July 15, 2024, at 1:00 PM

Original link

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That Items 2.1 to 2.5, 2.7, 2.8 and 2.10 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

2.1   2025 Mayor’s New Year’s Honour List - Call for Nominations

2024-07-15 Sub. Nominations Package - 2025 Mayors New Years Honour List

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the communication, dated June 27, 2024, from the City Clerk and the Deputy City Clerks, with respect to the 2025 Mayor’s New Year’s Honour List Call for Nominations, BE RECEIVED. (2024-M11)

Motion Passed

2.2   6th and 7th Reports of the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee

2024-06-04 AWCAC Report

2024-07-04 AWCAC Report

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 6th and 7th Reports of the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee (AWCAC):

a)    the following actions be taken with respect to the 6th Report of the AWCAC, from the meeting held on June 6, 2024:

i)    the following actions be taken with respect to Rodenticide use in City facilities:

A)    the Senior Manager of Facilities BE INVITED to attend a future Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee meeting prior to the City renewing its contract for pest control service in 2025 to review the scope of the contract and discuss alternative strategies to use of poison at municipal facilities; and,

B)    a Working Group BE ESTABLISHED to prepare recommendations for print and online communications to support public education about best practices to prevent rodent infestations and apply rodent exclusion methods at residential buildings;

it being noted that the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee received a communication from the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee and the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee and held a general discussion with respect to these matters;

ii)    clauses 1.1, 3.1, 5.1, 5.2 and 5.4 to 5.6 BE RECEIVED;

b)    the 7th Report of the AWCAC from the meeting held on July 4, 2024 BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.3   3rd Report of the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee

2024-06-27 ACAC Report

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the 3rd Report of the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee, from the meeting held on June 27, 2024, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.4   RFP-2024-100 Prime Consulting Services for CHOCC Teaching Kitchen and Elevator

2024-07-15 SR RFP-2024-100 Prime Consulting Services for CHOCC - Full-R

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports and Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated July 15, 2024, related to RFP-2024-100 Prime Consulting Services for CHOCC Teaching Kitchen and Elevator:

a)    the proposal submitted by 17\21 architects inc., 1065 Valetta St, London, for the Prime Consultant Services for CHOCC Teaching Kitchen and Elevator project for a fee of $152,015.00 (excluding HST) BE ACCEPTED; it being noted that the evaluation team determined the proposal submitted by 17\21 architects inc. provided the best technical and financial value to the Corporation, met the City’s requirements in all areas and acceptance is in accordance with section 15.2 of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the financing for this project BE APPROVED as set out in the Sources of Financing Report, as appended to the above-noted staff report;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts which are necessary in connection with the project;

d)    the approvals given, herein, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract with the consultant for the work; and,

e)    the Mayor and the City Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute a contract or any other documents, if required, to give effect to these recommendations. (2024-A19)

Motion Passed

2.5   RFP-2024-135 Prime Consulting Services for Kinsmen Arena Deep Energy Retrofit

2024-07-15 SR RFP-2024-135 Prime Consulting Services for Kinsmen Arena - Full-R

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports and Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated July 15, 2024, related to RFP-2024-135 Prime Consulting Services for Kinsmen Arena Deep Energy Retrofit:

a)    the proposal submitted by J.L. Richards & Associates Limited, 450 Speedvale Avenue West, Suite 107 in Guelph, for the Prime Consultant Services for the Kinsmen Arena Deep Energy Retrofit project for a fee of $199,595.00 (excluding HST) BE ACCEPTED; it being noted that the evaluation team determined the proposal submitted by J.L. Richards & Associates Limited provided the best technical and financial value to the Corporation, met the City’s requirements in all areas and acceptance is in accordance with section 15.2 of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the financing for this project BE APPROVED as set out in the Sources of Financing Report, as appended to the above-noted staff report;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts which are necessary in connection with the project;

d)    the approvals given, herein, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract with the consultant for the work; and

e)    the Mayor and the City Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute a contract or any other documents, if required, to give effect to these recommendations. (2024-A19)

Motion Passed

2.7   Administrative Monetary Penalty (AMPS) By-law - Housekeeping Amendments

2024-07-15 SR Administrative Monetary Penalty (AMPS) By-law - Housekeeping Amendments

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated July 15, 2024, related to Administrative Monetary Penalty (AMPS) By-law Housekeeping Amendments:

a)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on July 23, 2024, to amend By-law No. A-54, being “A by-law to implement an Administrative Monetary Penalty System in London”; and,

b)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on July 23, 2024, to amend By-law No. PW-11, being “A by-law to provide for the sale of fireworks and the setting off of fireworks and pyrotechnics within the City of London, and for requiring a permit and imposing conditions”. (2024-C01)

Motion Passed

2.8   Vision SOHO - Amendment to Contribution Agreement with Chelsea Green Community Homes Society

2024-07-15 SR Vision SOHO CA Amendment - Chelsea Green

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated July 15, 2024, related to the Vision SoHo Amendment to the Contribution Agreement with Chelsea Green Community Homes Society:

a)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to release funds attributed to the Roadmap grant and soil remediation forgivable loan to an upset limit of $1,071,675 and amend the Municipal Contribution Agreement to reflect the change under the existing delegation;

b)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to release the remaining funds for soils and grants as outlined in the contribution agreement on confirmation of property tax exemption. (2024-L04A)

Motion Passed

2.10   Affordable Residential Unit Development Charge Exemption Agreements

2024-07-15 SR Affordable Housing Development Charge Exemption Agreement

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated July 15, 2024, related to Affordable Residential Unit Development Charge Exemption Agreements:

a)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on July 23, 2024, to:

i)    approve the Affordable Residential Unit Rental Development Charge Exemption Agreement template, as appended to the above-noted by-law;

ii)    approve the Affordable Residential Unit Ownership Development Charge Exemption Agreement template, as appended to the above-noted by-law;

iii)    authorize the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, or their written designate, to approve amendments to the above-noted Agreements; and,

iv)    authorize the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, or their written designate, to execute the above-noted Agreements, which may be amended pursuant to the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development’s authority;

b)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED. (2024-L04A)

Motion Passed

2.6   Subsidized Transit Program Update

2024-07-15 SR Subsidized Transit Program Update

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the staff report dated July 15, 2024, with respect to a Subsidized Transit Program Update, BE RECEIVED; it being noted that a verbal delegation from J. Salisbury, with respect to this matter, was received. (2024-S04)

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to approve the request for delegation from J. Salisbury to be heard at this meeting.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

2.9   Update to the Roadmap to 3,000 Affordable Units - “Roadmap 2.0”

2024-07-15 SR Update to Roadmap to 3,000 Affordable Units

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by J. Pribil

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated July 15, 2024, related to an Update to the Roadmap to 3,000 Affordable Units “Roadmap 2.0”:

a)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to allocate up to $45,000 per affordable housing unit under the Roadmap to 3,000 for new projects that have not received approval from Council to enter into a contribution agreement;

b)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to direct $10,000,000 of the Housing Accelerator Fund affordable housing grant to expand the programs and activities under the Roadmap to 3,000;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to direct $10,000,000 of Housing Accelerator Fund investment to the Highly Supportive Housing plan and programs under the Whole of Community System Response; and,

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to prioritize pre-development and development support to London & Middlesex Community Housing Inc. and all Social and Community Housing Boards for redevelopment projects at publicly funded housing properties; and,

e)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to assess the existing affordable unit bonus zones in Z-1 to consider a cash-in-lieu policy or other similar programs to enable the construction of new affordable units in London, and report back to Council with recommendations. (2024-S11)

Motion Passed

Additional Votes:

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to add an additional part e) which reads as follows:

e)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to assess the existing affordable unit bonus zones in Z-1 to consider a cash-in-lieu policy or other similar programs to enable the construction of new affordable units in London, and report back to Council with recommendations.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by J. Pribil

Motion to approve the main motion, as amended.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

2.11   Draft Advocacy Message Sign By-law

2024-07-15 SR Draft Advocacy Message Sign By-law

That the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated July 15, 2024, related to a Draft Advocacy Message Sign By-law:

a)    a public participation meeting BE HELD at a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee with respect to the draft Advocacy Message Sign By-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, as well as a by-law related to graphic images;

b)    the draft Advocacy Message Sign By-law BE AMENDED to include additional wording under section 5.1, additional regulations, fourth bullet to read “with respect to a warning sign must be displayed alongside signage that shows images of deceased humans or animals, and must visibly state: ‘contains a Graphic Image(s) that may be offensive or disturbing to some people”; and,

c)    the request for delegation from J. Bulsza, with respect to this matter, BE REFERRED to the future public participation meeting;

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

  •    J. Bulsza;

  •    K. Lyng;

  •    C. Connell;

  •    L. Gibbons;

  •    R. Connell;

  •    B. Dow;

  •    D. Arcand;

  •    W.R. Myers;

  •    V. Gedge;

  •    T. Gainey;

  •    S. Glover;

  •    R. Gedge;

  •    B. Smith;

  •    E. Moyer; and,

  •    I. Longworth. (2024-C01A)

Motion Passed

Additional Votes:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to refer the delegation request from J. Bulsza, as appended to the Added Agenda, to the future public participation meeting to be held with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the motion be amended to add a new part:

That the draft Advocacy Message Sign By-law BE AMENDED to include additional wording under section 5.1, additional regulations, fourth bullet to read “with respect to a warning sign must be displayed alongside signage that shows images of deceased humans or animals, and must visibly state: ‘contains a Graphic Image(s) that may be offensive or disturbing to some people”.

Motion Passed (3 to 1)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to approve the main motion as amended.

Motion Passed (3 to 1)

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   PUBLIC PARTICIPATION MEETING - Renovictions - Renovation License and Relocation By-law Changes - Public Comments Received (To Date)

2024-07-15 SR Renovictions - Renovation License and Relocation By-law Changes

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated July 15, 2024, with respect to Renovicions: Renovation License and Relocation By-law Changes and public comments received (to date):

a)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED for information purposes to summarize the comments received so far from the public regarding proposed amendments to the business licensing by-law to introduce a new license category pertaining to licensing renovation-induced evictions;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to the Community and Protective Services Committee on possible temporary alternate accommodations for displaced tenants or short-term rental top up; and,

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to the Community and Protective Services Committee on draft language that would apply the protection in the by-law to residents who have already received the N13 Notice;

it being noted that amendments will be brought forward to amend the Business Licensing By-law L.-131-16, the Administrative Monetary Penalties By-law No. A-54 to introduce penalties and amounts to Schedule A-4 pertaining to the and this proposed new license category, and to the Fees and Charges By-law No. A-59 to introduce fees and charges associated with this proposed licence category;

it being further noted that the communications, as appended to the Added Agenda, from K. Pagniello and M. Laliberte, Neighbourhood Legal Services, C. Butler, M. Wallace, London Development Institute and L. Smith, Norquay Property Management, were received with respect to this matter;

it being pointed out that the following individuals made verbal presentations at the public participation meeting held in conjunction with this matter:

  •    Sharon;

  •    Michelle;

  •    Felix;

  •    K. Andrews;

  •    D. Keenan;

  •    N. Chiles;

  •    Z. Ramsey;

  •    M. Wallace;

  •    L. Smith;

  •    Dominique;

  •    Tyler;

  •    G. Blake;

  •    Anonymous;

  •    C. Winnable;

  •    P. O’Connor;

  •    I. Grills;

  •    S. Smith;

  •    Candace;

  •    Andy;

  •    Robin S.

  •    J. Smith;

  •    Andrew; and,

  •    D. Hilton. (2024-C01)

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by J. Pribil

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, pursuant to section 27.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, a change in order of the Community and Protective Services Committee Agenda BE APPROVED, to provide for Items 6.1 to 6.3 in Stage 6, Confidential, to be considered after Stage 3, Scheduled Items.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   Councillors H. McAlister and D. Ferreira - City-Operated Long Term Care Facility (Dearness Home)

2024-07-15 Sub. Dearness Home - McAlister and Ferreira

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the following actions be taken with respect to the communication, dated May 28, 2024, from Councillors H. McAlister and D. Ferreira, with respect to the City-Operated Long Term Care Facility (Dearness Home):

a)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to explore options for expanding the facility capacity of the Dearness Home for consideration to be included the Mayor’s 2028-2031 Multi-Year Budget; and,

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to present a report on potential expansion options to accommodate more residents to the Dearness Home Committee of Management prior to the Mayor preparing their 2028-2031 Multi-Year Budget. (2024-S03)

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Confidential

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the Community and Protective Services Committee convene In Closed Session for the purpose of considering the following:

6.1    Solicitor-Client Privilege

A matter pertaining to advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose, regarding the regulation of advocacy message signs on city streets.

6.2    Land Acquisition / Solicitor-Client Privilege / Commercial, Financial Information of the Corporation with Monetary or

Potential Monetary Value / Position, Plan, Procedure, Criteria or Instruction for Negotiation Purpose        

A matter pertaining to the proposed or pending acquisition of land by the municipality, including communications necessary for that purpose, advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, commercial and financial information that belongs to the municipality and has monetary value or potential monetary value and a position, plan, procedure, criteria, or instruction to be applied to any negotiations carried on or to be carried on by or on behalf of the municipality.

6.3    Personal Matters About Identifiable Individual

A matter pertaining to personal matters about an identifiable individual, including municipal or local board employees, with respect to the Awarding of the 2024 Queen Elizabeth Scholarships.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

The Community and Protective Services Committee convened In Closed Session from 3:27 PM to 4:05 PM.

7.   Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 4:53 PM.

Motion Passed

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 (3 hours, 11 minutes)

All right, welcome everybody. We’ll call this meeting to order. I would like to begin the ninth meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee. I welcome everybody in council chambers in the gallery and online.

So please check the city website for additional meeting details, detail information. Meetings can be viewed via live streaming on YouTube and the city website. The city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishnabek, Haudenosaunee, Linna Peiwok, and Adawandran. We honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home.

The city of London is currently home to many first nations, Nétis and Inuit today. As representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have this opportunity to work and live in this territory. The city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact CPSC at London.ca or call 519-661-2489 extension 2425.

I’d like to recognize members of the committee. Councilor Trusso, Councilor Pribble, and Councilor McAllister is here and visiting members. I have Councilor Raman online and Deputy Mayor Lewis in chambers today. So I’ll look to committee for disclosures of interest.

I see none. So we will go to the consent items. I have a poll request on the consent for 2.9, 211 and 2.6, and I’ll look to members of the committee for any other items that would like to be pulled off the consent. Okay, I see none.

