September 9, 2024, at 1:00 PM

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1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by Mayor J. Morgan

That Items 2.1 and 2.5 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

2.1   4th Report of the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee

2024-08-22 ACAC Report

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by Mayor J. Morgan

That the 4th Report of the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee, from the meeting held on August 22, 2024, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.5   Housing Stability Services - Housing Access Centre - Rent-Geared-to-Income (RGI) Waitlist Placement Ratio

2024-09-09 SR Housing Stability Services Housing Access Centre - Part 1

2024-09-09 SR Housing Stability Services Housing Access Centre - Part 2

2024-09-09 SR Housing Stability Services Housing Access Centre - Part 3

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by Mayor J. Morgan

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated September 9, 2024, related to Housing Stability Services Housing Access Centre Rent-Geared-to-Income (RGI) Waitlist Placement Ratio:

a)    the ratio at which Rent-Geared-to-Income (RGI) Households are housed BE MAINTAINED at a rate of 20% Urgent Status households, to 80% chronological waitlist households;

b)    the local rule for use of Urgent Homeless, Urgent Medical, and Urgent Social Status applications BE AMENDED to discontinue accepting Urgent Status applications as of September 25, 2024  and a new local rule for prioritization (Over-housed, Urgent, Chronological) BE IMPLEMENTED, and;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back on the outcomes of the RGI Waitlist Ratio, Urgent Status, and new prioritization changes, by the end of March 2026. (2024-S11)

Motion Passed

2.2   Renovictions - Amendments to the Business Licensing By-law to Introduce a Rental Unit Repair Licence

2024-09-09 SR Renovictions - Amendments to Buisness Licensing By-law

That the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated September 9, 2024, related to Renovicions and Amendments to the Business Licensing By-law to Introduce a Rental Unit Repair Licence:

a)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on September 24, 2024, to amend By-law No. L.-131-16, being “A by-law to provide for the Licensing and Regulation of Various Businesses” to introduce Schedule 23 – Rental Unit Repair Licence and its associated regulations;

b)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on September 24, 2024, to amend By-law No. A-54, being “A by-law to implement an Administrative Monetary Penalty System in London” to introduce penalty amounts for the proposed licensing schedule;

c)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on September 24, 2024, to amend By-law No. A-59, being “A by-law to provide for Various Fees and Charges”; and,

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to submit a Multi-Year Budget update reflecting staffing needs for the Rental Unit Repair Licence program;

it being noted that verbal delegations from K. Andrews, C. Wittnebel, J.M. Smith, M. Jollymore, T. Jollymore, D. Millette and R. Slade, with respect to this matter, were received. (2024-C01)

Additional Votes:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to approve the requests for delegation, as listed on the Added Agenda, from K. Andrews, C. Wittnebel, J.M. Smith, M. Jollymore, T. Jollymore, D. Millette and R. Slade, to be heard at this meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 1)

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the matter of renovictions and amendments to the business licensing by-law BE REFERRED back to the Civic Administration to report back to a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee to include rent top ups and alternate accommodations as part of the by-law.

Motion Failed (2 to 4)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to amend By-law No. L.-131-16, being “A by-law to provide for the Licensing and Regulation of Various Businesses”, attached to the CPSC report, to include temporary alternative accommodation for displaced tenants and short-term rental top ups as provided in the City of Hamilton By-law as Appendix “E” in the staff report dated September 9, 2024 and be brought to Council September 24, 2024 for consideration.

Motion Failed (2 to 4)

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by E. Peloza

Motion to approve parts a) to d) of the main motion.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by E. Peloza

Motion to approve part e) of the main motion:

e)    that NO ACTION BE TAKEN to amend By-law No. CP-19, the Residential Rental Unit Licensing By-law to expand the program to licence all multi-unit residential dwellings up to and including four (4) storeys in height or less, including those units contained in sub-levels.

Motion Failed (2 to 3)

2.3   Regulating Maximum Temperature in Rental Units

2024-09-09 SR Regulating Max Temperatures in Rental Units

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 September 9, 2024, related to Regulating Maximum Temperature in Rental Units:

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

b)     a draft by-law BE PREPARED for a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee;

it being noted that the communications, as appended to the Agenda and the Added Agenda, and the verbal delegations from K. Pagniello and A.M. Valastro, with respect to this matter, were received. (2024-C01)

Additional Votes:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to approve the delegation requests, as appended to the Agenda and the Added Agenda, from K. Pagniello and A.M. Valastro, to be heard at this meeting

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to approve part a) of the motion.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Motion to approve part b) of the motion.

Motion Passed (4 to 1)

2.4   Special Events Policy Update

2024-09-09 SR Special Events Policy Update

That the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated September 9, 2024, related to the Special Events Policy:

a)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to hold a public participation meeting at the November 11, 2024 Community and Protective Services Committee to receive input on the draft Special Events Policy; and,

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back with a summary of community feedback and an amended Special Events Policy at a future Community and Protective Services Committee meeting; and,

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to hold a hybrid community meeting with residents and neighborhood associations near Victoria Park, Harris Park, and Dundas Place to address the impact of changes to the Special Events Policy on their neighborhoods;

it being noted that a communication, as appended to the Added Agenda, and a verbal delegation from A.M. Valastro, with respect to this matter, were received.

Motion Passed

Additional Votes:

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to approve the request for delegation, as appended to the Added Agenda, from A.M. Valastro, to be heard at this meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to approve a new part d):

the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to hold a hybrid community meeting with residents and neighborhood associations near Victoria Park, Harris Park, and Dundas Place to address the impact of changes to the Special Events Policy on their neighborhoods.

Motion Passed (4 to 1)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to approve the motion, as amended.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   Amendments to the Vehicle-for-Hire By-law (L.-130-71)

2024-09-09 SR Amendments to the Vehicle for Hire By-law

Moved by Mayor J. Morgan

Seconded by E. Peloza

That the attached revised by-law, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on September 24, 2024, to amend By-law No. L.-130-71, being the Vehicle for Hire By-law, to amend Part 2 with the following changes to the by-law:

a)     a two year extension for gas powered vehicles and 1 year extension for hybrid and EV with two annual safety inspections and two annual city inspections

b)     the 120-day-on-the-road regulation for taxis be referred back to the Civic Administration for consultation with the industry;

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

  •    F. Bander;

  •    H. Savehilaghi; and,

  •    R. Caranci. (2024-C01)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by E. Peloza

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   Life*Spin - Property Standards and Tenant Support - REQUEST FOR DELEGATION STATUS

2024-09-09 Sub. Property Standards and Tenant Support - LifeSpin

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the request for delegation status from Life*Spin, as appended to the agenda, with respect to Property Standards and Tenant Support, BE APPROVED to be heard at a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee. (2024-A20)

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Confidential

Moved by E. Peloza

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 in Stage 6, Confidential, to be considered in Stage 4, Items for Direction

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by E. Peloza

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 draft Rental Unit Repair Licence amendments to the Business Licensing By-law.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

The Community and Protective Services Committee convened In Closed Session from 1:48 PM to 2:02 PM.

7.   Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 5:12 PM.

Full Transcript

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

View full transcript (4 hours, 20 minutes)

that issue. You have a template. You have a template. Hello.

Okay. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the 11th meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee. I’d like to welcome everyone in council chambers, staff, and everyone online.

Please check the city website for additional meeting and detail information. Meetings can be viewed via live streaming on YouTube and the city website. And I will begin with the land acknowledgement. The city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Paudenosaunee, Lina 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, Métis, and Inuit today. As representatives of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. The city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication support for meeting upon request.

To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact cpsc@london.ca or call 519-661-249-extension-2425. I will look to the members of the committee. We have the Vice Chair, Councillor Elizabeth Palosa, to my left. Councillor Hadley McAllister Ward 1, to my right.

