committee that want to pull any other items? Councillor Lewis has indicated 2.5, raise your hand on the Zoom if you want to get my attention.

Okay. So I think that leaves a lot of items there in the consent. Is there a mover for the consent items? 2.6, we have a delegation.

So we have a delegation. So we’re going to hold that one separately or the delegation on 2.8. That delegation, as you recall, has already been approved. I have a mover for the items that are remaining, Councillor Lewis, seconder, Councillor Hillier.

Thank you. Okay. So just to be clear, that is 2.1, which is the third report from the accessibility advisory committee, 2.2, which is the third report of the animal welfare advisory committee, 2.4, which is the coordinate uniform response update, 2.6, which is the amendments to the open air burning by law, 0.7, which is the fire safety transfer payment agreement. Any discussion on that motion, which has been moved by Councillor Lewis and second by Councillor Hillier?

Okay. If not, I’m just going to say about the coordinate uniform response. I appreciate the work of the CIR team in particular. It’s very difficult work.

You can get a sense of the scale of what is being done through coordinate uniform response. And I know that that team would be the first to say that it’s very valuable work, but also the more could be done. And I think it’s a difficult situation that people are in. I really appreciate the work that CIR team has doing in very difficult circumstances, especially throughout the pandemic, which has intensified a lot of the issues that CIR is responding to.

And it’s work that takes a lot of patience and a really good attitude about making positive change out there in the world. And I really appreciate the work that Ms. Kramer’s and her whole team across the organization are doing when it comes to a coordinate uniform response that I think will open up the vote on eScribe. Hopefully everyone has logged in.

Mayor Holder, we’re just voting on the consent items. Most of them are. Can I ask you which ones were pulled, Chair? 2.3, 2.5 and 2.8.

Thank you. I’m prepared to vote verbally. Yes. And if the clerk is listening, if she can send me the eScribe to my at Holder at London, I’d appreciate it.

So I can try to vote that way. Didn’t work in the last meeting, but I’d like to try it this time, if I could, if she’s able, or he’s able to get any of the link. Thank you. Thank you.

Closing the vote. The motion carries five to zero. 2.3, what I’d like to do is, I think, start with a brief comments from other Mr. Dickens or Mr.

Cooper about the update, which covers a lot ground. And then I know Councillor Van Holse had pulled this. I’m going to go to him to see what he’d like to say about the report, and then we’ll get into any other discussions. If you want to talk about this report, let me know by raising your hand on the Zoom or flagging me.

Mr. Dickens. Thank you. And through the chair, we’re happy to bring forward the winter response report.

This really serves two purposes, one as a recap of all of the work that has been completed since mid to late December, as well as some proposed next steps for committees consideration. You will see in the report, it is very dense in statistics and in outcomes. That is because it has been a busy winter. I’ll start to recap with the winter response was really meant to be a temporary intervention, something we have never done before as a municipality, but thanks to the hard work of our community organizations that we leaned heavily on to our neighbors that were sort of supporting us and sometimes putting up with us throughout the winter response, we thank them as well, and also to the hard work of really every city department where we did, in fact, take an enterprise wide approach to getting the winter response up off the ground of note, I would like to provide an update to one of the statistics that I think is quite key.

At the time that this report was submitted, five individuals from the winter response had been housed, but I’m happy to share that by the end of next week, 30 individuals will have secured housing. That is basically one entire site from our overnight winter response. As you know, we operated both Elizabeth Street and York Street, so this is a great outcome that we were able to achieve through our combination of daytime space at the Talbot Street Church and Hamilton Road Senior Center. We were able to engage with thousands of individuals serving roughly 35 people a day at Hamilton Road, that number jumped to about 46 people a day at Talbot Street, a lot of interaction with support services throughout the winter response.

Again, this was a temporary short-term intervention to really help people get out of the coldest months and to provide really what is an emergency service or a life-saving service. We did run into some challenges, of course, when any time you’re serving what the community often describes as the hardest to serve, so the winter response was not without its challenges. There are times when London Police Services, Canadian Mental Health Association, corporate security were engaged to ensure that individuals were safe, those that were on our site, and that inappropriate behavior or disruptive behavior was dealt with accordingly. We have been able to, I would say, contain a large part of those concerns in the community, but that is through a lot of the hard work in the 24/7 staffing model.

This was a service delivery model where we really shrunk the staff to participant ratios to levels that you really don’t see anywhere else in the system, again, because it was more of an intensive model with the hardest to serve, but really this was the model we felt would be best for the neighbors and as well as the participants in the winter response. The proposal of the next steps that you see before you at committee is what we feel is both cost-effective as opposed to creating some type of new intervention in the extension of the York Street site, but it also would provide staff a bit more of a runway to work with the individuals that would remain in our care. That number would shrink from what it is today down to about 20 to 25 individuals that have made significant progress in their stability as well as in their physical and mental well-being. We would foresee the use of York Street being intended as a transitional support of housing program, but really, again, focusing on stability and wraparound supports so that those individuals can maintain that momentum, keep that progress, and ultimately, ideally, move to some level of housing after that.

We’re also proposing the continuation of the daytime resting space at the Hamilton Road Senior Center. This location was picked primarily for a number of reasons, but primarily because we know that there tends to be social issues in that geographic area and providing supports over the winter would have been really key in this area so that people would actually come to it as opposed to taking it somewhere where unsheltered individuals were not staying. The Hamilton Road Senior Center at this time is currently vacant still. That is also why it was a prime location for us, having a city facility that was available to us.

So we’re hoping to extend it for the same period of time until the end of June. So I’ll leave that for you, Chair, and happy to take any questions committee might have. Sure. I’m going to go to Councillor Randhols to pull this item and then let me know colleagues if you want to be on the speaker’s list.

Go ahead, Councillor Randhols. Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to say that the community was very happy to accommodate people who needed a warm stay and crouch neighborhood resource center, I thought they had achieved quite a few successes with working with the individuals who are visiting there as well. But I know that extending it, I’ve heard a number of concerns from the neighborhood.

And I was wondering through you to staff what concerns they might have heard from the neighbors of the area, either directly to staff or through the senior center. Good luck to handle that. Thank you through the chair. I’ll start that response and I can pass it over to Mr.

Cooper if he has anything to add. So in terms of complaints or concerns, we have outlined some of them in the report to committee, but also we did hear complaints of garbage of sometimes just people milling about. Sometimes there was concerns of loitering, certainly through the added agenda. We have become aware of some other concerns around damage to property or damage or vandalism.

Not all complaints were logged with the city. The ones that we do receive either through our CRM and service London portal, which is our main gateway. We respond to those typically same day and some sites we circle as hotspots and we would visit them multiple times a day. So we did receive some call complaints through the CRM, the service London portal, our CIR team responds in very quick fashion.