So we’re looking for a motion to move the remainder of the consent items. Councilor McAllister, moved by Councilor Trusso. Okay, looking for debate or discussion. That would be 2.1 through 2.5, 2.7, 2.8 and 2.10.

I will make a comment for 2.5. This one’s in my ward. Happy to see this at committee. Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions for the, sorry, for the kinsmen retrofits that we’re gonna be seeing there.

It will be reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 166 tons of greenhouse gas CO2 emissions per year, which I’m very grateful to see. And I think the recycling of the refrigeration plant for heating inside the space is a pretty cool thing to happen. It just shows what our engineering and the technology can do and with a little bit of political will, we can get there. I’m also happy to see the accessibility improvements being discussed, so I’m looking forward to that one.

And I see no other discussion, members looking for discussion or visiting members looking for discussion on this. So we will go to the vote. Also votes yes, I’m not logged in yet. Using the vote, the motion carries four to zero.

I just wanna make a note. The other consents that we pulled will be moved to the end of items for direction. Just for anybody who wanted to speak to any of those items. I know there was a delegation request pulled for 2.6 by Mr.

Salisbury. So just to let you know, Mr. Salisbury, we’ll have to have you after the public participation meeting for the renovations by-law. So there may be some time that you’ll have to wait before you can make your delegation if that’s all right.

Okay, thank you. Okay, that leaves us to scheduled items. So I will look for a motion to open the PPM. Actually, let’s listen to staff first.

I know staff’s got a summary for us. So I’ll look to staff before we open up that PPM. Through the chair, thank you very much. I’ll just provide a very brief background and a little bit of the process moving forward too, just so that we’re all aware.

So I just wanna just first acknowledge that we’ve been able to bring forward this by-law very quickly and it’s because of the importance and from the hard work of our staff. So I just really wanna thank our staff for this and also the engagement of the community. We have a very engaged community that’s very interested in providing some better services and tools for the community that’s experiencing challenges with housing. So what we have today, we’ll have the public participation meeting, there’s a draft by-law that’s before you that we’ve actually, and thanks to the community as well for providing some comments.

And we have some comments that are already being included in a committee report that’s on the agenda today. And I’ll be here to hear more communications from the public as well. Following that committee and then finally council will have an opportunity to provide any further direction to staff. And then what we are planning to do is to bring to the September 9th Community Protective Service Committee meeting a final by-law for consideration and approval by council for by committee.

And then that will be further brought to council in September 24th council meeting. So with the hope to try to bring forward and initiate to be able to implement this program by the beginning of Q of 2025. So that within that first quarter, which will put us on pace with the same timing that actually Hamilton has. So we would be very closely the second municipality in Ontario to provide some strong tools around renovations.

So with that, I just very much wanted to thank the community again for their engagement to date and happy to pass it back to the chair. Thank you, Mr. Mathers and just, I just want to make some comments. Councillor Hopkins has joined us visiting member and I also wanted to just quickly touch on 2.11 for the Adboxy Message Sign By-law.

There is a PPM that we are recommending in this report. So I won’t be taking delegations today, but you will have your chance to speak at that PPM when it comes to committee next, just like what you’ll see with this renovations by-law. So I’ll look to committee for a motion to move the PPM, move by Councillor Trussell, seconded by Councillor Pribble, and we’ll go to the vote. So votes, yes.

Opposing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Okay, so the PPM is open, so I will look into the gallery first and we’ll start there for anybody who wants to speak up at one of the mics. You’ll have five minutes for a delegation. So thank you, ma’am, please state your name.

Hi, my name is Sharon. Thank you for this opportunity to share my experience of being renovated from 1270 Webster Street. I moved into Webster Apartments into a market rent unit almost seven years ago. My unit had been renovated for my move with new flooring, all new appliances, and freshly painted.

On the first day, a neighbor hung a bag of fresh baked cookies on my doorknob with a note welcoming me to the neighborhood. Until last April, 2023, this was a wonderful community. I rented in this specific building because I was a swimmer, I like to swim after work. The community garden was cared for by tenants.

We had seasonal decorations in the lobby and an annual communal turkey dinner in our lobby. I always paid my rent on time. I never had any issues with the superintendent or the owner. In March, 2023, we received a notice that our building had been sold and to direct our rent to a numbered company listed in the letter.

On April 28th, I opened my door to find a letter in the hallway with my name on it. And I read that my lease was being terminated due to the building being in such poor repair. The M13 said my apartment had to be renovated and it would take 10 months to do so and I had to leave in four months. I was shocked and emotional and burst into tears.

My neighbor stepped out into the hall, asked if I was all right. Other people began to appear on the floor asking about the same letter and they were just as shocked and emotional as I was. 20 units from both buildings had received the same letter. The following week, we all received letters at our door stating that if we had any illegal appliances in our units, meaning air conditioners, barbecues, freezers, and we did not agree to paying an additional hydro feed then they would have to be removed.

The next letter that appeared at my door was a notice that although parking had been included in my lease, I would now have to agree to pay an additional $300 per month or have to get my car towed to a city impound lot. Sorry, now several units began having maintenance issues that were not done. Maintenance was not being done, the grounds were not being mowed, and the pool was closed down permanently. I saw that our building was now being advertised for double what the current rents were paying.

The building was advertised as pristine with immaculate maintenance in a serene environment. Some tenants, including myself, united and looked at our options. We got involved with Acorn due to their stand on the preservation of affordable housing and tenant rights protections. Tension in our building has escalated.

Many people moved due to fear and pressure. The superintendent retired and the replacements took to harassment, bullying, verbal abuse, and some physical threats. Now our water was being shut off on a regular basis. In the beginning there was no warning, just water, no water for a full day.

Now we do receive notice, our water has been shut off over 25 times for a full day each time. Our elevator stopped working a year ago, and the existing elevator is used for contractors working on units. Intermittent power outages are never explained or corrected, and some tenants have had heat turned off in the winter. I researched renovations as I was not familiar with that.

I had never been evicted. I had no experience with the LTV. I discovered that renovations were a common way to displace a long-term tenant in order for them to double or triple rents for new tenants for increased profit. I learned about a landlord playbook that were tactics that bad faith owners use to financialize affordable units and turned them into a profit for large numbered companies and their shareholders.

Those tactics were charging for amenities that had previously been included in the lease, parking and hydro. Those tactics also included extreme methods like plumbing floods and even arson. Numbered companies disguise ownership and prevent the landlord and tenant board from uncovering bad faith patterns. If an owner hides behind a several unnumbered companies, they do not have to acknowledge the N13s they have submitted, which is a requirement of their application to the tribunal.

CBC News recently launched an investigation into a building purchased in Kitchener and confirmed through extensive research that although it is another numbered company, the owner is the same as the owner of 1270 Webster and none of those 100 N13s for that building are on my document for my hearing that is coming up in October. This has been a terrible experience for myself, my neighbors and some of my neighbors that left due to fear and not being aware of their rights are now either homeless or couch surfing or are now paying 70% of their income for shelter. An airtight anti-reviction by-law can prevent this from happening. That should be a priority at the municipal level and must include tenant protection along with landlord accountability and sharing tenant accommodations during— Sorry, that’s five minutes.

I’ll let you go over a little bit. Thank you. I would just ask for the gallery. We can’t have clapping in the gallery just to make sure that we are a safe environment.

I apologize. I will look to you the next speaker at the microphone on this side and then I’ll go to you and then I’ll go online. So please state your name. Yes, my name is Michelle and I’m from 1280 Webster Street and I’ve been communicating nonstop with every level of government including the attorney general since this company took over.

We’ve also sent information to the housing minister as well as numerous people here at City Council. Just to put this into perspective, a hundred out of 132 of us have been given these notices. We did not have any issues with our building whatsoever under the old ownership. This is all made up on the part of these new owners, Webster Inc., which happens to be Michael Klein, which has a very long, long reputation of doing this.

Just to give everyone a perspective of this gentleman’s mentality is in a financial quote and also in I believe the Hamilton Star or Toronto, okay? His quote is he buys these off the market, old dilapidated buildings with problem tenants. He considers himself a doctor because he invests the time and the money to bring the buildings back up to life to market value. So that is his true goal here.

Also because I joined Acorn and we’ve also started a Webster Association, my son and I have been targeted. We’ve now been at the tribunal five times and they’ve gotten five evictions over petty stuff and we’re demanding that we do things that no other tenant is expected to do such as so show proof of our tenants insurance. No one else here has had to do that. Pay our own personal hydro.

No one else has all done to do that. It’s all in an effort to expedite these N13s. Again, on these N13s, all the documentation is completely fraudulent for the landlord’s address. They put down the paralegals address in the box where you’re supposed to do the little signature where the name address, all that stuff should match.

Well, we have the name of a guy from Penitanguishing that works for this company. The address is a UPS store in North York. The municipality is Toronto. The phone number is for Owen Street Apartments at another location.

The tribunal does not verify any of this information. So these things are going through. We just had to fight another case where the person has a mental disability. She didn’t even know she was supposed to be at the tribunal and it’s all held online.

Now, she doesn’t have a computer. She missed the date and they actually had an order that she had to be out yesterday. So we as tenants are having to fork out money, be victimized. It’s a violation of the Disabilities Act, our human rights.

There’s elder abuse going on because when they have you so scared, they say, hey, wait a minute, come with us. Let’s have a little chat. So to an 86-year-old woman, she had a perfectly good one-bedroom apartment on the same floor as me, it was beautiful. She just didn’t get a little bit of sunlight.

But they say, hey, come with us. We’ll give you one of these illegally renovated units for $13.50 plus you pay Hydro. She’s now paying $600 a month more plus, you know, the Hydro. And this is to expedite the N13 and get people so scared and victimized.

Another example is it was publicized in the London Free Press that we had a woman in our building that was dying of cancer. Her two choices in the end were to do medically assisted suicide or go to London Housing, which they are now footing the bill. And then not even a week after she moved out, the construction workers are sleeping in her unit, okay? This is our reality and has been for 15 months.

I appreciate the fact that this is going before council now, but I have two more hearings coming up. August 6th, August 19th, one has already happened. There’s a team that are going for October, I believe. But if they had our way, we would have been on the streets last August.

Not only that, I know one of the bones of contention with this by-law is going to be the cost to the city. If you implement this and you hire new people, the reality is the city is already paying for this fraudulent landlord. For example, May 12th, they called the police on us because we were having a meeting. 30 seconds.

  • Okay. Anyways, the fire department, every city organization has been to our property multiple times, multiple, multiple times, including the police. When they didn’t need to be, we’ve never used those services in the past. We’re being forced to use them now to protect our own homes and to protect each other, and it needs to stop.

So if there’s any way to expedite this process or intervene to bust this guy, it needs to be done. Today, I could be on the streets. Two weeks from now, and I won’t have that. And nobody else should have to put up with that either.

Give me a shot. Okay, so I will be going to the left side of the gallery. So the way I’d like to go forward is to state your name, and then I’ll tell you when your time begins and you’ll have five minutes, and at the 30 second mark, I will, as you’ve been seeing chime in, I’ll say 30 seconds, and because we have a lot of people who want to speak, so I want to keep this tight, and everybody gets there a lot of time. So please state your name.

Felix. Thank you, Felix. You have five minutes you can begin. Hello, Councillors.

My name is Felix, and I am a tenant living here in London, and a member of London Acorn. In order for any good run eviction bylaw to work for tenants in London, it has to be a strong bylaw. Right now, this is becoming a weak bylaw for the simple reason that there exists a financial incentive for corporate landlords to evict and displace long-term tenants in our city. As a member of London Acorn, I have had the privilege and opportunity to speak with tenants and learn about their lived experience and the direct impact unchecked corporate greed has had on their tenancy.

As they’ve lost their homes and felt emotionally, the pain, anguish, grief, and stress are being forced to unfairly and unjustly append their lives. Many of them losing their residence of 20 or more years and scramble to find new affordable housing in a city where deeply affordable housing becomes ever difficult to find. These tenants did nothing wrong. They were good neighbors and good friends.

They cared for their apartments and paid their rent on time. They created a community within a community and treated their landlords with dignity and respect following the landlord’s rules and abiding by the landlord’s and tenant’s rental agreement. And for being good tenants, what they got was a notice from their landlord that they’re being evicted because their landlord wants profitable tenants over good tenants. And it is these tenants, the low income, the elderly living on pensions and people living with disabilities who cannot afford to pay the double, sometimes triple, market value rent, that business society, the government, and the law has failed to protect.

Imagine how you would feel and what you would be forced to do as a tenant in London. If tomorrow I came to your home and told you your home isn’t yours anymore, and that current laws and the current powers that be are allowing me to do this to you and in bad faith, and that there’s very little you can do to try and stop me, especially if you can’t afford to hire professional legal services. Personally, I am saddened and grieved with those people in our community who right now are in a state of crisis, having lost their homes or are going to lose their homes, failing to win their case at the landlord tenant board, and feel abandoned and uncared for by those in our community who have been tasked for and are responsible for ensuring they do not become prey and a commodity for corporate landlords in our city. And then there are the rest of us, myself included, who must live with the fear, anxiety, and stress of not knowing if today or tomorrow will be the day the landlord delivers an eviction notice and in our tendencies and taking away our homes because we’re not profitable enough.

I support London Acorn’s demands for strong tenant protections because rent evictions in London are happening at increasing rate and show no sign of stopping on their own, hence the need for a strong rent eviction by law here. And this is why I’m here today, dear Councillors, to bring awareness to this issue and ask that you stand in solidarity with tenants in our city and fight the greed and predatory practices of corporate landlords who abuse and exploit our community for profit maximization. As a tenant in London and member of Acorn, I ask that you end the financial incentive for corporate landlords to rent evict and displace tenants by creating a strong rent eviction by law that includes one, accommodations for tenants displaced by rent evictions, two rental top-ups for tenants to find temporary housing while renovations are being completed, and three protections for tenants currently being rent evicted in the city. Housing belongs to everyone and everyone is deserving of it.

Councillors, please speak on behalf of tenants and let corporate landlords know that greed and predatory practices in our housing are not welcome and not wanted. That tenants are dignified members of our community whose happiness and well-being is just as equal to and just as important as the landlords. And that all landlords have the responsibility of being good, just, and fair landlords, just as all tenants have the responsibility of being good, just, and fair tenants. Thank you, Councillors, for your time and attention on this issue and for working with Acorn to provide the tenant protections tenants in London need and are asking for.

Thank you, Felix, that was well-timed. I will go online to Karen Andrews. Karen, just let me know that you’re ready. Okay, Karen, you have five minutes starting now.

Thank you very much. I’m sorry that I’m not there in person. That would have been my preference. I’m just back from vacation and scrambling to participate this way and thank you very much for the opportunity to address the committee.