Councillor Trussell, Sam Trussell, is to my right. And Councillor Jerry Pribble is online with us today. I’d like to also recognize visiting members. We have Mayor Morgan, Councillor Peter Cutty, Councillor ramen, and I believe Councillor Stevenson is online as well.

So I will first look for any disclosures of interest. I see none. So I’d like to just make a little bit of comments. We have a big agenda today, big meeting, and we have a few delegation requests for the majority of the consent items.

So before beginning, I’d just like to point out to members of the committee that items 2.3 and 2.4 are scheduled for a public participation meeting in the future. 2.4, the Special Events Policy Update, scheduled for November 11th at this point in time. And 2.3, regulating maximum temperature in rental units. We will see a future draft by-law, which means we will see a public participation meeting coming at that point as well.

So I’d like to, and we also actually have a scheduled PPM today for the vehicle for higher by-law. So I would ask committee members to make these considerations for delegations. And also I would like to move a change of order for item 2.2, which I have pulled, and that change of order would look for us to go into confidential setting before we do the public debate. So Councillor Pelozan.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Happy to move a confidential session to be dealt with first. Thank you, Councillor, looking for a seconder.

Seconded by McAllister, and we will put that up on the scribe for a vote. Councillor votes, yes. Councillor Peruzza. Peruzza, votes, yes.

For a vote, yes. Opposing the vote, the motion carries. 6-0. Thank you, colleagues.

Okay, so I have some delegations. I have a poll request for 2.2, and 2.3, and 2.4 for the, because of the delegation. So I would look for council to motion 2.1 and 2.5 of the consent. Point of order.

Go ahead. Mr. Chair, we did just motion, and it passed to do confidential session first. So thank you, Councillor.

I was going to go into the confidential session at items of four direction, but if the committee would like, we can go into confidential session now. Both ways are appropriate. This is, okay, we would need a motion to go into session right now. Looking for a mover, bad motion.

Sorry, Mr. Chair, I’m just looking in the east curb to pull the last vote that we just had about confidential session. Oh, is it changed the change of order 1? Mr.

Mayor. Yes. So procedurally, we just passed a motion to move it somewhere in the agenda. I don’t know exactly what it said.

So I think the chair should just check with the clerk, find out where we moved it to the agenda. If the vote was actually to move it to right now, we should go into a confidential session right now. If it was to move it somewhere else, then we should go in where it is because that’s what we passed. So I would just double check.

As you know, for us, it’s hard to pull up an e-scribe a vote that isn’t attached to something, so we can’t actually see it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Looking at the motion right now, it does say for that confidential change of order to go into confidential session would be considered at stage four items for direction.

So my intention was to move into the confidential session right before we hear item 2.2 in section four. So I’m looking for the consent items that weren’t pulled. That’s items 2.1 and 2.5. So looking for a mover for those two items by Councillor McAllister and a seconder.

Seconded by Mayor Morgan for a vote. Sorry, Mr. Chair. Eastford, I’m unloaded.

Which consent items are in the floors? I do have some questions about some of them. It’s consent items 2.1 and 2.5. And we will, we can go to questions once we move those onto the floor.

So 2.1 and 2.5 are on the floor. So looking to members of committee first for any questions or statements, Mr. McAllister. Thank you through the chair.

So these questions would be for 2.5. I’m wondering if staff could just speak in terms of the maintaining of the 20% urgent status with 80% chronological, just to give the public in terms of brief overview, the logic behind maintaining as is. Thank you, Councillor. Mr.

Dickens. Through you, your chair. Thank you for the question. So back in October of 2023, Council endorsed a placement ratio change to the 80/20 split.

We feel for consistency purposes that maintaining that split for the time being is effective. It’s also consistent with the practices of the last year. What we’re proposing in this report is to really update and reflect where the broader housing and social support system is in 2024 compared to where it was in 2005 when this was created. Back when urgent status was introduced in 2005, housing was far more affordable and readily available and things have significantly changed since then.

So what we’re proposing in this report is to actually do away with the urgent status classification knowing that there are other systems and supports and housing programs and a whole of community system response that can support those individuals. And we would honor the or still support the roughly 1500 people that are still on that urgent status wait list. We would just cease to accept new applications under that designation. So maintaining the placement ratio for all of those currently in the pipeline is just a consistent practice.

Thank you, Mr. Dickens. Councilor? Thank you.

Through the chair, as a follow-up, just for clarity because the new applications wouldn’t be accepted under urgent status. I’ve just had some members of the public reach out in terms of, I think, some confusion on that that essentially we’re working through the urgent status that we have, but we wouldn’t be adding to it. I was just also wondering in terms of you’d mention the success we’ve seen with the new ratio. If you could just maybe speak a bit more to that in terms of have we seen the wait list go down?

What’s been the impact of that? Thank you, Councilor, Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair.

I wouldn’t say that there’s been a lot of success as the report indicates. The period of time and the lack of movement in the RGI space has really limited any ability to identify clear measurable changes now through community partner engagement and consultation with housing providers, with RGI providers, with some of the tenants through those spaces. There’s a lot of positive feedback that steers us in this direction and that support that change. The team under Mr.

Cooper’s leadership has also engaged a number of other municipalities of like size with similar policies and they’ve been able to demonstrate that it’s had a positive effect on some of the safety and living conditions in those spaces as well. Thank you, Mr. Dickens. Councillor, thank you, no further questions.

Thank you, Councillor. I have Councillor, Trustor, next. Through the Chair, is there someone here from LMHC to address questions from their perspective? Thank you, Councillor, Mr.

Dickens. Through you, Chair, this is a civic administration report and not an LMCH specific report. There are thousands of RGI units in the community, LMCH being our affiliate, but also one of the largest, but it is not a report from LMCH as a civic admin. Thank you, Mr.

Dickens. Okay, thank you very much. Through the Chair, then I’ll keep this very, very brief. I continue to have substantial concerns about the conditions of these units and regardless of what method we use to move people into new units, I need to better understand that whoever is being moved into a new unit is being moved into a habitable unit that’s been recently looked at, if not inspected, and I continue to get so many complaints about this that I just needed to ask this question.

Thank you, Councillor. I do believe that Mr. Dickens was directing the question to LMCH for the proper answer, so I will take those comments, but I won’t look to Mr. Dickens for an answer.

Also, looking to members of committee online, items 2.1 and 2.5, I have none. Okay, let’s call the question. Councillor Pribble will see us posing the vote. The motion carries 6-0.

Okay, that leaves us with scheduled items. We have one, item 3.1, for a public participation meeting, for the vehicle for hire by-law, and I will look to committee to open up the public participation meeting. I do believe we have two members here or two delegates that are wishing to speak, so Councillor Trussell, are you moving that, looking for a seconder? Seconded by Councillor Palazzo, let’s call the question.

Councillor Pribble, yes. Closing the vote, the motion carries 6-0. Okay, I believe we have one member wishing to speak in the gallery, so if you are here, please come to this microphone or that microphone, and this is for the vehicle for hire, public participation. We see no one.

Okay, we have someone online, I believe. Okay, bander, please turn on your camera, and when you’re ready, I will give you five minutes. Please unmute your microphone. Yes, I am ready.

Okay, thank you. You have five minutes starting now. Okay, thank you for this opportunity. My name is Patty Fender.

Can you hear me? Can you hear you loud and clear? Actually, we work in this extension for two years, and they decide to make it extension one year. So, the reason for two years, because the people, they’re going to spend money under the cars to put it back on the road.

One year, I don’t think it’s enough for to spend like six, seven thousand dollars for the car and to put it back in the road. So, we ask for two years, and the other thing is for the accessible caps, when we work on it for a long time, I didn’t see they give us more time for it. So, one year is not enough. I wish if you in a state of extension, they can make it in the bylaw.