Having spoken with our service London teams, the call volume during the winter response did not reflect any real significant spike in complaints. In fact, over the course of the winter response, as we started to move people out of encampments into the winter response, we actually saw complaints go down because there were fewer people sleeping in doorways, fewer people walking around alleyways and backyards and folks were more congregated in our winter response locations. Councillor Reynolds. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. And yes, I guess the garbage was one complaint I heard too, and I want to thank the community and acknowledge them for stepping up. The local home hardware had donated some bags and gloves for people to pick that up and we’ve had community members go out two or three times a week to pick up garbage. Their biggest concern was the needles that have been out there and I think those have been picked up in a couple hundred of those.

So we’ve got a resident that’s filling the sharps container with those things and I think that’s the big concern and I’m wondering, you know, we’re extending this and, you know, for those of us who believe in the idea of continual improvement, if — what could we do a little bit better to maybe take that responsibility off of the — off of the residents? So if I — if I could ask you to staff, ask — since we’ve got some more recent complaints, what we might — does staff have a plan to address those or do we think we can come up once one in short order? Mr. Dickens?

Thank you. And through the chair, I’m happy to speak to what is currently happening and if that suffices the plan, then great and if not, we’d be happy to consider an alternative. So just so the committee is aware, and as we’re speaking specifically about Hamilton Road Senior Center, there are daily routine inspections — routine inspections of that property. The property check is conducted by staff before opening and after closing, every day, seven days a week, the property sweeps for debris and any sharps or syringes occur every hour and they’re conducted by either the building attendant or the program staff.

As Council knows, city staff do clean up on city property. We do not, however, do clean up on private property and that might be where some of the friction is laying right now. We do respond to all submitted complaints regarding any city property. This complaint process, as I mentioned, tends to flow through our service London portal.

All individuals — I know it was raised if there’s individuals that were found sleeping at the back of a building or a parking lot. Any individuals found in the back of a parking lot are instructed immediately to return inside the building or to the front of the building. We have staff on site that consists of security guards, building attendants, community agency staff, multiple, and that times are volunteers. We also see an influx of social service agencies, whether it be the neighboring Crouch neighborhood resource center or whether it be other agencies cycling through to provide services.

The comfort station that is located nearby is locked during the day and open only at night when the community indoor washroom space is not available. We do have garbage and needle bins that are located outside of the building for community use. Those are routinely empty and they’re always locked. We do have a pretty robust response system, both proactively and reactively when it’s a complaint-driven process, which allows us to respond to any complaints of encampments.

We have a couple of occurrences and these are shared in the agenda package of encampments that we responded to and we didn’t find any, but we found some debris that we could clean up. So through the CIR, through our service London teams, through the onsite staff that are there, the entire time the building is operational, we do have a fairly robust system in place. I will also share that as part of our preparation, we did take a look at some of the London Police Services crime statistics in that immediate area. We’ve essentially taken the 120-day period that we have been at at the Hamilton Road Senior Center for our winter response and we compared the number of crime responses or complaints of the same 120-day period last year, as well as the 120-day period prior to us using the site, comparing all three, the number of incidents during the winter response was actually the lowest and in some cases quite considerably.

So I know it can be a challenge to the neighborhood, but we have seen that the calls and complaints involving police have gone down and our response times have been quite quick, quite responsive and we do have a fairly coordinated onsite in the moment team in place as well. Sir Eddle. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

So it does seem like they have a lot in place to deal with any complaints. So I hope that that process will serve the community adequately. So I know that members have written in with suggestions and I’m sure that the staff will take a look at those. So thank you.

Thanks very much. Just to let you know where the speakers list is, I have Councillor Kailabaga next and then Councillor Lewis. So let me know if you’re interested in getting on the list, Councillor Kailabaga. Thank you, three years to share.

Just a few follow up questions around some of the questions that my colleague was asking. I just want to ask through you to staff whether or not there is a garbage issue currently that we’re experiencing. This is something that I wanted to bring up at some point in the meeting to figure out what’s happening with our garbage pickup coordination, but would it be fair to say that there is a reduction in staff members who are not department three in the state chair to staff. Good luck to handle that one.

Thank you for taking a crack at that, Mr. Chair, as Kelly shares city and chair. So we are fully staffed in our Solid Waste Management Area. We were not fully staffed in the resources to provide some of the enhanced cleaning in the core area last year because we were unable to hire camps during COVID.

Those staffing levels are being addressed right now and people are being onboarded currently. We expect a fully resourced to the level of service funded by council within the matter of the next week or so. Okay. Thank you.

This is through you again, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to also ask what is the plan that staff have going forward past June. So if we do extend the program up until June, what is the plan going forward after June?

Has there been any discussions around that and I may potentially have a motion that I’d like to entertain? Mr. Dickens. Thank you.

And through the chair. Thank you for the question. I think this is the question that also sits on the minds of civic administration. As we mentioned, we received one time funding.

We received that one time funding multiple times, but we received one time funding through the provincial government, which went a long way in funding our entire COVID response, including the winter response. So resources needed to extend or to create a version of the winter response beyond June is not available to us at this time. It would take a funding source to make that happen. We have been in conversations with all of the participants, again, moving 30 of 30 participants in the housing by the end of next week.

We know some have already decided they want to disengage and we have others that we’d like to move into York Street in a temporary way, which we hope will help us transition them into housing. Beyond June, we do not have any plans to continue this service. It was temporary in nature. The winter response was meant to be a life-saving measure and I shared sentiment that is shared in the community that this type of intervention is life-saving 12 months of the year.

However, we need to do a bit of a review and a diagnostics of how things went. There are a lot of lessons learned, things that we would like to correct and things we’d like to build upon before we would make any decisions about a continuation of this service. It was a temporary, strictly help people in the coldest months of the year intervention. It has had great success, but it does not see a future beyond the end of June at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, just before I put a motion forward, I do have another question. Regarding the needles, if there is a high number of needles that are sort of spreading across and not being put in one specific area for pickup, is there an opportunity to work with a health unit to figure out a way to safely pick up those needles just so that the area can continue to be safe for children and other people? Mr.

Dickens? Thank you. Through the chair, that’s a really good question. I think that would require a conversation with the health unit, but I will pass it over to Mr.

Cooper. His team has been working really closely with the sharps pickup as part of the CIR, but also working closely with the health unit. Mr. Cooper.

Thank you, Mr. Dickens, and through the chair, happy to provide a perspective on that question. We do work quite closely with the health unit and do provide sharps containers in that location, as well as other locations across the community. We do see a good number of needles picked up on a regular basis and are happy and continually do work with our community partners, as well as residents on the safe disposal of needles, the safe cleanup of needles.