The City of London is in the midst of a housing crisis. CMHC confirmed this in its rental market report last January. You know this. Now, my law students that I have taught look at the renovation section and they say, what’s wrong with this?

This is great. And I say, well, once the landlord gets the vacancy, they put another tenant in who will pay more. And this is the problem. It’s not about tenants knowing their rights.

The landlord just puts somebody else in to make more money. And this is very indelicate and this is not law lawyer speak, but the landlord does this and just gives everybody the finger. Now, my law students can’t believe that the law is floated this way. The sweet bird of youth, so shocking, I know.

Renovictions, as other delegates have said, rooted in lying greed and not following the law. Now, there is a template to stop this species practice. There’s a proven solution in New Westminster, British Columbia. And what I have read of your proposal looks to me to be step one.

Let’s license this. Let’s provide some oversight. Let’s make sure everybody knows the rules. I can assure you that the landlords know the rules.

They just flout them with respect. You need to go further here in this exercise or as been flagged in another bylaw or with its own bylaw, the renovating landlord should rehouse or properly compensate a tenant. And this dishonest practice will stop. This is not waiting deeply as I read in your report into the landlord and tenant relationship.

This is just making sure that the tenant is rehoused over a legitimate renovation project. That’s all it is. That’s all it is. And that is key.

Rehousing or properly compensating the tenant. And my last point, and I have just four brief points to make, is the cost of not acting effectively. Promigating a bylaw will demand that a renovating tenant rehoused the tenant and it will stop the practice. And the estimates of the staff resources that you need are inflated because I think the practice will stop.

I think that’s the evidence. What is the cost, committee members, of losing an affordable unit? I just found out in Toronto when you lose an affordable unit, it’s $400,000 to replace it. So there’s a tremendous financial cost to losing an affordable unit.

People are suffering. Good tenants, members of the community, are being kicked to the curb. Good tenants who have faithfully paid their rent, have been good neighbors, will be forced to find housing that is 50% more, 100% more. And this is something that I myself could not afford.

Let alone seniors, low income people, people on workers comp. And I think to the City of London, the most important and compelling reason is that you cannot give a green light to this kind of unlawful behavior, no matter what it costs. This is not something that the City of London should condone. Take this on, fight back.

You are the elected representatives of the community. You have the bigger bat. Please use that bigger bat. Thank you very much for the opportunity to delegate.

Thank you, Ms. Andrews. I am looking to the right side, or my right side of the gallery. Please state your name.

Yeah, good afternoon. My name is Darren Keenan and I’m a landlord. Thank you. And I have to be frank.

Dan, let me just let you know when you begin. You can begin now five minutes. Thanks. And like I stated, I’m a landlord.

And many landlords around here were sick to death of the municipal government and the provincial government’s telling us what to do. And this by-law that you want to pass is another imposition upon us. This by-law that you want to pass is putting another cost to us. Two weeks ago, I lost $1,100 in a day.

So imagine, council member, if I walked over to you and took $1,100 out of your pocket, how would you feel, council member? Fair, how would you feel if I walked over to you and took $1,100 out of your pocket two weeks ago? I can answer that. You wouldn’t feel very good.

I’m looking to the gallery. Please let the seniors walk without any interruptions. Go on. Once again, we’re sick to death of this.

Potailing is what to do. People telling me what to do with my properties, with the things I work for that I built. Housing is not a fundamental right in Canada. It’s not entrenched in the constitution.

It’s not in the Bill of Rights. I’m a capitalist and I’m a profiteer. And I like it. Side in.

I have a point of order here. All right, sorry, I can’t address that. Just a second. I have a point of order here.

I just need to go to the councilor for a point of order. Please state your point. Councilor, your microphone, please. I would ask people in the gallery not to make ultimate conclusions of law that are erroneous and cannot be backed up.

I do not want to have to stop the meeting and go into closed session and ask council to say, is that right? ‘Cause I don’t know. Councilor, I don’t believe that is a point of order. I’m gonna have to stop you there, sorry.

I would ask the gallery just because we need to respect everybody’s chance to speak. And I will have everybody do the same for everybody who’s speaking up there. But I would like for Darren to continue what he’s saying. And I will also ask for the same respect for everybody else.

So when someone is speaking, I don’t want to hear the gallery or anybody speaking over them just to be respectful. I need to quorum in the gallery. Please, Darren, I stopped your time. No, of course we’re both.

You can continue. You know, for this issue, it’s like, why once more or landlords blame, blame, please, issues? Why are you imposing more government regulation upon us? I’m capped at 2.5% rental increases per year.

But my expenses go up. In terms of here, 7.5% over the course of the next three years, which has been your budget that you’ve increased. I’m the one paying the bloody property taxes, but I can’t increase it. I can’t increase my rent, but I have to cover that.

So once again, you want to pass a motion and you want to pass a bylaw, which is putting more costs on the landlords. When we are the ones that are building properties, we didn’t create this housing issue. We didn’t bring this to fruition. But I’m allowed to make money.

That’s why I do this. You know, imagine a council member per bill. You’ve got a restaurant. You’ve got a bar in London.

Imagine if the city all of a sudden put a sitting charge in your bar, but said to you, you can’t raise prices. Oh, sorry, I can’t pass this cost onto my customer. Like what most people do in business. As I do, that’s what I’m talking about.

The government is telling us what to do and many landlords are sick of it, and it’s not fair. It’s like, I get it, but we are the ones responsible. We are the ones building. We are the ones creating these places.

We are the ones creating housing. I’m not a charity. I’m not a social service. I’m not a government agency.

I do this to ensure security for my family. It’s all my issues to provide safe housing, safe housing, renovated housing, according to regulations, which is what I do. But two weeks ago, someone walks out on me and takes $1,100 from me. So the question is, how do you feel?

How would you feel if that happened to you? You’d be pretty angry. And how would you feel if you couldn’t raise prices on something that you owned that’s not there as a charity? It’s not there as a government service.

It’s not there as a social service. It’s there to make money for me, my wife, and my children. So no, many of us opposed in London are opposed to these motions. And we’re opposed to more government oversight.

You’re now going into the overreach territory ‘cause you’re telling us what to do. We are the people of business in this town. We are the ones who play the property taxes. We are the ones who build this town.

Sure, people work here, but I put on the work, the bricks and the mortar. As did my parents, that’s as my grandparents. We built these places. And now we’re being penalized for it again.

30 seconds. This is not a socialist paradise. You wanna live in communism, go live there. I did, sort of my wife, and sort of a console member.

It sucks. Capitalism works. And corporate greed, tough luck. Thank you.

And I can tell you right now, it’s a sentiment of many landlords in London, especially the ones I speak with. Thank you, Mr. Keenan. That’s five minutes.

Please state your name. Certainly. My name is Naughton Giles, and I’m the co-chair of London Acorn’s Carling Stoney Brook chapter. I live in Ward— Just a second, Mr.

Charles. You have five minutes starting now. Thank you. I live in Ward 5.

Today, I’ll be speaking as a representative of London Acorn to share our submission on the proposed renovation license and renovation by-law. Just for some brief background, London Acorn has nearly 3,000 members in the city of London alone, with over 175,000 members across the country. We are composed of low to moderate income families, working on issues of social and economic justice. And we are organized similarly to a union where membership decides what we do and pays dues to keep us running.

We’ve been organizing in Canada for nearly 20 years. And consistently, the number one issue that comes up when we speak with residents out there door is housing. Whether that’s housing affordability or housing conditions, tenants need affordable housing. As many of you already know, in London, renovations are tearing apart our communities and exacerbating our housing crisis.

We’ve heard firsthand from our members about the devastating impact of predatory landlords circumventing tenant rights in every way imaginable. You’ve heard some here today. Families are being uprooted, and entire neighborhoods are losing their sense of stability and community. Statistics paint a bleak picture.

Each year in Canada, 64,000 affordable units are lost, which means that for everyone built for our lost. And the source on that is CMHC. We commend the city of London for recognizing the urgency of this issue and taking steps to draft a renovation bylaw. The city’s commitment to addressing tenant displacement and the speed at which this proposal has been developed are appreciated by our members.

We were pleased to see several promising aspects of this draft bylaw, notably the per unit basis application and the engineer’s report requirement. However, significant gaps remain in the current draft. Our members are deeply concerned about the glaring absence of the core requirement for landlords to provide alternate accommodations or a rental top up to tenants during renovations. These requirements are not just important add-ons that are nice to have.

They’re integral to the entire purpose of the bylaw. Without them, this bylaw becomes a hollow shell, lacking the teeth needed to actually deter landlords from renovating tenants. As a result, tenants are left to fend for themselves, scrambling to find new affordable housing or facing the prospect of homelessness. Tenants are sick of bearing the burden of their landlord’s decisions, particularly in a housing market increasingly tilted toward profit at any cost.

Another growing concern from our members currently facing renovations is that this bylaw will not apply to them. And there is currently no plan in place to protect or help house tenants who are currently facing the loss of homes from renovations. London Acorn urges the city of London to adopt a robust anti-renaviction bylaw modeled after successful measures in other cities like Hamilton and New Westminster, BC. It is vital that the bylaw include provisions ensuring that tenants receive temporary accommodations comparable to their current units for the same rent they paid before, or a rental top up is provided to bridge the gap between current and new rent.

We also urge the city of London to either consider adjustments to the bylaw or create a separate municipal policy that ensures some level of housing stability or protections for tenants who are currently facing rent evictions in London. The rapid loss of affordable housing in London demands immediate and decisive action. A strong rent eviction bylaw is essential to protecting our communities from further displacement and ensuring stable housing for all residents. In conclusion, London Acorn urges the city council to prioritize the needs of tenants and pass a robust rent eviction bylaw without delay.

Our community’s well-being and access to affordable housing depend on it. Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. We stand ready to collaborate with the city council in implementing effective protections for all Londoners and by yield the rest of my time to the chair. Thank you, Mr.

Giles. Was it Giles or Childs? Childs, okay, thank you. Looking to Mr.

Ramsey on the right side, please state your name for the record. Hello, my name is Zach Ramsey. Thank you and you have five minutes starting now. Hello, staff.

Hello, city council. Hello, fellow Londoners. It’s great to have so many beauties in one room gathered here together. I’ll keep it short.

Landlords are extracting value from tenants by raising rents, not doing repairs, evicting older tenants to move in newer tenants, skirting the existing laws that exist so that they can use this value to go and purchase power and influence at the local, regional and national level of politics and regulation. They then use this improved influence and power within the regulation bodies to increase the ability of value they’re able to extract from tenants by further being able to renovate, further able to leave repairs done, further able to be able to get away with a lack of by-law enforcement. This is something that city councilors you cannot stop this violent cycle. It’s not caused by any outside forces.

It’s caused by our system itself. But you can make a dent. You can help save lenders from this violent cycle that we continue to go through. And I hope that you all do your absolute best.

And I believe in you. Thank you all and have a joyful day. Thank you, Mr. Ramsey.

Look to the left, Mr. Wallace. You have five minutes. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman. And thank you, Councillors, for having me today. LDI, I’m Mike Wallace, the executive director for LDI, which represents a number of the lead developers and property owners here in this community. Some of them have been in here for over 100 years.

Most of our buildings that my members have have their name or their company name on the side of the building. So it’s easy to find out who owns them. But we just want to be on the record today. I did send a letter in with some of our points on this issue.

We certainly believe there is a problem with unethical rent or property owners who skirt the rules and regulations that are there now. But that’s not our group that are doing that. So, but we do recognize that it is a problem, not just here in London, but across the province. But the vast, vast, vast majority of rental property owners in London do follow the correct rules and procedures.

But we do recognize that there are some who do not or it does happen on occasion. Our concern is that future licensing through this by-law would inadvertently affect what is required from legitimate or ethical practices that we have been practicing for decades here in this community. And we want to make sure that the buildings, let’s be frank, some of my members own buildings that are around 30, 40, 50 years. Obviously, they need renovations for safety, security, and quality.

Hard to hear me, I’m standing too tall. There you go. That needs that, obviously, renovations do need to be done. And we want to do it in the correct manner.

The one point my group would like to make is that based on the June report, you’re looking at well over $500,000 for this program. As you know, as counselors, once you have a program, it’s almost impossible to remove it. I can fouch for that from my own political experience. So creating one, you have to be careful creating it in the first place.

And is there other ways of using that half a million dollars plus to resolve the issues that are faced here? We don’t know, we don’t have that answer for you, but we were, you know, you come from a committee this morning that’s looking at how to find savings, and the next committee you’re adding that are over half a million dollars. So that’s something for you to consider. In the end, we think that the likelihood of a licensing program here in London is fairly high.

And so what our position is this, the license fee for those who are legitimate building owners and their innovations shouldn’t be punitive. Where the punitive aspects come for those who violate whatever license you generate. So if those fines, that administrative costs should be charged those who are breaking the rules. You need to be careful on not making it so that the license fee itself is a deterrent from people defalling the rules.

And that’s what we wanted to be on the record for. And finally, I know it was mentioned that this by-law will be coming back to your September cycle. We just want to reserve the right to be, even once we see what the final after this PPM and any other input you get what the final by-law looks like, we will submit a letter analyzing what the final by-law looks like and any recommendations at that time. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Wallace. I have on my right side of the gallery, please state your name. Lisa Smith.

Lisa Smith. Ms. Smith, you have five minutes starting now. Thank you very much.

I’m Elaine Lord and I did put a submission in. I’m a property manager of 30 years in the city of London working with larger stakeholders over the years. We just have a few concerns and some questions. I’d like to know why the license is even required, and I know I’m going to get a lot of people over here going well, to file an N13, the termination for demolition and renovation, the landlord is required to show the landlord and tenant board, they have taken the appropriate steps to obtain the permit and the drawings.

So this is already a requirement under the Residential Tenancy Act with the N13. As well, a little confused on the staff and requirements as Mr. Wallace has brought up of the $580,000, said how do you justify spending more than a half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money for a program or a license that isn’t even a large enough issue in the city of London? The licensing fee doesn’t even cover a percentage of the staffing costs.

I understand there’s some shading landlords out there to try to skirt the system. However, the tenants have rights and they have a chance to fight these landlords at the LTB. The laws are in place to protect both the tenant and the landlord. To say there are ways around the laws is not proven and is unjustifiable.

In the staff report, there was mention of having information available for tenants and landlords on their rights. This will be an inexpensive tool if the literature is available online or in paper copy. Why not have the education as a key to this problem? Well, my other questions are with regards to fortunately the city.

For the BRT program, the Wellington Gateway specifically, the city of London had to demolish 34 single dwelling homes to date. Were any of those homes rentals? Were any of those tenants required to vacate? Were N13s given?