So, they can change from 10 years to 12 years. Thank you. Thank you. Looking for any other speakers online or in the gallery that would like to speak to this item.

We have no one online. Last call for the gallery. I have a gentleman here to the right microphone. Thank you.

Please state your name. Good afternoon. My name is Hassan. Sorry.

Hey, Loggy. Thank you. You have five minutes beginning now. Yes, co-founder of Yellow London Taxi.

Before I start my comments, I want to offer my sincere thanks to Nicole and Mark for quite a bit of communication they maintained in recent few months to bring us to this point. The items on the agenda, one comes to Asia vehicle and a few other items including accessible cap and sustainability of accessible cap were topics of discussions for, I don’t know, which has been maybe for a number of years. But recently, the office staff put some sincere efforts to communicate with the industry and see what can be done. One comes to Asia vehicles.

I think I forgot the date, but a few weeks back, we had a meeting with Nicole and Mark that was their efforts to put it together and organize it. And we had a roundtable discussion with representatives of taxi industry and city staff. One thing regardless what the incentives are going to be, what city is going to allow. One thing was a main concern from all of us, particularly from myself representing Yellow London Taxi.

Whatever we do, we definitely cannot jeopardize public safety and consumer safety. So in that sense, I noticed the wordings of frequent inspections or adding one more inspection, what safety certificate provided, and that will be directly a responsibility on the shoulders of city staff at licensing office to be done. If the age is, I don’t know, two years added or one year added or three years added, the whole point is making sure later on just takes one single accident based on safety concerns, city can legally get in trouble, and any taxi company get in trouble. Plus, I believe we owe it to general public, whatever service we provide, we cannot jeopardize safety of general public.

So in terms of warnings of what I saw on the recommendations, I’m not very sure if it’s strong enough and kind of straightforward for everybody to understand. Say if we add currently the age of vehicle to be on the road as a cab is 10 years, if the city agrees to two more or three more years, every year instead of one safety certificate at the end of the year provided to renew business licenses, it should be two of them. Basically, we are talking about the safety mechanism in place and city is in charge of it. That’s all for in five minutes, I could say there’s a lot more to be said to be a frank taxi industry overall is not in a good status in terms of many elements working against it.

I think the final point I want to make expediting functionality of that task force I personally recommended a couple of years ago. So we can set these expectations and dialogue and communication on a timely manner through the year. So we can provide some meaningful recommendations because amendment to the bylaw is not very easy. If we have these dialogues ongoing, I think it will be a lot more helpful to members of city council before they vote on something, they have something meaningful.

I know many of you have no experience about bylaw, taxi, bylaw, and taxi industry how it works. So this dialogue through task force information provided to you, I think it’s going to be a lot more helpful to all of you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Okay, so I will now look, oh, we have another speaker to the left, just a second. Okay, please state your name. Roger Krancy. Hello, Mr.

Krancy, you have five minutes beginning now. Mr. Chair, thank you for the time. I just want to echo the sentiments of Hassan regarding staff and how well they’ve worked to do what they’ve brought you in the report here.

And in the past few years, it’s been a challenging year for the industry. And I know that staff have listened quite intently on how to make things hopefully better. As you’re, I’m sure aware, many of you on council is the cost of doing business in any industry has gone up quite significantly since the pandemic. And the I’m here on behalf, I have to state I’m here on behalf of you need a cap in London.

And I know that some of the other companies are also in agreement on what I will present or ask you for today. But as I’ve said, the industry has faced some challenges most with pricing with the cost of equipment. Obviously, the cost of vehicles has gone up immensely, I believe up to 40% for a used vehicle, which is where the the industry gets most of their vehicles from used in the car market. And that is something where it is definitely a challenge.

So in relation to the extra year that the city is or the staff of recommending here, we would like that that be extended to two years. And the second year, you can do you can put on there that there could be two inspections for the vehicle to look at, but it would be extremely helpful and help the challenges that the industry has right now and in helping pay for the vehicles, pay them off. And again, they need a longer amortization period in order for the the owner operators to make money on them. So that would be the request from the drivers and from the the company.

And the other issue has to be with the 120 day road on the road regulation. What we’re asking for there is that is an outdated requirement. We believe that it’s not required anymore. The and what we’d like to propose, I’ll just put it straight straight ahead forward is a two year that somebody can hold their license for up to two years.

Again, the industry is facing challenges partly because of what happened a few years back where another player came into the marketplace did not follow rules and regulations when they opened and hurt the the industry very, very badly. This is something where we would like to take this off. Somebody can hold their license for up to two years and then put their cars back on the road. But cars obviously would have to be checked and certified for them to be on the road.

So again, very happy with what the staff has put forward. We look forward to more dialogue in the near future with attack with a task force. But we actually require the two things would make it very, very helpful to an industry that is met challenges over the past few years and and requires this to this these two things to be done which would help immensely. And we thank the the council or the committee for their their listening and thank you for your consideration of this and hope that this could be what is put forward.

So Mr. Chair, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Looking to committee for or sorry gallery for any other speakers.

Last call for the gallery looking online. We have not online. Okay. I will look to committee to close the public participation meeting.

I have Councillor Palosa moving. Seconding Councillor McAllister. Let’s put that to the vote. Closing the vote.

The motion carries six to zero. Okay. Looking to committee for discussion. Visiting members.

Mayor Morgan. Yes. I wonder if through the chair I could ask staff. There were I mean two specific requests that were commented on by the industry.

I really have no idea the consequences of those or why staff did or didn’t recommend them. So I wonder if there’s any context or additional information they can supply based on what they heard in the public participation meeting that might help with what is decision making. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I will look to Mr. Catolic. Yes. Through the chair.

We’re going to split this into two sessions or responses because of what we just heard at the PPM. With respect to the one-year extension, civic administration should be open to extending regular vehicles for another two years. With the condition that there will be two additional safeties during those two years period per year and two additional inspections each year for two years. We want to keep the electric hybrid at a higher level because we want to promote those types of vehicles in consideration of city council’s climate emergency action plan.

Currently we have about one quarter of the fleet in the city that are electric or EV vehicles operating on roads. With respect to 120-day successive, our recommendation was to remove the term successive. However, given what we just heard at the meeting today, we’d be open to having this referred back so we can have further consultation with the industry. The first recommendation, the reason I’m splitting these into two is renewal period is coming up in October.

We do this every fall and it’s important to the industry to know what the year and make of the model is when they’re purchasing vehicles. The 120 successive days that could come later at a recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Matolik.

Mr. Mayor Morgan. Yes. So even the response from staff on that, I’m comfortable when the committee’s ready to move and I will need some assistance from the clerk because I only just heard the delegations and heard Mr.

Matolik’s answer, but move exactly what Mr. Matolik said, the change and the conditions to the one-year extension piece with the parameters as he’s outlined, and the referral back of the 120-day things for staff analysis. I’d be willing to move that at the appropriate time, Mr. Chair, but I would obviously need some help on language on that from Mr.

Matolik and our staff because I’m hearing it for the first time, but given I don’t hear any objection from staff in doing those things and my question about any consequences to that, there were none. I don’t see why we wouldn’t try to support an industry that is struggling with some small modifications to the way that we’re moving forward in time before the renewal period. So I’ll look to your guidance on if you want me to move that now. How would I just move that now, but I’ll need help with the language.

Well, you can move that now. Let me just look to the clerk to see if we have some language. We have a seconder and Councillor Palazzo as well. Mr.

Mayor, just for the clerk’s reference, could you just state the motion or just some language to help us out? You’re looking for a two-year extension and a referral back, correct? No, I’m going to ask Mr. — and I would rarely do this, and I’m only doing it because I asked the question based on the delegation, so I don’t have a prepared motion.

I’m reacting to the delegation and the response staff gave. I really like the way Mr. Catolik articulated specific pieces with the conditions that he was comfortable with. So what I’d like to move is exactly what he said because I’m very comfortable with the parameters that he outlined.