We have sharps kits we can provide to community, as well as some training work that we can share with community on properly safe disposal of needles if they do find it. We do see needles accessed in a number of parks. Generally, if a needle is found on public property, it is to call the city. It is to follow the service London process.

We will come out and we will clean it up. We’re happy to have conversations with private landlords, make sure that agencies have trespass agreements in with us or CIR programs so we can support people that might be trespassing on site and work with those agencies and businesses to help with clean up, but also to educate and provide services and support as appropriate. Thank you, Mr. Cooper, I think that is an important piece of figuring out a way of all the lessons that we’ve learned.

I don’t think that the program is the problem. I think the problem is the other issues that come with different things, different services that we offer and different things that happen in the community and just knowing that even our staff who pick up garbage, the number has been reduced throughout COVID is also important for people to understand as to why some of the things, some of the garbage takes a little longer for pick up, and also doing some education around how to pick up those needles and sharp objects. It is a great way to have the community involved and engaged in providing that safe space for people who need it right now. So that being said, I’d like to move a motion, Mr.

Chair, if that’s okay with you. So it would just be a motion, sorry, am I still on? I wasn’t sure because my Wi-Fi gets dropped off. So I just wanted to direct civic administration to find additional actions that can be taken past June, maybe perhaps they can report back to community and protective services as soon as possible on different actions that can be taken to continue the specific service at the end of June, building on what we’ve learned from the temporary winter response to support people who are experiencing homelessness.

I don’t think that this program should, and now it has been a success, and I think in our bold steps to try and decrease homelessness in our city, and also getting ready to, you know, what we’re going to be facing post-COVID, I think that it’s imperative that we do take different actions to try and continue to house people and continue to respond to the crisis of homelessness in our community. So I hope I get a seconder for that motion. Okay, well, I’ll look to see if there’s a seconder for a report back about what actions could be taken after June to support people. I think that was what Councillor Karygiannis said there.

She did send the language to the clerk I passed it on to the clerk. Is there a seconder for that? Councillor Lewis? Okay.

So I actually, Councillor Lewis, is next up on the list, so I’m going to go to him and let me know if you want to weigh in either on this motion or on the report itself. Go ahead, Councillor Lewis. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think I’ll weigh in on this motion first. I certainly agree with Councillor Karygiannis that there will be an ongoing need for supports in the community, and it would be good to hear back from our staff about how things can continue. I actually had the opportunity to discuss with Sarah Campbell on behalf of the WISH Coalition and the Arcade Mission, a proposal that they have around what they’re calling their be home and how they might be able to utilize some of the assets from the winter response program to actually create something a little more permanent and something that’s perhaps a little more community-driven rather than city hall-driven, which to me would be a good thing. So I support this.

I wonder if the Councillor would consider perhaps our friendly amendment that would include directing civic administration to engage with the WISH Coalition in regard to their be home proposal as one potential way forward on this. And I hadn’t had a chance to introduce that yet, but it’s out there now, and I’ll see if Councillor Karygiannis thinks that that’s a good idea or not. Let’s just check with the mover. Yeah, it comes up.

Okay. And then the Mayor, it looks like you wanted to weigh in. Councillor Lewis, are you done? Okay.

Mayor Hall, go ahead. Sorry. Sorry, Mr. Chair.

I just did want to expand as well on the points raised by both Councillor Van Holst and Councillor Karygiannis that through you to our staff, I recognize that right now our policies that we clean up on City property, however, I think as we’ve created these spaces and certainly credit to everybody for how quickly this was brought together, but as we created these spaces, we have had some overflow of concerns into the neighbourhood themselves. So I hope this staff will consider options to expand the sweep beyond just the immediate property. I know for homeowners in the area, you know, the first time that they come out to a needle in their lawn or on their porch, that can be a really shocking thing. And I think if there’s something that we can do to further support the immediate community around the site and provide some education and provide some opportunity to engage with our staff in terms of the community clean up, I think that would be a benefit as well.

But I just wanted to share that comment. I know I certainly and Councillor Helmer, you probably heard it from your constituents as well about the McMahon Park site where that was a big concern of refuse being found on private property that appeared to have come from the site. So hopefully that’s something that staff can consider. Okay.

I’m going to go to Mayor Holder. Go ahead. Thank you, Chair. It feels like we’re doing two separate issues.

We were initially dealing with the very specific issue around home branch and funding and morphed into customer and host comments and then Councillor Cai above is concerns as well, all well considered. It seems if we’re talking about clean up of areas, that’s one thing if we’re talking about dealing with the broader issue of homelessness, which I think this council is quite possessed with the with this notion. And rightly so, perhaps I got a little confused by Councillor Lewis’s additional comments, but only insofar as we’ve already had an initial extended discussion with Ms. Campbell that included Mr.

Dickens, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Purdy from City staff. And we talked about a site that they have in mind as well.

And I know Ms. Campbell to her credit is very keen to proceed with something and it will take some staff effort to get to that stage of being able to report back as to how that works. If the issues that we’re looking for different ways to deal with homelessness, listen, I can tell you and we know that our city staff are quite possessed with this currently. And not as a result of the one meeting that we recently had, but this has been an ongoing pursuit.

So, I mean, it’s a nice motion, but I’m not sure what it’s intended to accomplish beyond what we’re already doing. So, perhaps I maybe I could ask Mr. Dickens the question, and that is, what does this motion do that you aren’t already doing in your department, please, through you, Chair? Mr.

Dickens, there’s the initial motion from Councillor Caiabaga, which is about reporting back. And then the amended version that came from Councillor Lewis, which Councillor Caiabaga supported, which was the direct engagement about the B home proposal. So, if you want to respond to just both those parts, go ahead. Thank you.

And through the chair, I’ll start with the B home proposal first, as the Mayor mentioned, we did receive that proposal Monday morning. We have connected our procurement department with Ms. Campbell. It is being treated as an unsolicited proposal, so it will go through a pre-established process.

So, I would feel more comfortable working alongside my procurement colleagues at the city to treat the proposal that way through our procurement policy. And the question from or the motion from Councillor Caiabaga, it is a very good one, and to answer your question, Mr. Mayor, that is the work that we’re doing every day, is trying to find out what we will do beyond June. I can share that we have, indeed, expanded our access to programs like the headlies program.

We have been working to reinvest some of our chippy funding from the traditional shelter system to supportive housing programs with partners. We have not typically worked all that closely with some that we have, including ANOVA, St. Williams, and others, to help re-invigorate the support of housing programs as opposed to the shelter system. We’ll also be working closely with our city partners and with CMHC on the development of 61 affordable housing units at 122 baseline, that’s a council supported modular housing project where construction is expected to be completed by the end of this calendar year or January of 2022 for a move in before the spring.