As well for the BRT program, the city of London has requested to expropriate a portion of land that includes 57 and 63 Wellington, two three-story walkups. Are those buildings being demolished? Or N13s being given to those tenants? With the redevelopment of the London City Hall campus, will it affect the apartments at the Centennial House Building next door, which include 162 units?

Will those tenants be given N13s? I feel that the N13s is not the fault of the housing issue. I think right now, the city may have some explaining to do with regards to possibly displacing some tenants. Thank you very much for taking the time to listen to me.

Thank you, Ms. Smith. I have to my left on the gallery. Please state your name.

My name is Dominique. Hey Dominique, you have five minutes. Thank you. So I’m facing a renovation and it’s obviously very stressful.

And I want to point out that even when the landlords follow all the rules, the rules themselves are still leaving tenants in an extremely vulnerable position. So for example, in one other industry, can you refuse to do your job and ignore your customers, which happens a lot with repairs and maintenance issues, and still turn around and double your income by booting out your old customers and getting new ones. So this is called gouging. And remember the pandemic when people were selling hand sanitizer for $50, everybody was up in arms.

They said that’s terrible. Yeah, well, that’s what’s happening with a housing stock right now everywhere in Canada, including here. And that’s the thing is that every dollar that goes to a landlord that just tripled the rent, is a dollar that isn’t going to the restaurant around the corner. It isn’t going to the local shop.

It isn’t going to the festival. We lost home camping festival because they weren’t getting enough donations. That’s just one example. I know so many businesses that have gone bankrupt.

You see that all over in London, in downtown. People are going bankrupt because the customers don’t have money. Why don’t they have money? Because they’re paying 70% of their income in rent.

So even when the landlords follow the rules, it’s leading to a very bad outcome. And let’s face it, keeping affordable housing is much less expensive than building new affordable housing. And another thing I’d like to point out is that the RTA specifies that there has to be compensation for tenants. And there has to be either a accommodation or a top— or three months of rent.

Now that the RTA and those provisions were written at a time when existing tenants didn’t have to pay three times as much when they were moving out. So provincial laws are woefully inadequate. They’re lagging way behind. And I would like to point out that affordable housing is a municipal issue because the municipality is the one dealing with the consequences.

All you have to do is walk outside and you see those consequences. And you’re paying for shelter space. You’re paying for the homeless program. You are paying.

You’re already paying a lot more than $500,000. And if you want to get affordable housing, that is going to cost a lot more than stopping the rent evictions and giving tenants appropriate protections so that we don’t end up homeless. Because homelessness is linked through our evictions. In Oracle and McLean’s, they found 30% of people who are in the shelter system were there because they’d just been evicted.

That’s just the people in shelters. Never mind the people on the street. And in New Westminster, the number of people seeking shelters went down after they passed the rent eviction by law. So if it’s effective and if it has teeth, it will help you.

It’ll help your bottom line. It’ll help businesses bottom lines. Because there will be more people who don’t have to pay 70% of their income for rent. And believe me, if you’re sleeping on the street, you’re not going to be buying anything at the restaurant.

So thank you. Thank you, Dominique. Looking to the right side, my right side of the gallery, please state your name for the record. I’m Tyler.

And I also live at 1280 Webster Street. Thank you, Tyler. You have five minutes starting now. The National Housing Strategy Act recognizes housing as a fundamental right as it is defined under international human rights law.

The right to housing was recognized in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Residential Tenancies Act only requires a permit. They don’t verify what is included in the permit or whether the repairs are actually necessary. They do not ask for the plans that the landlord has with the city.

Building permit is needed to repair or install a firearm panel. It is plausible that an unscrupulous landlord intent on raising the rents could easily use that as an excuse to get a building permit and kick the tenant out. And the tribunal would not question it because all they require is an actual permit, not the contents. They don’t look at that.

I know that because there’s a recent tenant in my building that had gotten an actual eviction order. And the landlord did not bother submitting any of those supporting documents, just the permit. The reason you don’t see many cases of bad faith at the tribunal is because most tenants don’t fight it because they don’t know they have the rights and they just go along with that. They’re also, for the most part, cannot afford to hire representation so they are at a disadvantage against highly paid and paralegals and lawyers.

Residential Tenancies Act defines an N13 as a notice tenant to tenancy and is classified as a no fault eviction. These tenants are paying the rent. They’re not causing problems. There’s forms for that.

The only reason landlords trying to kick the out is because they want to do a renovation. It appears they’re necessary, by all means, file that. But if you want to remove a two foot section of wall and that’s all you have a permit for, that should not be grounds to kick somebody out and make them homeless. How do we stop landlords after they hand out an M13 to stop answering maintenance requests?

How do we stop them from deciding to stop cutting the grass? Going back to the landlord tenant board. There is no enforcement of bad faith landlords. You very, very rarely see fines and the amount to act as a deterrent.

I’ve only seen one case myself where there’s been a fine over 10 grand. There are a lot of corporate landlords who are the most likely culprit to this. That’s a drop in the bucket for them. They get that from the tenants every month in a building that’s the size of mine of 66 units.

That’s not a deterrent. $10,000, not a deterrent. So when you’re drafting up this by-law and you’re thinking about implementing it, remember, there are indeed ways around the system. You do have the power to implement plans to stop these little loopholes.

Thank you. Thank you, Tyler. Looking to the left side of the gallery, Mr. Blake, please state your name for the record.

Yes, my name’s Jeffrey Blake. I hadn’t planned on speaking, so I’m just gonna add a little bit. Okay, thank you, Jeffrey. Mr.

Blake, you have five minutes starting now. Okay, I live at 435 Nelson Street, which is quite close to the new condos going up in the old Victoria Hospital. Our landlords bought the place a year ago that actually didn’t buy it. I think a mortgage company holds the title on it.

And they immediately wanted everybody to leave. They spent six months renovating and 10 or 12 of the units are completely furnished, brand new bathtubs, brand new stoves, brand new floors. After six months, they got in order to comply with the city of London and they stopped because they, I think they didn’t get their blueprints or whatever properly. So May, we got an N13 with a demolition, what they said was a demolition permit.

So I’m sure when we go the landlord and tenant, we’re going to lose. We don’t know really if they’re going to tear the building down or once we’re all evicted and have left the building, they can just continue to renovate the empty units. And at the moment, six of us are left of those six, five people are paying between 650 and 750, which technically nowadays it seems illegal to have cheap rent. They’re also putting up right across from the new condos, the geared to income.

So it just seems kind of weird that the city’s trying to build new places, but places like this are being torn down and they’re doing it just for profit. So of the people left, one woman has cancer, another was just in a car accident and some of them are going to be homeless. So thank you. Mr.

Blake, I will look to my right side of the gallery. Please state your name for the record. I’m no one. No one?

  • No one. I’m not here representing myself. Okay, you have five minutes starting now. Yeah, okay, cool.

Thank you. I’m not here representing myself. I’m not here representing landlords. I’m not here representing acorn or tenants.

I’m here because my neighbors are suffering. I can live through what they’re doing to us, but they can’t. The people who we’re all talking to, all of us, are not here. The people who decide what the rules are, they don’t come to these places.

They hire people to come to these places. And essentially, you don’t have the money to do what’s needed to be done to stop these people. You are wasting your money, our money, his money, ‘cause I guess tenants are not human. If you consider tenants not to be human, keep going the way you’re going because you don’t work for people who are not paying taxes or can afford to come out to this event.

I suffer from PTSD, so if my voice cracks, I apologize. I’ll tell you a small story of what I went through in 2020. Someone mentioned the pandemic. Right before the pandemic, I lost my six-figure job because the government and the corporation got together and decided that they could get rid of me.

I wasn’t doing good enough. I was working 24/7, 365. That’s what broke me. 2020 hits, I’m sitting at home as a person who is no longer here, if you understand that.

And when I was January, 2020, I didn’t have rent to pay. I didn’t have the money to pay the rent. My bank was zero. I had sat at home for a year and a half wondering why I was fired, why my life was destroyed.

January, I tried to take my life, didn’t work. February, I tried to take my life, it didn’t work. March, I need you on the microphone for the record. Again, no one’s gonna read the record.

Okay, I’ll get this quick. March, I opened my left arm from wrist to elbow. I opened my right arm from wrist to elbow. I didn’t die.

I bled for three days. The third day I went in my son of at 140 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours. Trying to get my heart pumping some more, to lose more blood. I just figured it was going to take me longer to die.

I’m not a human like you. I’m different, I’m other. If you have a spiritual nature, I recently, I’m woke. In 2020, I took my life because I was worthless.

I was garbage, thrown out on the street. Five months later, when my arms closed, I went into the hospital. I was there for three months. After the first week, the nurses tried repeatedly to call my landlord.

They finally got through to him, explained that I was in the hospital, what had happened, and that I was gonna be here for about three months. He said, oh, no problem, John’s great. Just 30 seconds. When he’s done, he can have his stuff.

Three months later, I got out, moved into a unaffordable housing because I’m not allowed to work. I had lived in that house for six months with no running water, no heat. I was going to the truck stop to load up for water so that I could shower every day and eat. Right before I took my life, I went out to my car that I just repaired to go for some more water, and my car was no longer working.

Then my cat, this is here. I did let you go over at the five minutes. Sorry, I apologize. Sorry to drop there, but that’s five minutes.

I would have to go. All words don’t follow the rules. Why do tenants have to? Where are we held?

And they’re not. And it’s not all landlords. Thank you, sir. I have to go to the next speaker.

Thank you. To the left, please state your name. I’m Claire Whitneyable. And Claire, you have five minutes, thank you.

Thank you for your time, counselors. I’m Claire. I’m a leader of the London Acorn London at large chapter. I’m here speaking today on behalf of many of the members who have experienced rent eviction and struggle to remain housed.

I every month we have to hear heartbreaking stories about people who are concerned about whether they’ll be turned out onto the street, whether they can make rent, what is going to happen next to them. It’s infuriating, and the systems in place are not sufficient to protect these people. It’s not just a matter of human cost, which is significant, but it’s also a matter of cost to the city. Social services, homeless housing, hospital fees, all of this gets reloaded onto the city to try to manage people.

I, this winter I had to open up my bachelor apartment to keep two people out of the streets during the coldest part of January. It’s that the homelessness issue is only getting worse. It’s costing the city money. It’s costing human lives.

It’s unconscionable. And this is one element where the city can step forward and apply an ounce of prevention where a pound of the cure would be much more expensive. It’s saving affordable housing saves lives. It saves money.

It’s invaluable. And I implore the city council to apply stronger fees, stronger, stronger laws in order to protect tenants. I implore they employ rental top-ups so that people who are displaced during renovations are not put out onto the street and are not allowed to remain in their stable housing situation. I implore that you look to the city of Hamilton, which has a much stronger by-law, that you look to the city of Westminster that reduced their annual renovations from 300 down to zero, massive decrease.

This represents a huge savings for the city in the long term. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the responsible thing to do. And I thank you for your time for listening to me.

Thank you, Claire. I will look to the top microphone in the back. Gentlemen, up in the back here, we’re going to speak OK. Please state your name for the record.

Pat O’Connor, I live in Soho. I can pat. You have five minutes. Yes, I’m actually telling a story about some neighbors.

Actually, a wonderful family. Father, a mom, four children. The mom stays at home, walks those four children to school every day, returns home, does it in the afternoon, too. The father works at a low-paying construction job.

He’s out every day working. Anyway, I saw them last week in a Soho gathering in a park. And I said, how are you doing? They said, well, we’ve had to move.

And they had lived in that house a good 10 years or longer. It’s a bungalow. And they expanded bungalow. They’re in a back apartment.

They have probably three bedrooms there for the three girls and the one boy. Anyway, they were paying just a bit over $1,000. And I said, well, where are you now? Well, we’re up over a Chinese food place.

And we’re paying $2,000 a month. And I knew they were having a hard time keeping their head above water, paying the $1,100 a month. It’s totally unfair. Now, the landlord told them he had to leave because he was going to renovate and move in.

Now, this landlord came from Toronto. He had bought the place. Eventually, he moved down. He lives in North London.

He tried to buy my place. And I said, I wasn’t interested in selling it. I have doubts that he’s moving in. They did get hold of the landlord tenant board.

And they said, well, you have to leave because he’s going to move in. We’ll wait and see if he does move in. That’s the story. Thank you, Mr.

O’Connor. I have on my left at the gallery, please state your name for the record. My name is Ilza Grills. Ilza, thank you.

You have five minutes starting now. OK. I am a single parent on ODSP myself. And in order to find proper housing for me and my daughter, I had to move in with my sister.

Until then, I was literally sharing a room with my daughter because affordable housing is just not a thing. You have to have three, four, five people in a two bedroom apartment just to be able to afford the rent. If you have all these units where people are paying lower rents and they’re getting kicked out because people want to jack up the rent for supposed renovations when they’re not really needed in a lot of cases, what are these people supposed to do? They can’t afford to pay the insane amounts of rent.

There’s no way that I could afford a two bedroom apartment for my daughter and I on $800 a month. Where are you going to find that? You’re looking at at least $2,000 a month. That’s more than my check.

Where are we supposed to find places to live? We need to keep the affordable housing in London. And in order to keep that in affordable housing, we need a strong renovation bylaw to keep these people from losing their home, to keep them from ending up on the streets, like I did when I was 20. And the last thing that I want to happen to me is for me to be kicked out of my home and lose my child because I cannot find a suitable housing because some landlords decided they want to jack the rent for somebody they think they can afford.

I’m already paying in the place that I’m now in. I am sharing the costs with my sister and those costs are still 80% of my income for my daughter and I. I tried to get into London housing. They told me it would be a 15 year wait.

My child is almost nine years old. She will have aged out. By the time I’m able to get a unit, something needs to be done. Thank you.

Thank you, Elsa. I’m looking to the gallery for any other comments. Anybody who would like to speak, I see for the right place, state your name. My name is Susan Smith.

I think— You have five minutes starting now, Susan. Thank you. I think it’s really, really important to have an adequate amount of time in the budget, in the budget to implement this, but it needs to still be improved. You’re obviously working in the context of the landlord and tenant board backlog, not under your control, but this certainly is.

I feel that a professional engineer’s report should be required and that only a one unit be allowed per application when a property owner, landlord, wants to make an application. I want you to realize that here in London, your renter population is going to grow and it’s going to look a little bit different than it has because as seniors, we sell our homes and usually move into rental accommodation. That’s the ideal, that one is still expressing one’s choice of where to live and when people who own a home or a property or a condo want to live someplace else, they are going to be boosting that renter population. I think the license, you’re allowed under municipal bylaws to have the license cost, what it costs you, the municipality, to enforce it.