So perhaps, I mean, I’m happy to look it over and approve it, but perhaps Mr. Catolik and his team could assist with the language because if we’re moving forward with it, I want it to be technically correct. I don’t want to wing it myself. Thank you, Mr.

Mayor. Mr. Catolik, we’re looking for your assistance on this. Yes, through the chair, I’m looking at the Appendix A, and it would simply say an extension of two years for gas-powered vehicle for hires, so that would go from 10 years to 12 years.

Electric and EVs would be from 12 years to 13 years with the condition of an annual — sorry — two annual safeties for each year of extension and two annual city inspections for each year of the extension. And with respect to 120 days, simply referred back to city administration for further discussion with industry. And we can have a draft by-law for Council if this passes today. Okay, just a moment.

Okay, we think we have the motion captured. We’re just doing some last-minute editing, and then we’ll put it up, and then you can review it on e-scrap. It’s up for your review. So to me, that looks close.

I wouldn’t mind asking Mr. Catolik if that aligns. I remember there was a small difference between EV vehicles and regular vehicles, so I want to make sure that this direction is captured. I know we have a chance to get this right at Council, but it needs to be right enough that the bill is actually written in the way that it was intended.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I saw Mr. Catolik shaking his head, so I think he’s got some corrections here.

Mr. Catolik. Thank you. I was kind of shaking my head in a positive way.

Just for clarity, I think we should differentiate between gas-powered and hybrid EV vehicles. So it would be two-year extension for gas-powered vehicles and a one-year extension for hybrid and EV. Refresh your screens. Okay, I’m good with that.

Okay, looking to committee, visiting members, Council Raman. Thank you, and through you, just looking at the vehicle for higher industry feedback from 2.4, and I’m just wondering if staff might be able to comment because the change implies the need for more inspections, and in some of the commentary from industry feedback, it doesn’t really align, particularly with what we’re putting into the by-law, so I’m just wondering if you can comment. It looks like we’re increasing the number of inspections as well from the city side, but also the increase of the additional inspections on the maintenance side. Thank you, Councillor.

Mr. Catolik. Yes, through the chair, the focus of this is to have additional inspections for the extra years. On an annual basis, there is a requirement for a vehicle MTO safety, and every fall, we do our city inspections annually, so it’s only for those extension years.

Thank you, Councillor. Thank you. So the feedback around the by-annual was only as it relates to under the 10-year threshold, not moving it to the 12-year threshold. That’s correct.

Okay, I’m hoping I could get more feedback perhaps from the industry on whether or not there’s any other considerations maybe that aren’t in play that I’m not aware of, but I do feel like I’m missing a component of how we’re catching the feedback received in the changes that we’re making. Thank you, Councillor. You’re looking for feedback from the industry. I will grant that.

I’ll look to anybody who wants to answer that question. You can come to the microphone. Councillor ramen, can you just repeat your questions regarding the inspections? Councillor.

Sure, so I’m just trying to see clarification. So where it says on to your extension of gas-powered vehicles with two annual safety inspections and two annual city inspections, yet in the feedback it said by annual inspections, I’m just making sure that we’re reflecting the desire of the industry as well or what was provided as commentary in the feedback around wanting by annual moving to now if we go above the 10 years having annual. So our preference would be that the 11th year we wouldn’t have any inspections other than what is included what we do right now, understanding that that may be what administration would like, but the second year we’re in agreement that more inspections would be I think would be the safe thing to do, not that we wouldn’t do them in the 11th year, but just following along from 1 to 10 taking it into 11 and the 12th year we can do the two inspections. But I don’t want that to be a sticking point.

Thank you, Councillor. Thank you. I was just trying to provide clarification for committee. It’s in their hands and I’ll wait to deal with that at council if not, thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. I have Councillor Pribble next. Thank you and the sort of chair question to the staff and I’m sorry I don’t see the motion in front of me, but in the motion that was just stated, is there actually Mr. Catholic mentioned that we want the EV and the hybrids to be benefited through this by-law and because I don’t see it, are you reflecting that question to Mr.

Catholic? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Mr.

Catholic? Yes, through the chair, there are benefits to the hybrids and EVs because they get to keep their car on the road as a vehicle for hire for one extra year up and above a gas powered vehicle. Thank you, Mr. Catholic, Councillor Pribble.

Thank you. No more questions? Thank you, Councillor, looking to committee or visiting members. Let’s call.

Okay, let’s call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Okay, thank you. We are now on items for direction.

I do believe that the request for delegation, the requestor was not able to make it for this item, but I do believe that a Councillor has a motion for that, so I will look for Councillor Trussle. Thank you very much. I’d like to move that with respect to item 4.1, this matter be put over to the next meeting of this committee. Councillor, just with discussion with the clerk, would we be able to approve it for a next committee meeting just so we can find a time, a future, a next future meeting or a future meeting for the committee so we can ensure that the time works for the delegation as well?

Yes, can we specify the date for that next meeting, please? We’re not. We’re asking to not specify date just a future meeting just with scheduling. That’s what we’re considering.

Okay, certainly. Thank you, Councillor. Looking for a seconder on that, and this would be to refer this delegation to a future meeting seconded by Councillor McAllister. Okay, call on the question.

Closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. So now with our change of order, I would like to put a motion out or look for a motion for the closed session, and this would be a matter pertaining to advice that is subject to solicitor client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose regarding the draft rental unit repair license amendments to the business licensing by-law. Looking for a motion to go into closed session, moved by Councillor McAllister, seconded by Councillor Pelosa. Let’s call the question.

Mayor Morgan, closing the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Okay, we will be doing this closed session here, so I’d ask everyone in the gallery to just temporarily please go out into the waiting room out there, and we will call you back when we come back into public session. Recording in progress. Okay, everyone, welcome back to the public session.

Thank you for giving us a chance to just speak in camera. We do have, sorry, next on the list is item 2.2 that was pulled from consent, and that is run evictions amendments to the business licensing by-law to introduce a rental unit repair license. I do see that there are some delegation requests, so I will look to committee, Councillor Trussle. Thank you, Chair.

I would like to move that the delegation requests 2.2, A through G, be granted, and they be limited to the normal five minutes. Thank you, Councillor, looking for a seconder, seconded by Councillor McAllister. Okay, that goes right to a vote, so it will be up in e-scribe, and I will call the question. In the vote, the motion carries 5 to 1.

Okay, so we are going to accept these delegations. I will ask- Sorry, Mr. Chair, procedurally, I guess a point of order, is it, or would you consider allowing staff to do a brief overview of this report prior to the delegates speaking to it, just to make sure that we’re on the same page before we invest potentially 35 minutes? Thank you, Councillor.

I would be in the committee’s hand, so if I have consensus from the committee, I want to ask for a vote, but I’ll just look for some nods. Okay, yeah, we will go to staff for a brief overview before we go to the delegations. Thank you. Through the chair, this is the fourth report since the issue was identified in January of this year, and I’m just going to highlight some of the changes that were made in the by-law from the PPM.

The first change we made was that we focused on the documentation that’s required to be submitted as part of the application process to only be accepted from a professional engineer or architect. So what we did, we removed the building code position because the level of professional oversight is not as high as it is with a professional engineer or an architect’s submission. Secondly, we shortened the time frame of a license to six months, and that is to better align with the building code act because the building code does require construction to begin in a substantial format within six months of issuance of the building permit. Thirdly, with respect to the amps, these are some of the highest administrative monetary penalties proposed in all the bylaws that we enforce.

And because this is an amendment to the business licensing by-law, the existing enforcement regulations within the business licensing by-law still apply. So in addition to issuance of amps, where there are repeated violations, we could do the standard enforcement protocol of charging and having the courts make a decision on the fine amounts. The fourth issue I’d like to focus on is specifically the rent top-up and the relocation similar to Hamilton. We are not recommending Hamilton’s model.