So we are taking several steps every day to bolster our traditional housing and shelter system as well as looking at innovative new ways to help link people to services. We are also very excited that the vaccination rollout is happening this week and beyond with the vulnerable population, and we expect that in turn, that means we will see some people be able to find some shelter in the traditional shelter system. Again, that’s not our gold standard or end goal, but this is the work that Mr. Cooper’s team does so, so well, but we do it every day is trying to find plans for what we do after these type of temporary intervention.

Recognizing, of course, the social services relief funding that we received was one time in nature. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, Mr.

Dickens, for that what I thought was a very comprehensive response, but the fact that the proposal that we have received as you’ve called it an unsolicited proposal, what I’m concerned about is that if that’s included in the motion, is her proposal somehow compromised because we have presented it this way noting that it is an unsolicited proposal, I’m just mindful of the, and trying to respect the municipal process. That’s it. Well, let’s go to whichever staff would like to take that on. The language was really just about directing civic administration to engage on the proposal.

I think it’s kind of a given that it would be within the procurement policy framework. So let’s see if any staff on a way in, go ahead, see the city manager, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for recognizing me, I, if it’s council’s desire to have staff report back on where we go next, I would ask that it be left broad so that there’s room to move.

And given that we do have a proposal that is recently been put in front of council and is now in a process, my recommendation is that it not be named specifically in the motion. I think staff understand the intent of the motion, which is to come back with other ideas. Mr. Dickens has tried to highlight the complexity of the time we’re in as other services may come back online.

But we understand they ask, I would just request that we not name a specific proposal in that resolution. Mr. Mayor, I’m going to go to Councillor Lewis, he’s getting my attention. I think he’s keen to back that out a little bit to keep it broad, Councillor Lewis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and yes, you know, my meeting and discussion with Ms. Campbell and her group clearly took place before the meeting with staff. So knowing that there is a second process going on now, I would not want to jeopardize the potential for this proposal to potentially move forward or other options to be viable.

So I’m going to withdraw that addition to Councillor Caiabego’s motion and that way the report can come back with potentially that and any other options that come forward. So I’m certainly willing to do that. Okay, I’ll go back to the Mayor. Well, thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Lewis. I think we all know the intent and the spirit of the intent is something that because staff are doing this currently in terms of the regular work they do. If as Councillor Caiabego’s indicated, we’re looking for a report back for progress. I think that’s great, if we want to formalize that, I’m fine with that and I appreciate the amendment being withdrawn.

In no way do we want to jeopardize that project and at the same time, in the spirit of the various things that we’re projects that we are looking at. I know that their intent is extremely noble and as Mr. Dickens has indicated, he’s taken it to our procurement staff to assist in that regard. So I’m good with that.

Thanks, Chair. Thank you. I am hearing some background noise while the Mayor was speaking. So if anyone can just check to make sure you’re not unmuted by accident.

Thanks. I’m just going to check with Councillor Caiabego. Are you comfortable with the withdrawal of the amendment that Councillor Lewis has suggested? Yes, I’m comfortable with it.

I just also wanted to mention that the word engage was not a direction to have to do it, but it would be great to engage since it’s a great proposal that has already been proposed that. So but I’m happy to have the second amendment be removed. Okay, so it sounds like we’re getting some convergence. I don’t have any other speakers on the speakers list and just look to see if there’s anyone else.

So this would be the amendment is essentially to add on to the existing staff recommendation to receive the report. Any further discussion or debate? No? Okay, if not, I did want to say just from the chair a couple of things.

One is this was a tremendous undertaking to get the winter response mobilized in very short order. And I know that the City of London and Mr. Cooper’s staff and people throughout the organization did a lot of heavy lifting to make that happen. It is also something where the community stepped up in a very significant way across many different agencies, you know, just the scale of the hiring process to get everybody staff up.

These temporary responses in very short order to have it open before Christmas, I thought was remarkable, the first site. And I’m really pleased that we’ve been able to get the kind of outcomes that we’ve been able to achieve in a few short months. Getting this many number of people into housing is really a great outcome. And I don’t want us to lose sight of that.

This was a lot to do in a very short period of time, it was very difficult work. But it is resulting in some really great outcomes for people who were without a lot of great options in November and in early December. And I think that people are able to find some stability and be able to be ready to move into housing, I think is a really, really good thing. I know Councillor Lewis mentioned, you know, one of these sites is in Ward 4.

And as I said, when we were initially approving the four locations, the community was divided into sort of three groups of people who were very opposed to the idea of a temporary homeless shelter for people at all. And then there were people who were, I’m going to go along with it, but only for the winter and I really don’t want it to be here for very long. And then there were people in the community who were very enthusiastic about the idea and they thought that it was necessary, that it was really going to help people. And so the people were kind of mixed.

I would say there were a lot of people who were very fearful about the response and they were taken by surprise because everything is moving so quickly. And I think that it’s understandable to be afraid and to be anxious and in many cases to be angry about things happening when you don’t know that they’re happening. And I think in many ways it’s a normal and to be expected reaction. But I will say it was not as bad as people would have feared.

I think there were some issues, discarded syringes, that’s an issue in this park generally. But I think it did intensify a little bit. There was some damage to people’s property, I don’t know exactly who caused it or if they’re involved in the sites actually, I don’t know that that’s necessarily the case. But that damage did happen and people are upset about that.

But overall, this was a very successful intervention. And I want to say thank you to the people who, I live, I don’t know, maybe four or five hundred meters away from where this shelter was set up just on the other side of the train tracks. And I want to say thank you to the people who live in the neighborhood who embraced the temporary response, who supported it. Even folks who were reluctant or skeptical at the outset who came around to see the value.

And hopefully they can see this report and look at it. Even people who are very angry about it being established close to where they live. They can look at it and say, you know, in the end 25, 30 people are moving into housing who otherwise wouldn’t have been. And they had a place to live over the winter that they wouldn’t have had.

And it weren’t stuck down in Wellington Valley with no better options. And I think it’s really a great thing that we managed to make this happen. I know it was expensive, it cost a lot of resources, I know it was really difficult for everybody. And I don’t think it’s sustainable to do this.

So for an over again and long term, I think this is really difficult. But I do think it has shown us that there are some things that can be done differently. And one of the things I want to emphasize is that this ability to be a little bit out of the fray, out of the core, a little bit further away from some of the really intense activity and a lot of the normal habits of living in the urban core. I think there’s a lot of value for that, for the people who are staying in these shelters.

And I was surprised. I wasn’t sure that the mastery location, if it was actually close enough to where people wanted to be and where the services that they were relying on were. But I think we can see that bringing the services to people, making sure they had what they need to be successful, and I think we’ve learned some things from this intervention. And I wanted to say thank you very much to everybody who was involved in making it happen.