And I think you should not underestimate what that amount will be and I hope I mentioned that a professional engineer’s report should also be required for any of the applications to renovate or otherwise. I wasn’t able to get a paper copy of what you have as the proposal in front of you and I’d like to be able to do that with whatever adjustments you make to this draft prior to it coming forward in September and reserving the right to be consulted, I will later give my address to the clerk. And thank you very much. I would have to say for the counselors who were present for the presentation that Acorn made and arranged for someone who’s now a bureaucrat at Hamilton City Hall, we had an a fulsome presentation that was held at the library a few months back and I commend you, David Ferreira, Sam Traso, Sean Lewis was there and I don’t, and Mr.

Cuddy and Jerry Pribble arrived later. So I wanna thank you for your attention to that because I think that will be, it will probably ace with respect, it will probably, you receiving that briefing will probably ace whatever daft is able to do for you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms.

Smith. I have a member in the very back there. I’ll go to you first and then I’ll go to you up at the front microphone. Please state your name for the record first.

My name is Candice. Thank you, Candice. You have five minutes beginning now. So I don’t have a speech prepared today as I was late.

I’m late for everything. I have multiple sclerosis and it takes me an inordinate amount of time to do anything anymore. However, I still feel pretty valuable to my communities. And so I pushed myself to get here because this is a very, very important talk.

I’m college and university trained 20 years, a professional in my industry. I’m an audio engineer. I’m a performer. I’ve been working in the music business for at least 15 years in this city, which is the business of tourism and music that we are all trying to bolster here.

So I could be very valuable to this community. However, I am stuck in an inaccessible unit. Thankfully, I am housed with my 16 year old who deserves a future. And I wanna ask a question just for you to think about not all of the folks who rely on social systems are their by choice and we’re just as valuable and just as human as anybody else.

So think about our children. They are having nowhere to go. Now the city has made decisions to allow kids as young as 16 kids in encampments to stay without calling protection because there’s no where to put them. So I would like to work in my community but having the constant fear of inadequate housing and knowing that the security is not there if I were to have to make a pivot or my landlord were to have to make a pivot, would I have the protection to be able to keep my daughter and I housed or would we be in a tent encampment here in the city?

That’s the question I face every day. That’s the stress I’m under every day. With a chronic brain disease that is progressing, that’s worsening my health outcomes and preventing me to be further stuck. So it’s just to present a picture.

I qualify for assisted living because I’m experiencing dementia-like symptoms and I have all these issues that you don’t see because I started out with a good brain and I can carry on a good conversation. But I qualify for assisted living. The problem is oh, hip cover care doesn’t fund any care for me until I end up in the one entity that is paid for to house folks like me with some help. That’s a 16 year wait list.

The emergency wait list, the emergency medical wait list for affordable housing for a unit so that I can even get the wheelchair that I qualify for. I paid for this and it’s costing me $200 out of our very, very meager budget if anybody knows what ODSP recipients get. $200 out of my food to pay for the transportation to even to get into the community because I can’t live in an affordable unit because there’s none available. It’s 15 years, five to 15 years, 10 to 15 years, I think was the last testament the systems now that I work with told me is for the emergency medical wait list for London housing.

It’s something has to be done. So the whole point about that Acorn is making about protecting the affordable housing that is there so that it doesn’t disappear. That’s important. The bottom line transfers across a drop in the river makes waves in the ocean.

Just try to make an impact where it starts. Please wherever you can think carefully about the generation of kids that are gonna end up in these encampments. That’s it, thank you. Thank you, Candice.

Up on my left in the gallery at the front microphone, please state your name for the record. My name is Andy. Andy, thank you. You have five minutes beginning now.

Thank you, Councillor. I’m here with Acorn, but I didn’t really plan on speaking. However, I’d just like to bring up something as a citizen, someone who was born here in London, raised in London and who volunteers in London. I live in Ward 12 and I helped here a colleague get reelected for a number of years by being active in the community.

I’ve seen a lot of significant changes come, but what really concerns me is obviously the lack of money that people have and no place to call home. I know that there’s so many issues both in the House of Commons, Parliament and here, but it really makes me frustrated with how things are. I personally don’t accept it. I don’t like where things are going.

We see people who are disabled, who are very vulnerable, we have seniors who are very vulnerable, and we have a lot of young people who are also vulnerable. I’m a student, I’ve worked two, three jobs just to pay my way through school without loans. I still live at home with my folks who are a bit older, my father’s very vulnerable, but just being in the community and volunteering and listening to people about their concerns. That’s pretty important to me ‘cause I know it can affect me, it could affect anybody I know.

As I’m working and I have colleagues who, let’s say, work other jobs just to keep their heads above water, their mental health from what I can see, some of which are declining because they can’t afford to live. A few months ago, I was talking to a coworker out of suicide because this person couldn’t afford to pay their rent, their bills, whatever, and this person said if it doesn’t get better for me, they want to take their own life. Now, I’m gonna say this. I don’t understand how we can give people the dignity to die but not to live.

And I think it’s time that our governments need to prioritize what’s really going on, what they’re doing to the status quo. People obviously cannot afford to pay $2,000, whether they’re on ODSP or year to income. It just doesn’t work. And we hear from our premier about fiscal budgets and so forth, but I heard him one time saying these are tough decisions.

I don’t really believe those are tough decisions. I believe those are immoral decisions because we know for a while that the previous governments have cut rent control and other social programs, particularly to the less vulnerable. And as a citizen who votes in London, in Ontario and across Canada, I would ask our elected officials to look at these issues and please do the right thing. I mean, we know people in our lives who are seniors, for example, our grandparents or people we love or care about our neighbors, et cetera, et cetera.

We need to take care of each other as well, including those who do not have. I thank you for your time. Thank you for that, Andy. I am looking for any other speakers.

So to my left, Robin, please state your name for the record. I’m Robin Slade. And Robin, you have, I’ve been a starting up. Thank you.

I’m here today to speak in support of London Acorn’s demands for a strong rent eviction bar law. As many of you have noticed from the delegations you’ve heard today, there’s a clear difference in the severity of the concerns raised by landlords versus raised by tenants. For landlords, they have concerns about this bylaw affecting the level of profit they can make, because if the bylaw is passed, they would then need to apply and pay for a license in order to evict a tenant for renovations. Money is their concern.

For tenants, the concerns are whether they will be able to have a roof over their head, whether they will be removed from their homes of 20 plus years, whether they will be able to pay for food, heat, electricity, transportation, and if they are forced to move out of their affordable homes and in the market price units. We heard here today from a landlord asking how council would feel having money taken from them. The counter question is this. How would anyone on the committee feel if they had their home ripped from beneath them by no fault of their own?

Right now, the draft bylaw still leaves tenants at great risk of going through just that. Right now, the current bylaw draft only requires landlords to go through a little extra red tape to renovate their tenants. They can still easily get tenants out without needing to deal with the painful and often traumatic results that tenants must face as a result of their landlord’s decision. The most important part of the renovation bylaw that London, Acorn, neighborhood legal, and thousands of tenants across the city want is the requirement for landlords to provide another unit or rental top up to the tenants they’ll be displacing.

Without this, tenants are not protected from being unhoused. There’s no reason to not include alternate accommodations in this bylaw. The city of Hamilton took their residence cries for help seriously and passed an amazing array of tenant protection bylaws, including a strong renovation by a bylaw similar to the one passed in US Minister BC. We need the city of London to follow suit.

We cannot afford to be left behind. Thank you. Thank you. I am looking, Jordan.

All right, please state your name for the record. My name’s Jordan Smith. And Jordan, you have five minutes beginning now. Thanks, I’m gonna try not to take that long.

I just, I wanted to touch really briefly on cost. And I want you to ask everybody this question and you know, it rhetorical take it home and sit on it, think about it. What is it costing this city right now? What are these renovations really costing this city right now?

And what is it gonna cost this city if we don’t implement a robust tenant renovation bylaw that works? We heard from Karen from ACTO. We already, the legal precedence is in. In order for this tenant, this renovation bylaw to be effective, it needs to financially disincentivize landlords from using this tactic.

And the only way that happens is to protect the tenants. And I just wanna speak ‘cause there’s a lot of pushback on the cost as far as I understand, it’s a lot of expense to implement a new program, this and the staff and to run it. I also understand from the landlord’s perspective that this is, that’s an increased cost. And for those landlords that are being honest, that there, that is an increased cost.

But let’s put this cost in perspective. The $1,100 that, I’m sorry, I can’t remember his name, but the $1,100 that was, that’s hearts to lose $1,100. But what does it cost you when you lose your home? And what does it cost you when you lose your home and you’re already on financial government supports and you’ve got nowhere to go?

Imagine as a tenant, imagine a disabled tenant, we’re currently, I’m a disabled person myself, I survive on 55% of the poverty line. If I’m displaced, if I’m rent evicted right now, where do I go? There’s nowhere to go, I’m homeless. My ability to help my community, my ability to advocate for my community is gone.

And like Candice said, there are so many of us who want to contribute, who want to give back. And we can’t, because we don’t even get, we don’t, at the current state level, we don’t even get bootstrap money. And the moment that our home security is threatened, the most fundamental security you can imagine, imagine these people, all of us living with all these chronic illnesses, all these challenges, barely able to feed ourselves, skipping meals, so we can feed our children. And Matt, where are we gonna, there’s nowhere for us to go.

And I want you to put in perspective right now because we’re hearing right, you’re hearing our lots of personal anecdotes from personal stories and how the people on the ground level are being affected. But what you’re not hearing is like those people, the bulk of the people that can’t make it. But one other thing I want to put into perspective, as Mike so graciously pointed out, we have a real problem here. These renovation, this renovation is literally in a playbook and being applied by landlords, not just a few, a handful of bad actors, this is being applied on a systemic level.

And we know this, we have the evidence to show this. So if we don’t do something about it, it’s on us. And I just wanted to put it a little bit more perspective on some of these numbers. That $400 licensing fee, that’s laughable to complain about a $400 licensing fee to display, it’s good for a year, to displace tenants for a year.

That’s $33 and change a month that they’re whining about. $33 a month versus being displaced from your home and trying to find accommodations for up to a year in this housing market. Put that in perspective. So without the accommodation, I understand that for some of those smaller landlords, that is a bike.

It is, but the difference in scale on the suffering, but also in terms of the impact, there’s no measure. I just, again, I’m gonna go back before I start rambling and I want you to go out and keep all this in mind when you’re making your decisions and you’re deciding what this bylaw needs to look like. What is this really costing our city right now? What is it really costing our city if we don’t do anything about it?

And what’s it gonna cost our city if we put this lousy, sorry, watered down version of a bill through right now? Nothing. Well, anyway, I yield the rest of my time, thank you. Thank you, Mr.

Smith. Looking to the gallery or online for anybody who would like to speak. So I have nobody online. So just looking to the gallery for this, for the rent evictions item, okay?

Please state your name. My name is Andrew Roberts. I live over on Waterloo Street. Andrew, you have five minutes beginning now.

So just before I actually recently moved into Waterloo Street, I’d lived over on Little Grey Street. We had been served eviction notice, saying that the landlord wanted to renovate and move in. I spent several days trying to find a place. I have two special needs kids.

I came to the point where I found a place, right? But it’s far more than what I was paying where I was. It puts a financial difficulty on myself as I’m disabled myself, receiving ODSP. I have a child that has autism.

So dramatically, it had a huge effect on us. I don’t see these little fees that are coming down, trickling down to these landlords are really going to amount to very much because it’s people like myself who literally go day and night going, is there going to be somewhere for my children? Is there going to be somewhere for myself, right? Leaving that one place to go to a place now where I’m dealing with orders that are listed against my property that have been there for almost two years.

No action by the city to even enforce maintenance, which has already been going through and nothing to this day has been done to address any of this. I’m disappointed with the city. I’m disappointed in the way that this has done because essentially myself seeing other residents going through this with rental evictions and myself, this is disgusting. How if this was your guys’ home and your guys’ family displaced?

I bet you guys wouldn’t like that. Think about that. Thank you, Mr. Roberts.

At my left side, at the microphone here, please state your name for the record. Dan Hilton. Dan Hilton, you have five minutes starting now. If people having heard this haven’t been convinced on the morality of what we are talking about and all we care about is the money we are spending then think that through.

Why are we subsidizing for a small amount of bad landlords to make a profit, to put people on the streets that cost all the rest of us more money? McLean’s Magazine said 30% of all the people in shelters in Toronto are renavicted people. Our people have been kicked out of their homes. This is not a tangible financial situation for this city.

We are either part of the problem of putting people on the streets or we are not. City Council, you have your choice. Thank you, Mr. Hilton.

Looking to the gallery for any other speakers. I have nothing online, so this will be the last call for any speakers for this public participation. Okay, I will look to committee to close the public participation meeting. I will say to everyone who spoke, thank you for speaking here today.

Thank you for giving us your experience and with the passion that you brought, very appreciated. Looking to committee for a move or two, close the PPM. Councillor McAllister, seconder in Councillor Trussell. So we will put that up for a vote.

So votes, yes. Closing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Okay, looking to committee. Again, we have a staff recommendation.

I am aware that they’re actually, I’m not sure if there’s any other emotions, but I’m just looking for committee right now to either put the recommendation on the floor or anything else. Councillor Trussell. Thank you very much. I wanna thank everybody that came out today.

I thought I understood this issue. Councillor Councillor, I need you to put a motion on the floor before. Oh, I’d like to move the staff report with the addition that staff be directed to consider for when the by-law comes back to us, two items, and I’ll be very general about this. One is the question of accommodation or top up in terms of providing the recipient of the notice with certain additional rights.

And number two, some mechanism for looking back in time in terms of when the obligations are triggered. That is, how does this apply to tenants who have received the notices prior to the effective date of this legislation? So those are my two points. Okay, thanks, Councillor, let’s just stop you right there.

We just wanna make sure that the clerk’s got your motion. Councillor, clerk’s asking if you have any wording to share. (mumbles) I purposely left it somewhat vague and I’m wondering if I may ask Mr. Mathers if that’s enough information to get the gist of where I’m going with this or whether you want more detail.

Okay, I will go to Mr. Mathers to comment on that. And then I would like to just round out this wording so we can look for a seconder, Mr. Mather.

Through the chair, what I’m hearing is taking a look at that temporary alternate accommodations piece that includes arrangements for that to be made for the tenant by the owner. So the way that’s it’s phrased in the Hamilton bylaw is temporary alternate accommodations. But if there’s something beyond that as well, I’m happy to take whatever direction that committee and Councillor. Okay, just give us a second here.