As I mentioned, our model is an amendment to the existing business licensing by-law. And as part of the by-law, we can put conditions on licenses to hold the by-law. And therefore, we have the authority to require a licensee to provide a sworn declaration that they are complying with the residential tendencies act with respect to relocation and top-ups. And lastly, the fees for applications, we slightly increase those from $400 to $600 to cover the cost of license issuance.

And at the same time, keeping an eye on the budget, we reduced the staffing requirement from originally around $600,000 to $300,000. And we did that based on the approved positions in the multi-year budget and also some relocation of staff and working with other departments because this isn’t just a municipal compliance issue. If there’s any further questions, we have staff here to answer the technical questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Catolek. I need a committee for any follow-up questions before anything, visiting members? Okay.

So for the delegations, I’m only going to be accepting the ones who are on the SATA agenda. You made the deadline, so I will go in order to ask you to speak. If you’re here, please come up to the microphone. I will say item or sorry, section 35.6 of the council procedure by-law does state that a member should say new information only.

So if someone before you has made a point and that is part of your comments, I would ask you to not make that point just so we don’t have redundancy and we can be efficient on this meeting. And I would also ask if we can make comments only related to the report. So with that said, I will look to Kay Andrews online. Okay.

So let’s just queue up Kay Andrews and then I will give you five minutes. Just let me know when you’re ready. Thank you very much. I am ready.

If I could start, I appreciate the time. I’m a landlord and tenant lawyer. I have been helping tenants for over 30 years. I now work at the Provincial Legal Clinic, the advocacy center for tenants in Ontario.

I delegated here on August 1st. I thank you very much for the opportunity to do so again. I’m sorry not to be there in person. Maybe this by-law is already underway.

Maybe the horses already left the barn, but I don’t believe that resistance is futile. So I have a few thoughts. I read the September 9th report in stages because I had to keep swallowing my blood pressure medication. Simply put, I don’t think that the September 9th report will solve the urgent problem that communities in Ontario have.

What the issue is identified in the report is to keep individuals and families housed and improve their existing living situations. Well, we all have a template and that template is New Westminster British Columbia. As soon as landlords were required to rehouse their tenants during a renovation process, the illegal dishonest fraudulent practice of just getting the vacancy and putting a new tenant in stopped. This is the magic bullet.

Needing a building permit is good and is an improvement. And I applaud you for that, but requiring rehousing is better. It disincentifies the dishonest landlord and it is not a problem for the new landlord or for the honest landlord. And I have two points to make with respect to this issue and the report that you issued.

The report suggests that you can’t rehouse because of the low vacancy rate and there’s going to be insurmountable difficulties to do this. Well, is the report saying that any major renovation is going to propel a family or an individual into homelessness? Is that what it’s saying? And if this is what it’s saying, please stop renovations because I would rather live in an apartment and disrepair than a tent in a park.

Now, I think what is being set out is overstated. Rehousing is difficult. No question. No question.

And we’re all living with this crisis, but in my experience, many solutions have been put forward. Sometimes tenants move in with the landlord while upstairs while the basement apartment flood is being fixed. Often landlords have other units and they develop a renovation schedule that can be organized. Sometimes landlords ask their landlord friends to give them vacancies.

Tenants find other accommodation and a top up should be available if that accommodation is more expensive. We have the dreaded Airbnb solution. We have landlords and tenants who could work it out. Gee, I’m going to Calgary for three months to work.

Why don’t you do the renovation then? It should be tried. These alternatives keep the connection between landlords and tenants. They ensure a legitimate and speedy renovation.

And the reasons that we don’t have enough housing is not is really the whole point. And it needs to be pursued as part of the solution. My second point is this emphasis on tenant education. Alas, this is blaming the victim.

Here is the game. An eviction happens by order of the landlord and tenant board or tenant vacates believing that a proposed renovation is happening. All the paperwork is done. All the paperwork is in the plans, the building permit.

And what the landlord does is then puts in his brother, his kid, himself, another tenant. And all this has happened in my practice. And most of my legal colleagues and the landlord and tenant board will tell you that once this happens, it is impossible to get the original tenant back, knowing your rights is irrelevant to what landlords do illegally and the terrible consequences that flow from that. And as I said, if the landlord does this, it’s a $2,500 fine.

Well, where can I write the check? Now, in conclusion, we have landlords making submissions to you, admitting the improper purpose that they want to put the N13 to what other evidence do you need? There is a terrible problem. There’s a loophole you can drive a truck through.

You need to pursue more robust solutions. People are suffering, affordable housing is disappearing as we speak. Thank you very much. Thank you.

That was exactly five minutes. I will look to the next speaker on the list that is C. Whittenbell, Claire. And you have, sorry, state, your name.

Well, it’s not a public participation meeting. We have you, sorry, five minutes starting now. Yes. Hello, committee members and staff.

My name is Claire Whittenbell. I am a representative of a leader in Acre and London at large chapter. The, I’ll be speaking as a representative. We appreciate the efforts of the community protective services committee to tackle this issue.

I deeply disagree and am quite frustrated with the staff report that’s been provided. I especially don’t agree with the dismissal of the relocation and accommodation assistance that is required in in Hamilton’s bylaw and should be required in our bylaw. The passing of the buck onto the RTA, onto the RTA costs that are passed on. The RTA does not provide any sort of rental accommodation or rental top up.

What it does require is three months rent at the tenants current rent to be paid out by the very end of when the tenants needs to get kicked out. This disproportionately impacts tenants that have affordable rents. If a if a tenant is paying $700 a month, they’ll only get 2,100 as a payment for for their displacement. That won’t pay for first and last month’s rent.

It probably might not even pay for one month’s rent. It definitely won’t pay for moving costs. It won’t help people stay off the streets. Passing the buck onto the RTA like that, it’s not going to solve the problem.

And the main issue that I want to focus on is that the cost of whatever sort, the cost of any sort of a liaison between a landlord and a tenant, which should be fairly minimal because you can have, all right, is there a unit available that the landlord can move the tenant into? No, all right, do their rental top up. There can be just a formula to do it. It should be fairly minimal on paperwork side of things.

But even if it is more consequential than that, I want to focus on the fact that the the preventative costs for keeping tenants in affordable units is vastly, vastly less than trying to keep people off the streets. Every affordable unit that we lose is more burden being placed on our health services, our housing services, our supports that are already straining under the weight of our current homelessness crisis, and failing to protect people who are still housed, who still have affordable housing, and requiring landlords to operate in good faith and operate with a good relationship with their tenant is absolutely vital. A toothless bylaw is not going to solve the problem. It’s not going to help the city budget when it comes to homelessness.

It’s worse than nothing. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. All right, I have Jordan Smith next to Jordan.

You have, sorry, just bear with me. You have five minutes starting now. Thank you, David. Again, my name is Jordan Smith.

I’m chair of the Carling Stony Brook chapter of London Acorn. I’m going to be trying to be as concise as possible. There’s a lot to break down here. I’ll start by saying something that you should all be aware of.

This city is bleeding affordable units. We’re losing them at a massive rate, and those 3,000 units that we plan in and we’re on track to build up in the next, I think we have four years left. It’s going to mean nothing, absolutely nothing if we can’t prevent the loss of affordable units that we’re already suffering under. I’ll go on next point.

I want you guys to really understand and put this in perspective. The original bylaw that was put together by Hamilton Acorn, Raven Institute, and Acto Law carefully crafted over six years, thousands of volunteer hours, thousands of lawyers, hours, pouring over this to create a well-balanced bylaw that is effective. And reading this report, this is a huge disservice to the committee and to this council. This council relies on your city staff to give you a full robust picture of what these bylaws could actually look like and how they could be implemented effectively.