It was a really big undertaking at a really critical time in the history of our city frankly. And it did great work. Okay, with that, I’m going to open up the motion for voting. It is this initial A and B, which is the endorse and approve the report.

And then part B, which is directing administration to undertake those administrative acts. And then the amendment, which came from Councillor Kiaabaga and Councillor Lewis. No, I don’t think so. It seems like everybody is on the same page, so we can do them all together.

Sorry about that. Clerk was just checking whether we’re doing it separately or not, but I think we’re doing it all together. That’ll be coming up on eScribe. I don’t know, Mayor, if you were able to get logged in.

I’m on my screen here, but I’m waiting for the vote to come up. I hope pray. Pray with me. We’ll see how it goes.

Okay. It’s up now. So we could take your vote verbally if that would be easier. Oh, it’s more fun.

If you wait for me, Chair, but that could take too long ago. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Everyone had a chance to see that up on the screen. We’re voting. Housing the vote. The motion carries six to zero.

Thank you very much, colleagues. Councillor Lewis, he had asked to pull 2.5. This is the homeless prevention funding received in 2020 and 2021 and the COVID-19 response. Did you want to hear anything for staff before we go into you or do you want to weigh right in?

I think I’m just going to weigh in directly. First of all, I appreciate staff giving us an overview of how the funding has been allocated so far and $16 million and a little bit has come to the city and it’s been put to very good use with everything from hotel rooms for isolation spaces to the winter response that we were just discussing through you, Mr. Chair. The reason I asked for this to be pulled was just to see if staff could give us any indication of what we might expect in terms of a Phase 3 allocation of funding, if that’s something that they’ve had a chance to give consideration to because I know that a number of these measures that we’re taking such as the hotel rooms will be coming to an end when the funding expires.

So I’m just wondering if staff has any updates for us, Mr. Dickens. Thank you and through you, Chair, and thank you for the question. It has been an interesting time during COVID to receive such an impressive amount of resources all on a one-time funding allotment that came in three unpredictable ways.

To answer your question, I am going to pass it over to Mr. Cooper. He has his finger firmly on this pulse. Thank you.

Mr. Cooper. Thank you and through the Chair, happy to answer this question. To talk about Phase 3, we’re going to just talk a little bit about Phase 1 and 2 if you don’t mind initially.

When the pandemic hit, obviously, the provincial and federal government stepped up with one-time funding in the moment, and hindsight, as we look at, is always 2020 when we look back on our programs and how we spent our money. But trying to maximize the use of the funding, try to be as responsible and flexible as possible with the use of the funds, both Phase 1 and Phase 2, has always been some of the goals that we’ve pushed towards the community and worked with the community to support the most vulnerable. So with Phase 3, we have got an allocation with the province. We have a number of agencies that have expressed needs to the homeless prevention team.

We are currently assessing some of those needs, some of those inquiries, and working towards that plan for the Phase 3 dollars that we will be bringing a report to committee in the near future on expensing. We are in a tight window with the SSRF Phase 3 dollars. They are for operational purposes only, and have to be expensed by the end of December. So again, like most things we’re working through on the homeless prevention team, things have to happen quite quickly.

And we are wanting to make sure that we are addressing the current and the expected needs in community as it relates to COVID. Councillor Lewis. Wonderful. I appreciate that answer from Mr.

Cooper. Obviously, we’re not in the recovery period yet since we’re going through a third wave right now. So the fact that that work continues is good to know. That’s all for me, Mr.

Chair. Okay. I’ll take that as moving. The 2.5 recommendation.

Is there a seconder for that? Mr. Hill here. Any other discussion on 2.5?

Okay. We’ll open up the vote on that. Chair, not seeing the current item on this, but I will put yes. Thank you.

Closing the vote. The motion carries six to zero. Okay. That brings us to item two, the report back from the Pacific administration about residential security cameras.

The recommendation is that we receive the report. We do have a delegation which has already been approved related to this matter. And so what I’d like to do is hear very briefly from staff, just about the report. And then we’re going to go to the delegation right away.

We’ll hear from the delegation, and then we can come back to the committee discussion and debate about what we’re going to do with the staff recommendation. So first, I’m going to go to Mr. Catawak. Yes, through the chair, in response to the citizen inquiry, we work together with London Police Service in preparing this report.

General surveillance equipment is included in the city’s fortification bylaw. And the bylaw specifically exempts private dwellings from excessive protective element regulations in the fortification bylaw. There are some definite challenges to enforcing video security on residential dwellings. And in the report, you will see that in 2017, in consultation with London Police Service, we no longer responded to citizen complaints with respect to possible voyeurism because of surveillance or security cameras on residential dwellings.

So if a citizen property owner or tenant suspects nefarious videoing from a neighbor which is bordering on voyeurism, then the recommendation that we have been forwarding is that the matter should be referred to London Police Service. Thank you. Thanks very much, Mr. Catawak.

So I’m going to go to Mr. Johnstone, who raised this matter initially. And you’ve got five minutes, Mr. Johnstone, I understand you’re on the Zoom.

So just unmute yourself, you introduce yourself, although we’ve certainly seen you before. And then we’ll get into your delegation, you got five minutes. Okay, I appreciate it. My name is David Johnstone, and I thank the chair, the mayor, and the Councillors for hearing me.

We’ll try to get through my statement as quickly as possible. I’d like to remind everyone that the council did vote to 6-0, and that Councillor Squire did state in our last meeting that there was support for a report and for a by-law concerning this. So the report, as it said, surveyed a total of six cities out of a total of 1,100 municipalities in Canada. So it’s extremely small sample.

The argument that cities don’t have by-laws, camera by-laws existing already, so that we don’t need one as preposterous. Nothing would be accomplished, government bodies acted in such an unreasonable and irresponsible manner. It’s clear that security cameras do not constitute excessive, pardon me, protective elements, in and of themselves. And they disagree when it comes to backyard cameras.

When they infringe directly on the privacy rights of others. The narrow view of the fortifications by-law only applies to organized crime. So I’ve been told, however, the by-law does not state that specifically. Next, from the fortifications by-law briefly mentions visual surveillance equipment, including video cameras, night vision systems, electronic surveillance, listening capabilities beyond the perimeter of the property.

My situation in the camera is installed 20 feet above the ground where fences are 7 feet tall maximum by by-law. Camera can see four entire families backyards at one time. Camera was installed at a spite, and under the guise of security, camera has night vision, infrared, motion sensing, and can record 24 hours a day. The backyards in my area are fully fenced.

There’s no entrance from the street. I don’t know how this is not excessive protective elements. You also note that in section 3.1, each of the fortifications by-law has an exemption clause quote, “a lawfully permitted private dwelling where the nature of the lawful use is dwelling necessitates particular elements of excessive fortification.” Also, you claim above that fortification by-law doesn’t apply to private dwellings, only criminal organizations, so you’re allowing excessive monitoring under an exemption of this by-law, but by your own words, this by-law is not intended for private dwellings, but for organized crime. Very convenient.