Councillor also, would you be able to just repeat the second part of your motion? Yes, and further civic administration be directed to draft language that would apply the protections in the bylaw to residents who have already received the rental eviction notice. And again, I’m leaving that somewhat open. I’m not putting a particular timeline on that.

Maybe it should just be if the tenant is still, I’m not sure what would trigger that, but I don’t want to see this not apply because people have already suffered getting the notice. And I think that’s just a question of fairness. Thank you, Councillor. We’re just, just give us another couple of seconds and then hopefully we can have something back.

The clerk’s going to put that motion and the amendment both on the screen for everybody. So if we can just give it a second, you’ll see it up on the screen. And I believe in an E-Scribe and then I’ll look for a seconder. Councillor McAllister, are you willing to second?

Okay, I have a move to motion that is seconded. So I will now look to committee for debate. And Councillor Trosto, your first on the list. I want to thank everybody through the chair who came today.

Every time I think I understand this issue fully, which I can’t possibly being a person of privilege who has secure housing. Every time I think I understand this, I hear something new, I hear a story, I hear how it touches a family, I hear how it touches a neighbor, I hear how you’ve come across somebody that you know and they’re no longer well-housed. And it just for me, it just makes this on the one hand, I want to enact this right now. And I’m grateful to staff for providing us with the core language that we need to enact this right now.

But I’ve also heard so much today that reminds me that we were almost there. We’re almost there. This is that core, a good bylaw, we can add a few things. Now, if staff wants to come back and say, if staff wants to come back and say, it’s going to take us a while to work that through, go ahead and pass this now without prejudice to coming back with an amendment, that would be okay.

But I think it might just make more of an impact. And part of this is impact. Part of this is sending out a message into the community telling owners that if you have to make some repairs, maybe you can figure out how to do it without having to ask the tenant to leave. ‘Cause if you can get your building permits, and if you can work out these repairs, and if you can do it in such a way that you don’t have to issue a renovation notice, you won’t need the license, and you won’t need to worry about whatever the top-up or accommodation is.

That’s the incentive. That’s a positive incentive. The other positive incentive here is I want owners. I want owners to do the necessary repairs when they need to be done as they come up as part of the normal upkeep of the premises so that we don’t have to get to this point.

Ideally, when we look at the numbers of licenses over the next few years, there’ll be quite a few at the beginning, but they’ll go down. They will wither away. They will go down to almost nothing because owners will realize that there is no longer an incentive to allow properties to deteriorate. This also puts a bit of an onus on code enforcement.

I’m not gonna get into that today. But I think all in all, when you look at the overall policy of maintaining a decent housing stock that doesn’t deteriorate, which is totally consistent with what’s in our strategic plan, and we’ve put specific items in this strategic plan about preserving the integrity of the current housing stock so it doesn’t deteriorate. And the only other point I wanna make about this is we are going to great lengths, craft one of the best homeless policies in this country. And London is being, I think, celebrated by a lot of other cities in terms of our response.

We just received a report in terms of the encampment response. That was just, it was excellent. And yes, there were some adjustments in terms of spaces, but it was really an important report. We are never going to be able to solve the homeless problem if we keep creating more homeless persons.

We have to stop the supply of new homeless persons. And I think that this run eviction by law, especially if we can strengthen it a little bit with these amendments, we’ll go a long way to doing that. So I’m looking for this committee’s support for the motion as amended, and I’ll be hoping that my colleagues at council will do this too. And a message to 95%, 98% of the landlords and the developers in this town.

Yes, I understand it. This is not a punitive by-law, and this is being crafted in a way that is going to have a very restricted effect on the rental industry. And hopefully it will encourage better practices. And yeah, so that’s it, I think my time is up.

Thank you, Councillor, looking to other committee members. Councillor McAllister. I’m through the chair, and I’m happy to second this. And I just want to reiterate to everyone who spoke.

I get it, I hear this all the time. I myself am a tenant, and I live with this as well, that I could face the same thing. I know, I think sometimes there’s this tendency to think, you know, all elected officials, you know, we’ve got a house, or we’re landlords ourselves. I’m not, and I feel this, I hear you, and I hear it from my residents, my constituents all the time.

It is a reality, and it is a hell that people are living on a regular basis. So I just want to let people know that I get it. Like, this is not something you need to convince me about. I view myself as a person of conscience, and I think this is the right thing to do.

I think the recommendations that we have, along with what Councillor Truss has proposed, is what we need to do. I don’t need to be sold on it. I’m happy to talk with my colleagues and have these conversations. I’m happy to introduce them to residents who they themselves that I represent have experienced this.

This is a reality for way too many people. And I’ve heard, you know, that yes, there are people following the rules, absolutely. But there are loopholes that need to be plugged, and we have to address them, because there are bad faith actors, there are predatory practices going on, and that is what we as a government should be dealing with. So I’m in favor of this.

I think we need to send a strong signal that this will not be tolerated, and we do have the power to do something. This is what we can do. You know, I heard a lot that, you know, we can’t solve everything, but this is a part we can play to do some good and help tenants and take away some of that stress, and allow them to live in peace and comfort and be members of this community, ‘cause we value them. We want people to stay in the city.

I don’t want to live in a world where people can’t afford to live in the city they call home. And I think this is an important step, and I’m supportive of it. Okay, Councillor, looking to the rest of just visiting members of committee first. Okay, I have no one, so I will go to the deputy mayor now.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I’ll advise you that I’m gonna have to leave right after my comments, because I’ve got a meeting with some of Mr. Mather’s staff on a planning matter up on the 10th floor, so I have to go to attend to that. However, I will say, certainly on part A, I’m supportive of that, because licensing is absolutely within the municipal purview.

And we heard some disappointment about what levels of government do, but I think we actually feed that when we don’t delineate who has to do what, and I’m gonna keep an open mind on the top-up piece, but it is in the residential tendencies act already, and I don’t know that we can do anything more with that and is realistically already written in the provincial legislation. And I’m not gonna pull us in camera right now, but I will also say that when it comes to trying to apply something retroactively, I think when this comes to council, we are going to probably end up in camera to discuss the applicability of trying to put retroactive applications of bylaws into effect, because I think we really open ourselves up to a legal challenge and having a dead bylaw if we try and impose it retroactively on things. Through you, a very quick question to our staff, though. With regard to the licensing fee, I was actually surprised, I guess, a little bit that it was at 400.

I thought the fee might be a bit higher than what we’re seeing. I understand the need, however, to also balance that with not having things just simply go underground and not get permits and do things in less than above boardways. So I’m just wondering if the staff can share a quick comment on what informed the permit fee at $400. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Will I be going to Mr. Mathers? Through the chair, so the fee that we’ve provided to date is it is very much still like a preliminary assessment of what we think the fees would be. Typically, what we do is compare to other municipalities because we have a requirement to ensure that this is an value that will lead to compliance and is not impunative in nature.

That’s what the legislation tells us is important. And we usually do that by comparing other municipalities. There weren’t a lot of municipalities to compare to. Now we do have more information from like a Hamilton as well as far as their fees.

So we’ll reevaluate this. And then coming forward, and this was spoken to several times about some of the costs associated with this, we’ll be bringing forward ultimately a business case as part of the multi-year budget. With that concept of trying to fund as much as possible of that business case from fees and any related penalties. So that’ll be something else that Council will see.

But we are still, we would still be doing a little more work on what that fee may be said at moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Mathers. Back to the Deputy Mayor.

Thanks, I appreciate that answer. I’m glad that’s a preliminary number and that it may be adjusted a little bit before we finalize the by-law. I’m also very supportive of, and I’ve said this multiple times, substantial penalties for those caught doing this through an underground route. I think it’s really, really critical that the focus for me has always been focus on the bad actors.

And that will include those who aren’t following the rules once we implement a by-law that the penalties are very punitive in terms of discouraging this behavior and encouraging them to do the right thing and work through the process. I know it’s been said, thank you to those who spoke today, and for having us at the presentation, as was mentioned, a few of us attended when Acorn had their presentation at the library. But I also wanna take the opportunity to thank Mr. Ling and Ms.

Musico in particular. I’ve been here five and a half years, and I think this might be the fastest by-law turnaround I’ve seen in that entire time. When I first got here, I introduced a proposal for a new by-law that was almost three and a half years in coming to fruition. That this has come forward in just a few months’ time, really speaks to the emphasis and the urgency that you’ve placed on this.

I know other things that you’ve been working on have had to go to the side of your desk so that you can get this done. So I just wanna say thank you for the work that’s been put into this, because it is one that is time-sensitive. Like Councilor Trustile, I would actually like to see something that we could pass today, but we don’t have that yet. So we will continue to work away at this.

And hopefully, when this comes back, we will have something that, by consensus, Council can put in place, even if it’s something that we have to go back and tweak after a year or after 18 months or something, as we see some potential need to make some adjustments. So thank you for the work that you’ve put into this. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. And with that, Chair, I’ll advise you that I’m leaving.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. While you were speaking, Councillor Perbeau did put up his hand, so I will go to him, ‘cause he’s a committee member, then I will be going to Councillor Hopkins, and I believe Councillor Raman’s online, so if she would like to speak, just put your hand up. Councillor Perbeau. Thank you, and I would like to, as well, thank you, even though my colleagues said it, I do thank for everyone taking the time and addressing this big concern for our city and other municipalities in Ontario, Canada.

I’m actually gonna start by one thing is, and I would like to read this, because I still have a, I’ve been attending some of your meetings, talking to some of you. I do know I have certain relationship with some people who are living in encampments and on the street in London, and there was recently, actually, just past weekend, and they were recently, they lost their home, and they are living in the encampment, and there were certain things I was asking them, and if they knew about certain things, and they said they had no idea, and I would like to actually, I’m gonna read this, it’s from the Provincial Act, and if someone could, from our staff, give me a feedback, why these things are not, how can we communicate this better, and why, if it’s so clear, it’s not working. The rules do state that if a tenant is given a notice, because of extensive repairs or renovations, the tenant can choose to move back into the rental unit after the repairs or renovations are complete. The rent must be the same as the rent before the tenancy was terminated.

Before the tenant moves out, the tenant must inform the landlord in writing of their intent to reoccupy the rental unit. The tenant must also keep the landlord informed in writing of any changes in their address. The landlord cannot refuse to allow the tenant to move back into the rental unit if the tenant has provided written notice. And I would just like to get a feedback from our staff, because as I said, recently found a person or met a person, and when I addressed it with this person, they had no idea that this was kind of in place.

So two questions, the first one is, how can we really, because again, even if this by-law goes through, as I said, it’s not past today, it’s not gonna start tomorrow. How can we improve on the information to these individuals who are tremendously influenced by it? And second, it’s very clear, why isn’t it working? Thank you, Councillor.

I will go to staff, Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, to begin, historically, the at a municipal level, we haven’t gotten to the scope of informing people of these types of things. And I think that’s as part of Council’s recent direction earlier this year, that we’re starting to be able to play a role and to help people stay informed.

So that’s why what we’ve included in this by-law is a requirement to provide a tenant information package that would include all those kind of details as part of this licensing activity, so that people do have the information and they are able to take action moving forward. But historically, that wasn’t the case. Most of that is posted on provincial websites. It might be hard for people to find, but this is one of the important pieces we’ve included in the by-law before, yeah.

Thank you, Mr. Mathers, Councillor Perkle. So thank you for the information part, but the second part, if this is so clear, very clear, and why, because I just don’t see why municipalities have to go and introduce additional cost to the municipalities, additional resources, if this is very clear, if you can tell me, why isn’t it working? Thank you, Councillor, back to Mr.

Mathers. Through the chair. So it’s something we’ve been trying to tell the story in the previous report. It is, of course, very complex system that we have.

And it’s not something where the municipality has, and from seeing what we’ve seen across Canada, like we would be one of the first municipalities not to be able to bring forward a system like this. What you think you’ve heard in some of those stories today is that there are ways for landlords to be able to move through these processes in a way that’s disingenuous to the people that are tenants. So what we’re looking today is try to ensure that if you have a legitimate requirement to be able to do work on your property, that you will do that in a meaningful way, that will allow people to retain their housing and come back in a reasonable amount of time, to set a few different checks and balances related to that. So that is, of course, was Council’s direction for us to do and come back with something like that.

So that’s what you have before you today. Thank you, Mr. Mathers. I would also add that we can only speak to this from the perspective of the municipality.

A lot of this would be under the provincial jurisdiction, so I just put that in there too. Council Perbo, you have two minutes left. I understand it, and that’s why I do appreciate the answer from Mr. Mathers.

Thank you for that. I do think that, again, this is very clear, and I’m glad we are going to be more informative to our citizens, so they have this information, because not all of them do have it. It’s very challenging, it’s very tough, no doubt, and I will be supporting what’s in front of us. Having said that, I just do want to let you know that I do know some individuals who started to get, if we can call it, this industrial business in terms of purchasing properties to rent, and some of them, they already told me that if the interest rates don’t change, they will be losing these properties.

They will be losing these properties, because, again, they were basing it, and, again, it’s the risk of doing a business. So, again, it’s not, I just want to let you know the other side of the story. Not everyone is really the same. As Mr.

Wallace mentioned, members of the LDI there, we have no concerns whatsoever, and I just hope that the bylaw that’s going to come back in front of us is not going to, it shouldn’t be punishing all the good players. It should be really punishing the ones who are practicing these negative practices on the people that are tremendously struggling, and this is the challenge that I have as this, because, again, in a free role that we live in, the good people, they shouldn’t be punished, and doesn’t matter if they are on the side of the people in the gallery, or if they are on the side of business entrepreneurs that are trying to, actually, a lot of them get ahead, especially the new ones. It’s not like they are really having huge bank accounts either, and this is the secret of the success, and I hope that the staff, when they come back to us with the proposed bylaw, it’s going to address it in this best possible way to protect individuals on both sides of the coin. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. That was exactly five minutes. I will go to, next on the speaker’s list, which is Councillor Hopkins. So it’s council five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for recognizing me. I came here this afternoon to hear from the public, and I’m really glad I did. I wanna thank you for keeping us as elected officials accountable.

We need to hear your voice. We need to hear both sides of the conversation as well. And then hopefully, I’m pleased to hear that the committee is going to be supporting the recommendation with the few amendments that Councillor Tresault has made forward, but it is imperative that you keep us accountable, and I wanna thank you for that. I also wanna thank staff.

I could not believe that this was coming to us today with the proposal for the bylaw amendments. No, we’ve got a bit more work to do, but I know there was a lot of work to get this to us as quickly as it was. The other thing I wanna also say is that I know as a council, we all came in understanding the importance and addressing homelessness and housing. And I think it was mentioned here by Councillor Tresault that we do have to stop that.