And what you have in this report is not that, and it’s not even close. I don’t have in five minutes, I don’t have time to go through the details, but what I can tell you on the surface is that the flimsy logic, the counter arguments, major counter arguments against enacting a renovation bylaw in this city literally fall apart under the weight of their own logic. And what’s left is a pile of excuses that again, when you start to look at the details, amount to absolutely nothing but excuses. Again, this bill was carefully crafted.

You’ve heard from legal experts. You’ve had how much evidence do you need? How much of your constituency do you need to hear from before we do the right thing? And I just want to bring it home because this, I don’t want to detract from renovation bylaw, but added appendix E, section E added on this report should have had nothing to do with landlord licensing.

In fact, it had nothing to do with landlord licensing. But for mysterious reasons, there’s a section added on literally, I’d like to put in perspective, landlord licensing was the program that Acorn has been fighting for for over four and a half years. It’s the point that we rallied around to begin with. And there is no one, literally in those four, four and a half years that we’ve been working, no one outside this building thinks that landlord expanding our already existing landlord licensing program is anything but a no-brainer.

Please put that into perspective when you’ve got staff member Orris here telling you that they’ve looked in, they’ve looked into it with scrutiny and genuine detail. Because what we’re saying here is not to the gallery is not, um, I, I, we can’t have any disparaging of our staff. I’ll let you, I apologize. I’ll let you continue with that first and final warning.

I appreciate that. And I apologize for, uh, I’m not looking to single anyone out here, but what I, what I will say, like you’ve got an incredible, a hardworking staff, um, working to, to implement, to, to give you the whole picture, to report back. And what we’re seeing on, on the ground, without naming names and without going into disparaging anyone, that’s not, that has not happened in this report. And this is not the first time that this has happened.

We can go back and look at the reports, how, you know, how we reacted to the, the reports back on landlord licensing and why that was shut down. This is not the first time if a group, if a volunteer organization made up of the, the most of poor and moderate income people at best, the most vulnerable people of the population can come together and look at this report within less than a week and find these glaring logistic, glaring logical fallacies. How is it that the city staff doesn’t see that? And how is it, and, and I urge this, uh, city council to really apply some scrutiny to these reports that we’re getting, and, and we need to come up with a more robust system.

All we’re asked, we’re not ideologues, we are not pushing, we’re not pushing something that doesn’t work. If there, there’s certainly details that we can work that we can work out and discuss. But until we’re looking at this genuine, genuinely, and thoroughly, we’re at a loss. Like, how do we even have the converse?

How do we even have the conversation with a report like, with a report like this? Like I said, falls, falls apart under the weight of its own logic. And I wish I had more time to, to really hammer home and point out those details. If any of you’re interested, we’re, we’re certainly willing, well, uh, uh, more than welcome to, to help you help you understand and, and, and, Mr.

Chair, point of order. The speaker is now, sir, passed there five minutes. Yeah, he’s five seconds over. Yes.

Thank you. All right. Next, Charlie Moore. It’s me, Michelle.

Okay. You have five minutes starting now. Okay. So I’m from 1280 Webster Street, also 1270 Webster Street, which has been all over the media, which is, I believe, why this bylaw was coming to fruition.

Okay. I apologize if I get emotional or I get angry, but this impacts me, the most out of anyone. And I can talk from firsthand experience and point out all the errors with this bylaw, the tribunal, and this corrupt landlord. And nobody seems to be understanding this or assisting us tenants now.

Okay. Firstly, there were certain counselors that were at our property, May 12th of 2023. I would like an answer as to why did it take to get to council till January, because as a direct result of that, whose body is going to be on the street, October 31st. Mine.

Anyways, I reached out to several people last week because I watched the news pertaining to not having priority for emergency housing anymore. Yes. What? Another reason why Michelle’s going to be on the street, October 31st, because we actually have an order from the tribunal stating that.

Okay. So I’m really disappointed. Okay. And the last point regarding having the landlord pay for us somewhere else while these renovations are happening are crucial.

Just to give you a real life example, we got the order that we have to be out October 31st. We do not have money for first and last month rent, nor can we afford any of the rents that are currently being advertised. Therefore, a serious consideration when making these decisions should be the fact of the matter is that effective November 1st, my son and I will have to live off the city money or be out on the streets because not enough is being done to stop landlords from doing unnecessary renovations. At 1270 and 1280 Webster Street, they have a permit for a two foot wall.

We actually have the floor plans. Okay. They’re destroying the apartments. We had to go to the building permit office because now our lives are literally in danger, again, costing city money.

Okay. We’ve had the fire department there, countless times, because our monitoring system goes off because they dismantle the intercom system. Emergency services can’t come in or get there. A guy had to carry his wife down in the elevator to get to an ambulance.

This is all this sabotage that they’re doing to us in an effort to get us to leave. Okay. They’re not telling anybody about it. So they destroyed the apartment.

We had to call the fire department because a rent a unit they were illegally renovating. They didn’t turn off the valve that goes between the dishwasher and the sink when they remove the appliances. So then the tenant who’s currently there paying rent got a really nice flood and their electrical wiring is damaged now because now they have disco lights in the kitchen. Does management do anything about it?

No, we can’t even reach them. We can’t reach counselors. We have to resort to calling the fire department. Again, city money.

And this hasn’t happened just once. It’s happened 10 to 15 times since Webster apartment took over. Okay. So, so this is a key point here.

Okay. You’re talking about not wanting to make a shady landlord accountable, such as ours, to pay the difference in the rent. So in other words, they’re allowed to violate our human rights. They’re allowed to violate the Disabilities Act.

Come in from Toronto when they have no business being here, but the tenants of your city that have paid taxes all their lives and contribute to society here. I mean, I’m a personal support worker. I’m a developmental service worker. I’m an educational assistant.

I’ve worked at ODSP, but essentially the city is saying, oh, okay. Come and trample on our citizens. We’re going to do absolutely nothing. Okay.

So, the fact of the matter is, I now need emergency housing. These seniors here, they need emergency housing in November. And the company lies, the company lies through the tribunal about the permits. The tribunal doesn’t verify any of it.

And it should have been a mandatory refusal at the permit level because of all the orders we’ve had to get from the city against this company. So even if the city could show us a little bit of support. Yeah. Okay.

Just one last thought. Show us a little bit of support by giving us an authorized note to take to the tribunal to say that this landlord has been in violation up the ying yang. That would save our homes. And we wouldn’t have to infringe on the city.

Thank you. I have a, I have a key, Jolie Moore, let me speak. Yeah, please state your full name. Tyler Jolie Moore, and you have five minutes beginning now.

So I’m one of the many tenants at 1280 Webster Street who has been dealing with these renovations or renovations. And it seems ridiculous to me that Moore can’t be done to help the most vulnerable. By removing this accommodation, alternative accommodation section in the bylaw and the top up, it’s putting tenants in even more dire situation. Because like me, they may have to resort to applying for London housing.

This would mean that the taxpayers will be paying for alternative accommodation while the landlord renovates. By not including a top up, what could be a cost only to the specific landlord is now going to cost all Londoners extra money in increased taxes. And the report to the CPSC that is on the agenda today, there’s a section regarding the necessity of renovations. And there’s a part that says question, confusion, RE, process of getting rid of bad tenants if unable to use an N13.

This should not even be a discussion as the N13 by definition is a no fault eviction. You cannot use an N13 to get rid of bad tenants. It’s illegal to do it for that purpose. You must use the prescribed methods and forms at the LTV such as an N4, N5 or N8.

This mentality in itself is a clue to the misuse and abuse that this bylaw is trying to prevent. While I understand that some renovations are needed to maintain the safety, security, and integrity of a building, it should not be something that is just used as a means to increase the rent. This includes unscrupulous landlords who offer tenants alternate units, not unless the tenants agree to an increase in rent and new lease terms as some landlords in this city have done within the last year. Thanks for your time.