So the fortification by-law only applies when it benefits the city, but does not apply when it does not benefit the city. You also indicate that in 2017, you also receive residential security camera complaints unrelated to my complaints. Clearly, this is a recurring ongoing issue, and nothing has been done to stop it. You go on to describe the flood process where on-site municipal law enforcement officers can’t demand access into homes, and they can’t get search warrants, and cameras can be rearranged after they leave.

This is a nonsense of argument because it’s fatally flawed. You also sit in a hot explain line. You also say, “Given today’s security technology, et cetera, it is impossible. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine from the exterior property inspection where the camera is pointed.” All of this is true, and of course, your proposed solution to the problem should never be implemented.

It’s ineffective. The proposed solution in itself is a non-starter, purposely so as the city does not want to deal with the issue. You’re basically saying it is unenforceable, the by-law challenge is too great. This is a problem with your proposed solution as it follows, one, it’s antiquated, two, it’s ineffective, three, it’s unenforceable, and it’s an analog approach to a digital problem doomed to fail.

It will never succeed. Your conclusions, complaints, contacting the city are currently advised to talk to the police, as Mr. Catolique said. In my case, they did nothing.

The courts did nothing, and also, does it really make sense that every consideration for video camera violations need to go to civil court, pardon me. Not one single alternative solution has been proposed. That is unacceptable. Here’s the solution.

It’s easy. It’s quick. It won’t cost taxpayers virtually any money, won’t require any law enforcement officers to come out, and won’t involve any police, because when you choose to install a backyard camera, it comes with responsibilities. So first, height restrict backyard cameras to the maximum of fence heights.

Any person who installs a camera is required to, upon request by a neighbor, share an email address for the purposes of communication within 24 hours. Upon request by a neighbor, supply a current daytime digital photo of what the camera captures within 24 hours. Upon inspection of the digital photo, the complainant can request the camera owner alter his camera within 24 hours. If the camera owner refuses or fails, the complainant simply sends an email, pardon me, or fails at performing the city’s website, clearing the camera owner violation.

Any digital photo from the camera owners, from the camera owner, provided it was even shared submitted along as irritable proof of a camera violation. No need to dispatch law enforcement, enforcement officers, law enforcement at all. Mr. Johnston, you’ve gone over your time, so you need to wrap up.

Okay. One more minute. So based on that. You’ve got to wrap up right now.

Not one more minute. You’re already 45 seconds over. Okay. At that point, violations can be mailed out and fines can be enacted.

The city is purposely avoiding this real ongoing issue. If clients received by the city are only at the very tip of a much larger iceberg and something must be done, the backyard camera by a lot is required and every city in Canada should implement one without having opportunity to be a leader in the state of the space of the city government and can be an example for other cities to follow. If not now, then when? Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Mr. Johnston.

We’ve heard from our staff. How would you like to proceed? The recommendation is to receive the report. Do I have a mover to receive the report?

Mayor Boulder? Senator Lewis? Any discussion? Senator Lewis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just going to briefly comment in terms of what we heard from Mr. Johnston, you know, and the final question was, if not now, then when?

And I think that this is an issue that is continuing to develop in the community as technology changes, as home setups change for people, and it is something that we’ll have to continue to be monitored and be at least on our minds in terms of ensuring community privacy moving forward. I’m not sure that today is the time, but I am confident that this is not the last time that this matter will be before a council. Any other discussion? Okay, one thing I’m going to say, and I think this is mostly for the benefit of Mr.

Johnston, is it’s not a very persuasive to just kind of attack the city staff when they make a recommendation that you don’t agree with. So, you know, going after the motivation, saying, “Oh, you only do it if it benefits the city.” These are not arguments that help your cause. These are things that make it very hard to treat what you’re saying fairly, because I’m getting very angry with you for the way that you’re treating city staff. And I actually think you have some reasonable ideas when you got to what you think should happen.

You know, maybe it should be a height regulation. And I would say in the future, because I do think we’ll probably be talking about this issue again in the future, focusing on the positive things, what you think is a better way of doing things rather than, and I’m sure it’s just a matter of being frustrated and angry about the situation that you’re in, and wanting to be able to solve it, and not seeing a way forward, there’s just nothing gained by the kind of comments that are at the beginning part of your delegation. So it’s something to keep in mind when we’re talking about these kind of issues in the future. I appreciate the report from Mr.

Catolek. I do think there are a lot of conflicts like this between neighbors, where we’re seeing more of them. It certainly happens a lot. And in World 4, it does come up.

And I do think we’re going to have to wrestle with how to regulate this kind of thing. I think, actually, it’s going to be an issue that needs to be dealt with, not just in London, but across the province. It’s the ubiquity of these cameras and the low cost of them, meaning that they’re proliferating all over the place. And I do think there’s privacy issues that are involved.

And I think it’s something that we’re going to have to wrestle with. I agree with receiving the report right now. And we’ll have to keep an open mind about how we might be able to do things better in the future. Okay.

I don’t have any other speakers. We’re going to open up for a vote. Mr. Chair, just making sure that we’re voting on receiving the report.

Yeah, we’re voting on receiving the report. Yep. Motion carries six to zero. Okay.

That brings us to our sent items. We’ve got two scheduled items here. And then we’ve got one item for direction and the deferred matters. Let’s just give you a sense of where we are.

The first one is the swimming pool offense by law proposed amendments. So what I’m going to do is just get a mover for opening the public participation meeting. Councillor Lewis, seconder, Councillor Hillier. Once we get that up on the screen and we open the PPM, I’m going to go to staff to just give an overview and then we’re going to get into anybody who wants to weigh in on the proposed amendments.

I’ll vote yes, Chair. Thank you. Closing the vote. The motion carries six to zero.

Okay. So I’m going to go to Mr. Catolek just a very brief comment about the report and the recommendations that we’re going to go into the members of the public weighing in. I would draw your attention.

There was an added communication. Make sure you saw that on the added agenda from B. Robertson pool and hot tub council of Canada. Mr.

Catolek. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I’m going to refer to Heather Chapman to give a high level presentation on the amendments that we work very closely with the pool and hot tub council of Canada. Thank you. Over to Heather Chapman. Go ahead, Ms.

Chapman. Before I start with the summary presentation, there is a friendly addition with regard to section 4.3 that I’d like to point out. I did email the committee clerk earlier this afternoon with the request to add some wording. The additional wording is around section 4.3, which says is number 8 on the draft amending bylaw.