And this is one way of stopping homelessness and supporting our community. So thank you, staff, and the community. It’s my happy place when we’re all, hopefully an agreement as this goes to council in the next council calendar. So thank you.

Okay, Councillor, I’m looking to committee or other visiting members. Some committee members do have some time left. Councillor Truss, you have 11 seconds. I, Councillor Ramen, I do not see any indication that she has her hand up.

Okay, I’d like to make some, oh, here’s Councillor Robin, is she, are you good? Okay, I’d like to make some comments. I can’t do them from the chair. So I’m gonna keep them really short, but maybe just to be in order, I’m gonna hand the chair over to Councillor Trussault.

Thank you, and I will recognize Councillor Ferrara. You have five minutes. Thank you, it won’t be five minutes. So— - I’m gonna time you anyway.

Okay, so obviously I’ve been working on this and you know my position on this, and I just wanted to add some things. We are speaking to, and we are working on making work to deter or remove landlords who are submitting fraudulent N13s and fraudulent evictions. That’s basically fraud towards your affordable housing. That is fraud towards your housing and fraud towards your contract, your tenant agreement.

That’s what we’re trying to stop here. I do know that some landlords have spoken that are probably not bad landlords, I would assume, and we’re not speaking to you. We are speaking to the ones who are committing fraud. So that’s what this motion and that’s what this work is going about.

That’s what we’re trying to do here. I do wanna speak to, I wrote down one question during that PPM for the Professional Engineers Report. There are going to be professional engineers or planners or people with accreditation when we tie in the permits with the actual N13 license itself. So that is a part of the motion and the work that we’re doing at the moment.

And I do want to speak to a quote that stuck out to me. That’s an ounce of prevention is easier than a pound for the cure, and I believe Claire said that. I don’t see her in here. That stuck out to me because that is very true.

We are speaking about not only how do we keep people in their housing, how do we keep people in their affordable housing, but also how do we minimally impact the cost towards Londoners in general? And how do we prevent that? This is a motion that will do that. So that’s why I am very happy to be supporting that.

With the extra amendments that were brought forward, I obviously would love to see those. I have some concerns as the deputy mayor said about anything retroactive, but we have this on the floor. So let’s put it to staff and let’s see if that will work. So I’m interested in that.

I will be supporting this the way it is at the moment. I hope that council will also be supporting that. And I am hoping that we get something that’s in force and effect as soon as possible. So those are my comments.

I would ask councilor also to give me back the chair. The chair, you were well under five minutes. Thank you, councilor, looking to anybody who wants to speak further. Okay, I see no one.

I will call the question. Sir Trasso. Trasso votes yes. I’m closing the vote.

The motion carries four to zero. Okay, so that will be heard at council as the motion as you saw on the screen there. So now we are on to schedule items. Now before I go to schedule items, I will look to committee ‘cause I’d like to see a motion for change of order so we can go into camera ‘cause some of the items on camera we need to speak to just because the process will work better.

So I’m just looking for a committee for a change of order moved by councilor Trasso. I’m looking for a seconder, councilor McAllister. Could we take a short break? Yeah, we’ll do a break between the transition into camera.

Okay, I am asking to remove that change of order. Let’s take the break first and then we’ll come back. We’ll do a change of order and go into camera. So just looking for a hand vote to, okay, looking for a motion for a recess, councilor McAllister, how long?

10 minutes is good. 10 minutes, seconder for 10 minutes on a recess. Moved or seconded by councilor Pribble. All in favor, hand vote.

That’s carried. Okay, we’ll go into recess for 10 minutes. Everyone, we’ll be back at 3.23 and then we’ll go into camera. Do you want a motion to go into camera?

Okay, committee, we are back in session. Oh, we are waiting for IT. So I’m just gonna speak really slowly. When we left, we had a motion which was seconded for a change in order.

That is not debatable. So I will pull that up for voting now. Closing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Okay, and now I will look for a motion to go into camera.

Councilor McAllister moved, seconded by Councilor Trussell. Call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Okay, we are going to, are we staying here?

Yeah. Okay, we’ll be staying here. So we’re just gonna wait for chambers to be locked down. Okay, welcome back to the public session.

I will look to Councilor Pribble to report out on the camera. Thank you, Chair, and I would like to report that in the confidential session, our committee made a progress on point 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3, thank you. Thank you. Okay, first item on the items for direction is a motion by Councilor McAllister and myself.

So I will move to the Councilor to put that on the floor. Yeah, I will move that motion. And I will second it, okay. And now looking for a speakers list, Councilor McAllister, you’re the first one.

Great, thank you and through the chair. So I first wanna thank Councilor Ferrer, Mr. Dickens, Mr. Hancock from Deerness for assisting with this motion.

The rapid growth expected among Canada’s senior population in the coming years is one of the most significant demographic trends in our country’s history. Residents aged 65 and older are part of the fastest growing group in Canada today. At the 2003, there are about 7.6 million people aged 65 and older. Many of these Canadians are part of the baby boomer generation, which includes those born from 1946 to 1964.

London’s population, like the rest of the country, is aging and we as a city need to prepare for the seismic demographic shift. What we are seeing is an increased demand for services from seniors and the need to support more spots at our long-term care facility. The current wait list for Deerness is 561 individuals. We are seeing historically higher than average demand for long-term care, both provincially and in the Southwest area.

This is largely due to the extra funding supplied by Council that allows for higher staffing ratios and pay rates, which has helped build the homes reputation for good care and quality services. In recent years, the relatively poor experience in some private homes during the pandemic has also increased preference for municipal long-term care. Deerness Home Master Plan, which was conducted in 2007 at Council direction, this 2007 study outlined a vision for the intensification of vacant deerness lands to meet the needs of our seniors. But Deerness was not directed by Council in terms of adding extra long-term beds.

In 2020, City Administration updated the plan and other residential uses were also contemplated. But again, we did not consider adding long-term care beds at that time. We’re also in the midst of a pandemic, so I can understand we had priorities. I will also say there are funding opportunities with the province.

We do have Mr. Hancock here from Deerness, so I will leave those questions to him to speak broadly to those parameters. I am asking for support for this motion to allow staff time to explore our central expansion plans and the funding sources so that we can be fully prepared for the next MYB. I truly believe we owe it to our seniors to ensure that we as a municipality are prepared to continue to provide quality public care to our aging citizens now and in the future.

And I hope I can get support for my colleagues for this motion. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. I am happy, obviously, to support this motion.

I did see that you wanted to speak to or have Mr. Hancock possibly answer some questions, so I’m just going back to you if you do indeed want that. If Mr. Hancock maybe just briefly wants to speak to the funding opportunities that currently exist at the province and what they may look like moving forward.

Mr. Hancock. Through the chair, yes, there are opportunities for provincial funding towards the construction of long-term care home beds. The government’s committed to 30,000 new long-term care home beds by 2028.

We understand the take-up of organisations, municipalities, developing new beds, there’s nowhere near the 30,000 at this point. So what they do is that they play a subsidy towards the construction costs of a new home or an expansion to a home or a renovation over 25 years. So it’s a staged contribution. Generally speaking, that contribution based on the most recent costings we’ve seen would pay something like just over 50% of the construction costs of a new home or an extended home or renovated home.

There’s currently an enhanced programme where they multiply that by roughly two and a half times and they would cover almost all of the costs of a new construction. However, that is not permanent funding. That’s funding that’s available for a limited time. And at this point, that ends in, I believe, at the end of November.

So unless a project’s ready for construction, this year, that money won’t be available. In addition to that, there is a subsidy or a one-time grant that’s available for not-for-profit construction. I think we would be eligible for that one as well as a municipality that, again, helps towards the costs and I’ve factored that into the figures I’ve just given you. So again, anybody constructing a long-term care home does get help from the government, but the standard subsidy is nowhere near enough to cover the full cost and is paid to us annually in increments over 25 years.

So that’s the funding from the province. Thank you, Mr. Hancock. Councillor, I’m good.

I have it here for my colleagues, thanks. Okay, thank you, Councillor. I’m looking to committee for any comments or questions. Councillor Perbault.

Thank you, Chair, and through you to the staff, I would like to actually receive a feedback from our staff both on this initiative, the timelines for the new year budget and I guess I heard that there were certain studies or something explored in the past. So I would just like to have a feedback from the staff on this proposal, on this motion. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor, Mr.

Dickens. Thank you, Chair, and through you. In terms of, I’ll start by touching on some of the timelines and some of the process pieces. So if we were to undertake this work, we would, the first thing we would need to do is go out and procure a consultant to lead this project, to actually do the analysis and do the investigative work to determine what the options are.

So as part A of the motion indicates to go and explore, we would want to work with qualified professionals related to long-term care who’ve done this work with the province and other applications and also those familiar with the home and who specialize in the architecture of long-term care homes to really understand what is available. So build off of previous deans land studies to understand what is possible, what can we build out, what can we build up, what can we build out and up, what limitations and what opportunities are there. So we would need to procure a consultant to do that. We would need a source of funding to do that.

Through Mr. Hancock’s preliminary work, a very, very rough basic estimate is that would probably run about $100,000 to do that type of work and probably have a report back by the end of the calendar year in terms of timing. If we were to want to open more beds for the 2028 cycle, we would want to be starting to issue bids and tenders in 2026 likely for construction. If we were to apply, and this is where it gets a little nuanced with the provinces, through our limited conversations with the province, they have indicated that any conversations or exploration on this topic would happen if we made an application in order to be able to make an application and be successful in that application, we’d want to make sure we have our entire package put together in terms of being shovel ready and having our financing in place to be able to do that work with the province.

So a little bit of a chicken and an egg challenge on that front. But if we were to make an application, we would want to have all of our ducks in a row and be able to undertake that process if we’re aiming for 2028 to submit the application, other homes that have undertaken this work, the project tends to go from application to completion in between four and seven years. Thank you, Mr. Jenkins.

Councillor, thank you very much, no more questions. Thank you, Councillor, looking to committee again for any type of comments. Okay, I might as well make some comments here, I’m gonna hand it over to Councillor Pribble at this time. Thank you, I take the chair and recognize the chair of the committee, go ahead.

Thank you, Councillor, it won’t take too long. I’m happy to support this motion clearly. As was said, we have an aging population and I do like to plan as soon as we can in advance so we don’t find ourselves kind of behind the eight ball here. So I’m happy to see this motion come through.

I’m happy for the work that Councillor McAllister has brought. Thank you to Mr. Hancock for the work that you’ve provided and Mr. Dickens and the rest of staff as well who’ve been involved on this.

I will be voting in favor for this and I do hope that we can move along with this so we can be prepared for the future. So thank you. Heading to chair back and no more speakers on the list. Thank you, Councillor, and I will make one last call.

None, okay, let’s call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Okay, that leaves us to item 2.6 that was pulled from the consent. That is subsidized transit program update.

We do have a list for delegation. So I’m looking to committee to move a motion to allow the delegate to speak. Moved by Councillor Pribble, seconded the seconder, seconded by Councillor McAllister. So Mr.

Salisbury, you can, oh, we do need to vote on that, apologies. Let’s put that up beneath scribe. Also, Trustee. Closing the vote, the motion carries four to zero.

Mr. Salisbury, hold on just a second. Are you ready? Okay, you have five minutes to the mic in the back, starting now.

Just a second, Jeff, you just pull that up a little bit. How about now? Is that good? Just a little bit closer if you can.

How’s this? Much better, thank you. Hold on, let me just reset your time. Okay, five minutes, go.

Hi, my name is Jeffrey Salisbury. I originally came here in March of 2023 to talk about how unaffordable public transit is for disabled people here in London. That situation has not improved in 2024 because the cost of the bus passes now went from $61 up to $72, even with the discount that the subsidy provides. The governments here all over Canada have been failing disabled people.

The Ontario government, even though 30 MPs have put in petitions asking for ODSP to be doubled, and the United Way of Middlesex County put in a petition signed by over 1,300 people also asking for ODSP to be doubled. The Ontario government continues to ignore all of those requests and keep a ridiculous $556 a month cap on rent despite the fact that you’re never gonna find anywhere in Ontario to rent for $556 a month unless you got a time machine. The federal government also has failed disabled people. In the beginning of the pandemic, they had served out there, rushed out within three weeks and told everybody, you need a minimum of $2,000 a month to live, yet no disability program anywhere in Canada is providing even half of that, some significantly less than half.

Shortly after the Prime Minister announced that he would be releasing a new federal disability program called the Canada Disability Benefit, and it’s been four years since that promise of lifting people to the poverty line with that and disabled people haven’t seen one penny of this program yet, despite it being passed into law over a year ago now. In budget 2024, they announced they were finally going to fund this benefit, but they tell disabled people you’re only worth providing $6 a day to, that doesn’t come anywhere close to their promise of lifting people to the poverty line. So governments continue to fail the disability community here in Canada. So with that said, the report here, I wanna recommend that everybody, all of these recommendations be accepted with the priority being put on lowering the cost of the pass.

I’d like to see maybe the $10 pass that’s being provided to blind people be extended to everybody disabled and low income. I wanna see that recommendation of being allowed to apply by the pass online rather than force people to come into specific offices to buy it. And I wanna see the only requiring you to apply one time for this rather than have to continue to keep applying for that yearly, ‘cause that just puts a burden on the person not only applying, but the city staff having to keep re-approving these applications over and over. So in closing, I really want this to get accepted and this to be implemented as quickly as possible to help the disabled community to be able to afford public transit.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Salisbury. And that is the only delegation for that.

So I will look to committee to… Actually, there’s no public, that’s it. Okay, look into committee to move the staff recommendation or anything that you might have. So Troso moved, looking for a seconder.

Thank you. Seconded by Councillor McAllister. Okay, I’m looking for a speaker’s list. Councillor, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Director, staff. I have, I think, three, four questions. The first one is the table five.

I assume the projections are in the budget and what would be the source of funding for the additional dollars for the column that says actuals. If we identified the source of funding for if it’s at the end of the year, we are higher. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor, Ms.

Smith. Thank you, and through the chair, we’ve been tracking this very closely because of the increase in the monthly best passes. So we have a council approved budget for all five programs for approximately 1.5 million. So based on our projections to date and the actuals to date, and that’s only the first five and a half months of this year, we’re expecting to be over close to 1.6 to 1.7 million.

So any of those over expenditures, we pay out the actuals to the LTC as we don’t have a wait list for any of these programs. So we will work with finance to find that money through savings in my current based budget. Councillor. Okay, thank you for that.

Street points three next steps, and they are listed at them. Would these steps be taking place? Okay, Councillor. Thank you, I’ll have Ms.