Thank you. Now I have a D. Malette. Hello.

Hello. Please state your phone name. My name is Dominique Miette. Okay.

And you have five minutes beginning now. So I’m here today in support of London Acorns Campaign for an effective bylaw. And I’m currently dealing with an N13, but I want to address a wider issue. So we’ve heard about how top-ups would help and so on.

And N13 is being used as a subterfuge by using decontrol to raise the rent. And I want to point out that the natural number of renovations is actually severely undercounted. So just the neighborhood legal services of London Middlesex, they have 434 and 13 is on file from 2017 to 2021. And the official number is only 153.

And even the 434 is an undercount because it doesn’t. That’s those are the people who actually went to neighborhood legal services. And there are, you know, countless more who have not. So we don’t really have an actual genuine idea.

And so it’s much worse than it actually looks. And I want to say the spirit of the RTA was clearly intended to adequately compensate tenants. But the three months existing rent compensation, it’s just under, it’s obsolete. And we have bill 97 requiring professional engineer services.

And so that hasn’t been proclaimed and it’s still not enough. And we know that fuel landlords who are found to violate and 13 provisions are fined. And many don’t even pay. According to a November 2023 CBC report, since 2020, only four of 13 landlords cited for bad faith evictions have paid the fines, they owe.

So there are only 13 fines in four years against landlords. And we know from anecdotal evidence, from testimony after testimony, there’s just a lot more of that going on. And in addition to that, most of the fines issued by the end of September 2023 amounted to less than $5,000 per landlord. So only two were for 10,000.

And even that is vastly under the maximum allowed for bad faith evictions. It says here, 2050,000. But I think it’s up to $100,000. So building instruction or clearly a municipal responsibility because of accelerated disinvestment in social housing.

Okay. So and it’s noteworthy that the courts in BC have upheld the renovation by law passed in new Westminster. This hasn’t been mentioned. So there’s every reason to believe this would also happen in Ontario.

And I just want to say Hamilton City Councilor Nringer-Nann met with bylaw staff from new Westminster. And she stated to McLean said, quote, “There was absolute clarity from their data that the bylaw help folks return to the units that were being renovated and that the city could play a better facilitator role by making sure that the tenants whose homes were being renovated were able to go back in. And the numbers of people accessing emergency shelters had also reduced.” End quote. Now that’s important.

Okay. Because who pays for emergency shelters? You do. So homelessness is clearly linked to a decrease in affordable housing according to an article in McLean’s from earlier this year, February 1.

Recent data from Toronto indicates 30% of people using shelter services are there because they were recently evicted 30%. That number doesn’t include people sleeping on the street. That’s just people using shelter beds. So we know that this is a problem in London.

We’ve had huge increases in homelessness. The hub is going to be costing over $8 million. All right. In addition, as Hamilton City Councilor Nann has pointed out, there’s a direct correlation between a person’s housing precarity and their movement towards self-medicating with harmful substances.

What’s been in the news? We’ve had that in London as well. So we have all dealt with the horrific consequences of homelessness. And as been pointed out, we’ve had a decline.

That decline is a 26% decline in units that rent for less than 1,000 between 2006 and 2016. 30 seconds. And it’s been decreased even more by 36% since then. And so the cost of rent in London has been 90%.

So that’s why we need to protect the existing housing stock. All right. Developing an affordable rental apartment has reported to cost $350,000 to $450,000 per unit, including hard and soft cost fees and taxes. It’s a lot cheaper to keep people housed.

Those top-ups are essential. So the by-law needs to be stronger. Thank you. Thank you.

Last but not least, Robin Slade. Please state your name. Robin Slade. You have five minutes.

Hello, committee members and staff. My name is Robin Slade, and I’m a leader for London Acorn’s city-at-large chapter. Today, I will be speaking as a representative of London Acorn regarding the city staff report released on Wednesday. We appreciate the efforts of the community and protective services committee to tackle London’s current struggles with bad landlords and rent evictions.

We were heartened to see CPSC unanimously pass the motion in July to strengthen the draft by-law and find ways to protect our neighbors who are already facing rent evictions. However, we are frustrated to see city staff shut down a proposed amendment to the rent eviction by-law that garnered widespread community support, and we are frankly concerned about the reasoning city staff has provided to justify rejecting both this and the expansion of landlord licensing. Acorn members, tenant advocates, and legal experts have all repeatedly emphasized that accommodations and rental top-up component is vital for an effective rent eviction by-law. In July, a whopping 20 speakers echoed this.

Our members bravely divulge their personal struggles and the terrifying experiences of facing homelessness because they are not being effectively protected from displacement. City staff argue that if we include accommodations, administrators may need to consider exemptions, and they believe most landlords would request an exemption due to the difficulty in finding vacant units in the city. This argument completely ignores rental top-ups. If landlords are unable to find a unit for their tenant, the tenant should then receive a rental top-up to cover the difference between their previous rent and average acts asking rent in the city.

Hamilton already has a policy around exemptions. There is no reason why London can’t do the same. City staff’s argument completely ignores the displaced tenants perspective. If a landlord who makes thousands, if not millions of dollars each month and passive income from their properties is not able to find a vacant unit in the city for their displaced tenant, how can we expect low-income tenants to find a vacant unit they can afford?

The city report argues adding that accommodations would mean extensive mediation between landlords and tenants on acceptable short-term accommodations. Again, a mediator is not necessary if rental top-ups are considered. The report heavily leans on the concern of staffing costs and administrative burdens to justify rejecting the accommodation component of the by-law. These minor inconveniences leave a bitter taste in our mouths when considering the very dire sometimes life or death situation tenants are put in when they are uprooted from their homes and forced into homelessness.

Staffing costs was also the main reason staff gave for rejecting the landlord licensing, citing that licensing all rental units in London would require over 35 new by-law officers and a similar number of fire prevention officers building code inspectors and support staff. This certainly seems like a lot until you find out the entire rent safe program in Toronto requires a whopping 35 staff to manage. This includes management support staff and by-law enforcement combined. In July, we heard counselors express the need for heavy fines for non-compliance of the by-law to stop serial rent evictions like Michael Klein.

This staff report does not reflect that intention. London’s proposed maximum fines range from $250 to $2,500. For Hamilton’s by-law, maximum fines range from $500 to $10,000 for an individual and up to $50,000 for a corporation. These fines for non-compliance must scale high enough to cut through the profits a landlord would make from illegally renovating tenants.

On top of this, some of London’s fines, like the $200 fine for not reruing a renovation license, are somehow less than the cost of the license itself. For city council to make informed decisions, they must be provided with a full picture of the issue, the potential solutions, and the pros and cons of these solutions. The duty of city staff is to provide unbiased information to council and we feel they have not fulfilled this duty and instead have already decided that these policies are not worth pursuing regardless of what council has directed. We implore CPSC members to hear the pleas of your constituents.

Reject the city staff report and direct staff to make a genuine effort to explore these tenant protection policies once more. Thank you. Thank you. That is it for the speakers list.

I do have a motion and I was going to hand over the chair but I do know that the vice chair also may have some questions as well. So I’ll hold on to the chair until the vice chair has her questions and makes her comments and then I would hand it over to her. So I’m going to recognize the vice chair if she’s still, councilor, you still have your questions. Okay.

I’ll look to you first. Thank you for recognizing me. First minor, some questions about the report. I have no motion prepared in advance.

I will just thank the people who came out today. If anyone’s ringers can be turned off in chambers, that’s appreciated as we try to move through the business of the day. I do. I would like to say first that as much as I appreciate residents coming out, I do find some comments when I do believe they’re disparaging a staff and their integrity and accusing staff of genuine effort in the professionalism to be not appropriate.