Any permit issued by the chief building official on or after May 4, 2021 shall expire 18 months after the issuance. What we need added is after the issuance, if a pool and fence have not been constructed within that time in accordance with the bylaw. So am I able to receive through the chair confirmation that the committee clerk has been able to add that portion of the sentence? Through the chair, the staff recommendation doesn’t have that that I have up on eScribe.

It just refers to the bylaw. But if you if the committee is amenable, we can have the revised bylaw attached with that wording included to the report. Okay, let’s give the clerk some time to circulate the language that Miss Chapman just talked about to members of the committee so we can see the language just in isolation but in writing. And what I’ll do is I’ll have you go ahead Miss Chapman with your presentation and then we’ll come back to the issue around the language and how we’re going to handle it once we get through presentation here from the public and the debate.

Okay. Thanks for flagging that at the beginning though. Go ahead with your presentation. Let’s call me pool fence bylaw P s dash five was originally passed in 1997.

It has been amended on five occasions with the last one being in 2018 in an effort to continually maintain effective safety standards and to keep up with the evolution of creative fence designs and attractive building designs we find it necessary again to come forward with this report and recommendations to modernize the bylaw. With the draft demanding bylaw there are three new elements we are recommending to introduce the other pieces are minor amendments to the existing regulations. The first would be within section 4.2 D and this recommendation of a pool grading and drainage plan to be included as part of the application process for a swimming pool fence permit is new. People maintain proper overland flow roots and protect the pool owner and neighboring properties.

The implementation of this regulation comes with much reliance on the knowledge of our city colleagues in the environmental services department in addition we received an email of support from the London development Institute on this matter this afternoon. The next is with regard to section 4.3, which is what I mentioned at the onset of the my presentation. By adding this section, which is a permit expiry clause we encourage all those installing a pool to finalize their pool and fence installation in a timely manner and feel that the 18 month time frame does afford that opportunity lastly I will touch briefly on the additional requirement around overhead and slide to the side garage doors. These are your vehicle passage stores and this is referred to in section 5.1 in the draft amendment.

It is not uncommon in these states to see some new home designs that include both a front and rear overhead door that allows access directly into the backyard and the pool area. The proposed amendment around the installation of the one minute automatic door closer on the rear door in addition to the other security measures in the recommendation. We feel that this will create the balance between safety and functionality through the chair that concludes the high level summary of the report. Thank you very much.

So we’re going to go to any members of the public who have come for this particular public participation meeting and then we’re going to get into debate and discussion about the recommendations. Just looking to the clerk to see if we have anyone? No. Okay.

So we don’t have any members who want to weigh in. I’ll just give people a chance to join the Zoom if they were just having technical difficulties. Don’t say any. Okay.

Motion to close the public participation meeting. Councillor Hilliard seconded by Councillor Lewis. Thank you. That’s going to come up on the screen.

The clerk if you check your email, the clerk has circulated the language that Ms. Chapman was referring to and certainly have to counsel I think is the cleanest way of handling that. So if we can include that in the motion, I think that would accomplish what we need to do. Mr.

Mayor, would you like to vote verbally? I think I should. I’ll vote yes. Housing the vote.

The motion carries. Okay. Discussion on the recommendation. Perhaps I’ll start with looking to see if there’s a mover, including the revision to the bylaw.

Councillor Lewis seconded by Councillor Hilliard. Okay. Any discussion about the amendments to the pool fence bylaw? Councillor Hilliard.

I had a pool for 25 years and looking over these, these are basically common sense. I myself, I know one of my own children fell in the pool and my own father dove in after him. Seconds later, I know how quickly they go in. So I personally recommend all of this.

Thank you and I appreciate seeing it. Thank you. And the other speakers. Okay.

If not, we’re going to open up the vote. Sorry, Councillor Cassidy. You raised your digital hand. I was looking for your actual hand.

Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You’re recognizing me at your committee as well and different chairs, notice different hands better.

So I’m in favor of this as well. And I think it’s, it’s finally I’ve in the past received complaints from constituents who had to speak with their neighbors about the drainage issue on pools. And I think it’s really timely that this comes right after the last issue that this committee heard about, which was the video cameras. But in the past, the city always said, this is a civil dispute between you and your neighbor.

Once this pool was built, didn’t matter whether the drainage issues were actually caused by the pool. It was then left to two neighbors to settle, which is frustrating for people when the city approved a fence permit in the first place. So I think this is a great approach. I’m really happy to see staff bring these changes forward.

And I agree with you. I think the video camera thing is something that is going to come up again. And, and I think we need to start wrapping our heads around that because people do have a right to privacy in their own backyards. And when we approve developments, we often don’t approve balconies on a side of the building that’s going to face adjacent properties, backyard amenity spaces.

That’s often the, what we do in those situations. So, happy to see this again and thanks again for letting me speak at your committee. When I said I was going to come up again, I didn’t mean actually at this meeting. We did, we did, we did deal with that one.

So thank you for your comments on the swimming pool fence by law. Any other comments? Okay, we’re going to open it up for a vote then. Thank you.

Virtual hand by will vote yes. Thank you. Using the vote, the motion carries six to zero. That brings us to our second public participation meeting.

This is on the administrative monetary penalties and applying them to a variety of municipal bylaws. I’m going to suggest the same kind of process we had last time. So can I have a motion to open the PPM, Councillor Hillier, seconder by Councillor Lewis. Any discussion on opening the PPM?

If not, we’re going to vote on. Yes, chair. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Okay.

A vote applying the amps to a variety of municipal bylaws, Mr. Katoa. Oh, yes. Thank you.

Through the chair, the amps bylaws been in place since 2019 and last year we added a number of non-parking bylaws. I could advise committee that we are currently applying non-parking violations together with the the amps process for continuous violations. And this bylaw recommends a whole list of further bylaws for amps. I do want to advise committee that in the appendix B there is a missing date and a typo in the whereas clause certainly does not affect the spirit and intent of the bylaw amendment and we will fix these typos before the next council meeting.

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Katoa.

Any speakers for the PPM? I’m just going to go and see you. We don’t have anyone on the Zoom. No one in the committee rooms.

Okay. I have a motion to close the public participation meeting. Councillor Hillier, seconded by the mayor. I have that up for a vote.

Closing the vote. Motion carries 6-0. Okay. Great.

On the recommendation to apply review all these bylaws and revise them to include appropriate the amps. Is there a mover for that recommendation? It’s almost an A to Z motion. It’s all the way down to P.

Councillor Hillier. Seconded. Councillor Lewis. Okay.

Any discussion? If not, I’m glad to see this coming forward. I know it’s a lot to revise and update all these bylaws but the administrative monetary penalties has got a lot of advantages over the previous way and I’m glad to see that actually happening for all these different bylaws. Okay.