Pollack speak to the next steps that she and her team are undertaking. Ms. Pollack. Thank you and through the chair.

So we’ll start working on the next steps immediately. We’re already in discussions with internal external partners, as well as the LTC. So that work will start in 2024. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Thank you for that. And some survey results are oriented towards the LTC services. And I know you just mentioned that talking with the partners, but is there any plan kind of based on past experiences or future, how we can cooperate?

Maybe even better with the LTC, because a lot of these surveys questions are actually oriented towards the service provider, which is LTC. Thank you, Councillor, to back to staff. Ms. Smith.

Thank you and through the chair, we work very closely with the LTC on these five programs. And correct, we, for example, Mr. Salisbury, now they’re raised some good examples about the ability to buy the monthly pass. So in the income related transit program, applicants apply once a year online.

And then there’s about eight or nine locations where they have to go and purchase the past monthly. So we’re working with our partners, such as the LTC to look at if we can get the pass online. The challenge with this is, you know, in a number of these recommendations have budget implications. So to make any large changes to the program, to the process and/or to the budgets, would have an impact on the budget.

And we currently don’t have direction from council nor the budget to make those changes. Thank you, Councilor. Thank you, and I have last question. And in the financial impact and consideration, which is the last section above the conclusion, the last, the second paragraph and the ending is the existing budget and others would require the additional financial instruments and further analysis.

What is the time plan for that? Or would it be coming back to us? And any specific timeline? Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor, Ms. Smith. Thank you and through the chair, unless further directed from council to make any of the specific recommendations or the changes to the program, we don’t have the financial resources to make any of those additional recommendations to the program unless we’re directed. Sorry, and through that direction, we would then bring a business case to the budget.

Thank you, Councillor. I actually have no more questions, thank you. Thank you, Councillor, looking to committee. I had some questions, but Councillor Pribble did ask them, so I don’t anymore.

So no last call. Okay, let’s call the question. Opposing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Okay, that leaves us to item 2.9.

I’m going to look to staff for a summary on this before we do anything. So I will go to Mr. Delber. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. And so the report before you this evening, it’s really highlighting how the context and the market has changed since 2021 when the roadmap to 3000 was originally approved. As you can see with the number of the different reports on the agenda this evening, affordable housing is incredibly nuanced, incredibly complex process. And it involves a lot of detailed work based on the financing and interest rates that a developer would be required to implement.

The complexity that we have in this space, it really benefits from having a clear and consistent approach to how the city is supporting affordable housing in London. So through this report, what we’re looking to do is formalize the city’s contribution for both affordable and highly supportive housing at $45,000 per unit. We’re also identifying a strategy for us to align the housing accelerator funds for both affordable housing and the highly supportive. So it was identified as a program within an incentive within the housing accelerator fund.

Additionally, we’re also standardizing the conditions for eligibility and creating a consistent approach for that roadmap grant, which allows the developers to have certainty when they’re starting to do their business plans before they come in and actually construct a new affordable project. Additionally, we’re also simplifying and standardizing the reporting, recognizing that we need to make some connections to a number of different plans that we report out to you on. Strategic plan has information on affordable housing, the housing stability action plan is information on affordable housing. We’re also reporting on affordable housing through the half and then additionally with the roadmap.

And then finally and equally as important as all the rest is formalizing our commitment to support both the nonprofit and the social housing sectors within London. Happy to take any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Felberg.

Before anything, I will look to committee to move, I recommend, okay, Councilor McAllister, you’re moving the staff recommendation and I— I’m moving up, I also have an amendment as well, but I’m just moving through my recommendation, you get it going. So you’re moving the recommendation and the amendment or just the recommendation? Well, we have to move something for it can amend, so. Okay, looking for a seconder, seconded by Councillor Prabble.

Okay, looking for a speaker’s list, Councilor McAllister, your first. Thank you and I do have an amendment. So this would be to add an E. It’s in the language of the clerks, but I can read it out now.

This is the Civic Administration be directed to assess the existing affordable unit bonus zones in Z1 to consider a cash and lieu policy or other similar programs to enable construction of new affordable units in London and to report back to Council with recommendations. Thank you, Councillor, looking for a seconder for the amendment. You got two seconders, I would second as well, but I’ll go first to Councillor Trussell. He was first, so seconded by Councillor Trussell.

Okay, with that amendment, that’s a new speaker’s list. So I will look to committee for discussion. Councillor McAllister. Thank you and through the chair.

And thank you to staff, Mr. Felberg, for working with me on this. I’ve encountered this issue. I think this is one that I’m sure a number of my colleagues will also have experience with.

I think it’s just essentially filling the void with a bonus thing going away from the province. We do have developers who are now obviously looking to still invest in affordable housing, but they are looking for, as is described, a cash and lieu policy. So for an example, think with the York development that was downtown, they made a donation to Inwell. And similar in that vein, I’m sure other developers would also be looking to donate to projects, but in this way, at least we will have a policy in terms of moving forward, what that would look like.

So developers have a benchmark they can use in their planning. Thank you, Councillor. Any other members? Councillor Purple.

Very much support of it. To be honest with you, and when we had the bonus thing, this would be my preference, because I think when we have the money, of course adequate funding from these developers, I think it’s better for us. We can make our own decisions. We are in charge of our own destiny, and we don’t have to rely on two, three, four units to be done in many years in advance.

So I really think this is a great proposal, which I will be supporting fully. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Any other committee members?

Okay, I’m gonna hand the chair over to Councillor McAllister. Please give it back to me. I’m the next on the speaker’s list. Okay, recognizing the chair, go ahead, Councillor for her.

Thank you, Councillor. So this team brings out very good things, exactly what we’re asking for all the time. And just looking at some of the notes, I gotta go over these on just your progress so far. 60% of the total units have been approved.

498 units have been completed and occupied. 729 units in the planning phase, that means applications received, and 598 with permits issued. So this has only been around for a little while, and we’ve already seen a substantial impact. And now, we have extra funding for capacity through our multi-year budgeting, an extra $10 million from the Housing Accelerator Fund.

So I’m very excited to see what comes next. I already see that you have on the agenda, you’re already set up. You got the Duluth property, you got the school on Hamilton Road, you got your Hyde Park properties. I’m very, very excited to see what’s coming forward.

I see that the capacity is there, the team’s expertise is there. So I just wanna say thank you, seriously, thank you, because we need affordable housing and your team is developing that. So I’m very appreciative of seeing something like that and seeing this on the agenda. I’m always happy when I see the housing development, municipal housing development bring something forward.

So again, thank you for that. And those are my comments. Okay, I’m passing the chair back to you, just letting you know we’re still on the amendment. Thank you, Councilor.

So yeah, I will be supportive of that. Looking for other committee members to speak, none, Councilor Perbal, the amendment. I got a little ahead of myself, I’m sorry. Okay, let’s take that to a vote.

Let’s call the question. Posing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Okay, now the motion as amended. I am looking to committee for anybody who would like to speak to this, Councilor Perbal.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, to the staff. I do have a couple of questions. The first one is currently, if I remember correctly that there was a, we offered a $20,000 grant and $25,000.

It was the offset planning and development fees. The current proposal of $45,000, is it meant kind of in the same way, or are there any changes? Thank you, Councilor, Mr. Valberg.

Through you, Mr. Chair. So that’s correct. It was a $20,000 grant and $25,000 grant in lieu of DCs and planning fees with the changes to the DC Act, what we felt, and what the feedback we received from the local sector as well, through some of our reference groups, was that the $45,000 was really a number that they were targeting, and it allowed us to be able to respond to their applications when they came in.

It also reduces the complexity by having a single grant, as opposed to a separated grant. So it allows us to respond a little bit better, and it allows us to establish an administration, and allows the developers to plan for the work, and they know what the city’s going to provide them. Thank you, Mr. Valberg, Councilor Perble.

Thank you, and for the ones that were existing, there is a, and again, correct me if I’m wrong, in the fall, there’s gotta be a second round for the RFPs, and is it coming back to us, or when is it coming back to us in terms of the proposal for the amounts for the RFPs in the second round? Thank you, Councilor, Mr. Valberg. Through you, Mr.

Chair. So we went out with the RFPQ last fall, and we pre-approved or pre-qualified, just over 60 different organizations. So we’re currently working on developing the RFPs, where those organizations that have been pre-qualified, they’ll have an opportunity to bid on some of the properties and some of the projects that we, that we the city have developed. So we have an RFP going out soon, probably in the next two weeks that will work towards one of those, and then additionally, we’ll have a further RFP that could be for property owners or nonprofits that have property, they have a building, they have a project that they want to invest in, and they want to develop affordable housing, and they’ll be able to come forward, put a bid in for that, and then we would align that $45,000 per unit grant to that proposal that they bring in.

Thank you, Councilor. Thank you for that answer, so I understand correctly, in the ones that were already qualified in the first round for 2025, would they, that would be additional 45, I understand in front of us is the 45 new, but for the existing one, there will be additional 45, Councillor to staff. Through you, Mr. Chair.

No, so the pre-qualification didn’t, didn’t formalize a grant that we would provide at the time. This, this report should council approve it, would allow us to provide that $45,000 per unit grant. Anything that was approved and already has a municipal contribution agreement is not included in what we’ve already established. So for example, the Chelsea Green report that was on the agenda this evening, we’re not looking to go backwards, we’re looking to move forwards from here.

Thank you very much, no more questions? Thank you, Councillor, looking to committee for any further comments, Councillor McAllister. Thank you, through the chair. Just echoing a lot of what Councillor Ferris said, in terms of appreciate the work that’s gone into this and the progress made so far, I did just want to call out D as a board member for London Real Sex Housing.

I know they would appreciate in terms of prioritizing our redevelopment of those lands. It’s a huge undertaking, long time coming, and I know they appreciate any support we can offer from the city. So thank you. Thank you, Councillor, looking to committee for any further comments or questions.

I see none, last call. Okay, let’s call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Okay, that leaves us with item 2.11.

We do have a delegation request. I would look to committee, but I would also note that this recommendation is for a public participation meeting, which means that there will be, just like we saw with the renovations, there will be a chance for delegates to come and speak at that public participation meeting. I do believe Mr. Bolsha is in the gallery up to the left, so I will look to committee to put either the staff recommendation down or anything else, so just looking to committee.

Councillor Trussell. I think in light of the fact that there’s going to be a public participation meeting, we can defer the delegation. I think that that would be appropriate, so I want to move on to the discussion. Okay, looking for a seconder, seconded by Councillor McAllister.

Okay, looking for a speaker’s list. So just going back to Councillor Trussell, you’re looking to refer the delegation to the public participation meeting. Yes, I am. Okay, and the seconder, you’re seconding that, okay.

Okay, no discussion, calling the vote. Opposing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Okay, thank you. So we would need to put the recommendation, the staff recommendation down, so looking to committee by Councillor Trussell for the staff recommendation.

I would like to make an amendment to it. Can I do them both at the same time? What do you, let’s hear what you’re amending. My amendment would be that we hold the public participation meeting on a future CPSC meeting with respect to the draft advocacy message signed by-law, as well as by-law pertaining to the display of graphic images.

So what I want to say is I want both alternatives to be within scope at the public participation meeting. And so it’s clear that people are welcome to address either or both. Thank you, Councillor. I’m just going to look to the clerk to see if they got that.

Councillor, we’re just going to put it up on the screen for the rest of the committee, and then I’ll look for a seconder. And if you can also confirm that, that is what you were intending. This is 0.11. I don’t see it, that’s exactly right.

So Councillor, you’re okay with that? Yes. Okay, looking for a seconder from committee, that’s seconded by Councillor McAllister. Okay, looking to committee for discussion.

Councillor Trussell first and then Councillor Pribble. Very briefly, I think I’ll just say that we’re not passing a judgment on either of these bylaws here today. We’re simply setting these for public participation meeting, and I will leave it to staff to determine when that should be. And I’ll look forward to the public participation meeting.

And I think at that point, we’ll be in a better position to make further refinements to whatever bylaw we may decide we want to pass. Thank you, Councillor, Councillor Pribble. Thank you, and I do appreciate the staff taking kind of the content neutral towards this proposal, but I will not be supporting it, and I will not be supporting it, not because I’m against public participation meeting, but I’m just not supportive of making any changes. And as I stated before, freedom of expression, freedom, even though this doesn’t go on the freedom of speech, very much truly believe in it.

And I think the way we have is, in terms of the public spaces, what we have in place, I’m not supportive of any changes, so I will not be supporting it, and I will be voting no. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor, looking to the rest of committee for any type of comments. This is just on the amendment.

The full motion is there with the amendment. Is that correct? Okay, I’m sorry, through you, just to clarify, if I have my own amendment now, or do we have to vote on this amendment? So you can introduce your amendment right now, if you please.

Okay, thank you. And I know we are, obviously, this is just a motion to go to a PPM, but I want this amendment in there for discussion at the PPM to gauge public opinion. So what I’m looking to do is, sorry, I just wanna find the right spot, so I make sure. So this would be under the additional regulations portion of the by-law, and it would be to add in a content disclaimer sign, which would read a warning sign must be displayed alongside signage that shows images of deceased humans or animals, and must visibly state, contains graphic images, images being in brackets, that may be offensive or disturbing to some people.

Okay, we do have that language, and I believe the Councillor circulated that to members of the committee. I am looking for a seconder on that. It’s seconded by Councillor Troso. Okay, discussion.

Councillor McAllister, go ahead. Thank you, and through you. Yeah, just I wanted to take this opportunity as we were going to the PPM anyways to add this in, recognizing in terms of the feedback we’ve received today that this is not to cover any images, but I do think that this is appropriate in terms of, you know, displaying images that are sensitive to the public, that we should have a disclaimer to allow people to make informed consent in terms of what they’re seeing and whether they want to see it. So I think that this is in line.

I don’t believe this isn’t fringing on anyone’s freedoms. I think that this is appropriate just so people are aware in terms of the images that are being displayed and what the content of contains. Thank you, Councillor. Looking to committee for any further comments on the amendment.

I see none. Last call. Okay, let’s call the question. Opposing the vote, the motion carries.

Three, one. Okay, now we have the motion as amended on the floor. So looking to committee for discussion on that. Last call, okay.

We do need a seconder for the motion as amended. Sorry, we need a second to stand by. We’re just prepping that for eScribe and then we’ll call the question. Okay, I will let look for one last call.

Okay, let’s call the question. Councillor McAllister. Opposing the vote, the motion carries three to one. Okay, that leaves us with the last item adjournment.

We can do this by hand. I’m looking for a mover to adjourn. Moved by Councillor McAllister, seconded by Councillor Pribble. Let’s do this by hand.

All in favor, opposed? That motion carries. We’re adjourned.