Let’s open it up for a vote. Closing the vote. The motion carries 6-0. That brings us to item number four, which is a communication from Councillor Cassidy.

What I’m going to do is go to Councillor Cassidy here from her and then perhaps we can hear from staff and then we’ll decide how we’d like to handle the communication from Councillor Cassidy. Go ahead, Councillor Cassidy. We just need you to unmute. That was my practice run.

So, what brought this matter to my attention was something that made the news but it was the people that live close by to a shelter rescue/foster operation that was being run from a private home and it’s not that the fire in the home where the shelter operation was running was caused or had necessarily anything to do with the shelter operation. It was just what became very public where the amount of animals that were living in the home estimates go from 20 to 40 cats living in this home and it was a due click. So, reaching out to staff and talking about the whole situation and I did have a number of back and forth conversations with the adjacent property owners. This shelter/rescue operation was run within the rules.

They were following the rules. They were doing all the things that they were supposed to do and I believe the operator of the rescue organization continues to operate a rescue organization at a different address and their license is intact and is meeting all of the current requirements. So, back in 2014, July 21st, the meeting of the same committee with all different committee members, staff made a recommendation to actually place a limit on the number of animals in a rescue operation in a private home and further restrict it when that private home is a multi-unit building. And I think what that represented from staff was a compromise on allowing the rescue operations to do their good work which they do do in our city.

They are seeing to stray animals or unwanted animals and fostering them until they can find a permanent home. But the balance is that the people that live close by also have a right to enjoyment of their property and sometimes when you see something like this where there are dozens and dozens of especially cats living so close by, it’s difficult for adjacent property owners to enjoy their own property. So, I would appreciate if this committee would consider directing staff to go back to their original recommendation and put those maximum limits in place. Just before I go to committee members to see how they like to handle the communication, I think it’s good to go to Mr.

Catola to get a bit of a reaction from staff and then we’ll see about how to handle the communication from Councillor Cassidy. Mr. Catola? Yes, I’ll defer to Ms.

Chapman to respond. She was very much involved in the recommendation back in 2014. Go ahead, Ms. Chapman.

2014, although civic administration made a foster care limit recommendation on the number of animals, we did not have the benefit of the resource of our city veterinarians that we do have now. And just to give you a little bit of background, according to the National Companion Animal Coalition composed of Canadian Veterinary Medical Association inhumane Canada and the pet industry joint advisory council of Canada, it says that establishing a set limit on the number of dogs and cats permitted in the dwelling does not address irresponsible pet ownership or guardianship, but rather may prevent a responsible pet owner or guardian from providing proper care to a good number of animals that might not otherwise have care at all. But I do think that we would like to do an internal review for further discussion and we would also engage the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee and approved fostering organizations and that if there’s not going to be kind of the support of a set limit overall, I think that it would be beneficial to look at maybe there should be a difference between single detached dwellings and multi-unit dwellings because it’s a totally different environment. And then my other thought is that if that wasn’t the solution, I would like to reintroduce the discussion on periodic foster home checks that could be completed by the City Animal Welfare Coordinator who is a registered veterinary technician.

So I think there are options here and we welcome, you know, direction to have a look at this again and report back. Okay. So, Councillor Cassie’s raised a very specific potential motion. Staff are saying maybe refer the whole general matter for a report back rather than giving this specific direction.

Councillor Cassie, I just saw you nodding along as Ms. Chapman was talking. So, do you having heard from her, do you want to change what you’re asking for? Mr.

Chair, I defer to staff and I did have conversations. And during some of those conversations, the thought was that a very specific motion would be helpful to staff, but it sounds like Ms. Chapman has done additional looking into the matter. And so I’m 100% in staff’s hands what how they feel is the best approach.

Okay. So a potential motion would be to refer the communication to staff or report back at a future meeting. I see a lot of nodding. I’m going to go.

I have Councillor Lewis and then I have Councillor Hillier and then I have the mayor. So Councillor Lewis. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And I was happy to offer to put Councillor Cassie’s motion on the floor here for discussion. But hearing from Ms. Chapman, I’m even happier to move the civic administration, undertake a review of the bylaw and report back to us at a future date. I think with some direction from us to include consideration of maximums to include consideration of different types of dwelling units and also to include consideration of appropriate exemptions.

You know, I know there are some families that foster animals in my ward. And sometimes the foster animal that they get is about to give birth. And suddenly when you might think you have three dogs in the home, you’re suddenly taking care of six or seven, although those puppies aren’t necessarily terribly disruptive to the neighborhood or even to the homeowners, they would be in violation of the bylaw. So I think that those are the kind of things that we need to review.

And I think that the, and we’ve heard from staff already that the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee would be included in that discussion. So with all of those components, I’m very happy to put this on the floor and support having this bylaw reviewed and perhaps updated 2014 was a while ago. And now we have some lived experience with this bylaw in our community, so we may want to make some tweaks. Okay.

I’m going to suggest that in terms of the language, I could hear the clerk furiously typing, trying to keep up with what you were saying. It might be easiest to just refer the whole communication from Councillor Cassidy and then the staff can come back with a report. I think they’ve heard the various issues, but rather than trying to enumerate all of them, it might be easier to just have the communication referred. So let’s take that as the motion seconder for that, Mayor Holder.

Okay, I’m going to go Councillor Hillier than the Mayor. Thank you. I do remember that fire was in my ward. It was next door to a previous mayoral candidate, if you remember correctly.

Yes, Sean Lewis pretty much covered most of the things I wanted to cover. One of the issues we are having also is that people are fostering dogs and they’re left out too long, putting like three or four dogs in the backyard. They’re just meeting each other. But if it’s happening in their hood on a regular basis, it can be quite boisterous and noisy for certain people in the area.

And I have heard quite a few of them. Mayor Holder. Everything’s been said, Chair. Well said.

Well said. We’re going to open up the vote on that motion. Hopefully the clerk has had time to draft it up. Make sure that that language looks right for everybody if you can see it.

Communication be referred for review and report back in a future meeting. Okay. We’re going to vote. Oh, yes, Chair.

Thank you, Mayor Holder. Closing the vote. The motion carries six to zero. Thank you.

Thanks for attending Councillor Cassidy. That brings us to the deferred matters additional business. I would say Councillor Lewis had predicted we’d end at five thirty. So if you want to drag it out for four minutes, you know, we want him to be right.

So if any questions about the deferred matters, no, mover for the deferred matters of Councillor Lewis. Okay. Seconder. Councillor Hillier.

Any discussion on any of that? No. To have that up for a vote. Under your time, Chair.

Yes. Closing the vote. The motion carries six to zero. Councillor Lewis, Councillor Hillier.

Is that up on the screen or maybe we’ll vote by hand, see a lot of, yeah, that’s it. We’re adjourned. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.

Chair.