I heard that the Hamilton By-law is in place and it’s working from the Hamilton’s website. It says Hamilton City Council is approved of first of its kind, renovation, license and relocation by-law, which will come into effect on January 1st, 2025. So looking forward to seeing how that by-law works as we would not have any information on how it is working as it’s not in effect yet. Looking through to staff, just a couple of questions, there was the question of part dean of motion for that you’d be directed to submit a multi-year budget update.

Looking to see procedurally as the budget chair as well, if that would be an annual update to this update coming up versus waiting to the next MYB in the next term of council. Just for a procedural question of monetary, so when we know what would hit our tax paying. Thank you, Councillor. I will look to Mr.

Catolic. Yes, thank you through the chair. That’ll be an update, an amendment to the MYB and we’ll be submitting that this fall. Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you. So council would see that change for this October for discussion this November. Should this move forward? Sorry, just council.

I’ll let the just for those speaking in the gallery, we do hear you on the council floor. Just to the gallery, we can hear you for our comments. So if you could just speak as quietly as you can. Sorry, Councillor, continue.

Thank you. Just on page 14 of the report, it says about the six months for the renewal for the renovation to be in place. At the end of that six months, should the repairs not be made to a unit? Is there an extension in a fee or is it a complete new application into the process?

Thank you, Councillor. Mr. Catolic, through the chair, that would be a renewal of the license. Thank you, Councillor.

So just another $600 fee again. Okay, thank you. Just to understand that and as I believe it’s page 11, the report went into cost recovery, just making sure I understand the report correctly that we’re not quite sure how many people might apply for a license if we do this process. And that’s the variations in numbers of the program costing just over 300,000 potentially recouping less than, or I guess around 13,000.

Thank you, Councillor. Mr. Catolic. Yeah, yes, through the chair, that is our estimate because it’s a difficult, it’s a new by-law, and it’s difficult to determine how many applications we’ll get.

We would report to Council should there be additional staffing resources required. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That concludes all my questions about procedurally for the report. Thank you, Councillor. I have no one in queue for comments yet, but I would ask if I could give you the chair. Thank you.

I recognize that I have the chair. I will have, Councillor Ferra, first on my speaker’s list, I would ask that if we make any motions that if you just indicate one, if you know you have a seconder and two, if the clerk has the language in eScribe, just we can get it loaded and up on the screen for members in the gallery could also see it. Please proceed. Thank you, Councillor.

So, I guess I will start now. I do have a motion, but I do have some remarks I’d like to make before I do that. So, you know, this by-law, this licensing regime is created around what the municipality can do. So, the reason that we see the report and the recommendations as they are is because that is within our jurisdiction.

We have a fear, and I particularly have a fear, with judicial proceedings and their decisions that we saw, especially with one in Toronto, that may hurt our ability to add that alternate accommodation and rental top-up, and I’m worried about that. You know, that ruling specific language that I have here is the ruling that the municipality does not have the legislative authority to require a landlord to provide temporary alternate accommodations or to require a landlord to provide compensation to a tenant if displaced for the purposes of a renovation. It says renovation, it doesn’t even say renovation, which, you know, is weighed against us. And from what I understand speaking with, just with staff, it could put us at a couple of risks.

It could put us in the risk of potentially having that struck down, quashed by the court’s system itself, and we’d have to pay back to the landlord themselves any type of fees that this by-law would impose. But worse yet, it could also hurt our licensing regime completely and entirety. We could lose it. And I worry about that.

I don’t want to lose that ability because we have made some good progress. I understand that, you know, that it’s something that I would have loved to see the alternate accommodation in the top-up. But I do see that there’s a possibility that that could put us at risk and lose everything. Now, I’ve heard the comments of the staff reports.

The staff report does make those comments for the Toronto ruling. It does make the comments for the vacancy in London. But it doesn’t make something that I see myself. And that’s basically, as we tighten the loophole for the N13, the N13 is a means.

It’s a means to an end. The ultimate end is to forcefully evict a tenant from their property or from their housing. But the means itself is what we’re focusing on, the N13 here. There are other means that bad faith landlords can use.

So the moment we start constricting the N13, I would see bad faith landlords using other means like the N12s, like the harassment of tenants continuing construction or not updating their units, just completely leaving it to go to crepit. I see those means that are going to start being used. So I’m worried if we focus on the alternate accommodation and rental top-up, we are going to lose sight of the other means that bad faith landlords are going to start using. I feel like we should be focusing on those other means.

I do believe that with this licensing regime, we have constricted that loophole enough, and we have set many spikes inside that loophole. So any landlord, any bad faith landlord that would look in there, they would not want to navigate that area. They are going to look for another means to that end. So I’m worried about that.

I feel like we should be focusing on the next step, the next means that a landlord will use, that a bad faith landlord would use. With that, I do think that we should increase the fees in the administrative monetary penalties. Those will make the spikes bigger inside that loophole. So I do have a motion for that, and I would like to submit that motion to committee.

Councilor, do you know if the clerk has your wording already? The clerk has the wording, I believe. I will just wait until she has the wording, and then she can put it. Well, I’ll continue.

I’ll continue. I still got a little bit more. You have a minute and 10 seconds. So I just don’t want to lose sight of the fact that if we really kind of get hung up on this aspect of the licensing regime, we are going to lose sight of the next tool that’s going to be used.

I want to start focusing on N12s. I want to start focusing on other violations that we would see landlords commit, bad faith landlords, to commit, to remove, forcefully remove tenants. I do feel like the licensing that we have now has done its job, and I do feel that you will see those bad faith landlords start looking for other ways to do what they want to do. I’m worried if we don’t get ahead of the game on that aspect and we focus here, we are going to be in the same problem.

We’re going to have the same issue. So we do need to focus on the N12. We do need to focus on the other ways that bad faith landlords are able to kick tenants out. My personal experiences I’ve seen N12s used before I became a council member.

Since I’ve been a council member, I’ve seen the N13s used. Councilor, you’re at your limited time. Do you intend to move a motion? I will move that motion.

It’s up. It’s up on the scribe for everybody to read. It is not. It’s in ours.

I don’t know if the clerks can just get on the screen overhead or IT could get it. Perfect. It is up there now. Councilor, as we do have some people joining us virtually, if you would mind reading it out.

Do you know if you have a seconder? I don’t know if I have a seconder. Okay. So everyone listen tight.

This might be yours to second if you’re interested. Go ahead. So basically it’s to increase the fees. Like I said, I’m trying to give those extra spikes and those extra teeth to really constrict that within what we can do as a municipality.

Item A, it’s for the fail to apply for a license. If that fail to apply for a license, I thought it would be good to have a schedule that could be known by those bad faith actors. To know when they start reasoning if they’re considering to do a fraudulent N13, they will know what is in store for them at that moment. So basically it’s 2,000 per month.

Now I do understand that staff is able to double the amps on their own by discretion, but I wanted to give this schedule to show that this is the route you’re going to go down if you fraudulently or if you do not apply for a license. It is also considering landlords who may just not know about the regime itself, the licensing itself. So I’m trying to capture both the bad faith fraudulent actors and the landlords who don’t know and I’m trying to just find a nice middle ground that works. So you’ll see it’s 2,000 per month and that is for three months and then it doubles to 4,000.

That I think is more than sufficient time for a landlord who doesn’t know about the licensing to be able to get all the permitting and all the administrative work required. It’s more than enough. You could probably do it in a month and a half I believe, but we’re just being a little bit gracious on this aspect, but that’s not really where the big teeth are. You’ll see the big teeth to start coming in when they actually advertise the unit.

That in my opinion is the most egregious thing that a bad faith actor can do. So at that moment advertising that unit, they are going to know that this licensing exists. They might even have already pulled the license for that and they’ve let it lapse for whatever reason. This will also be stacked with other areas of the amps.

So it won’t just be the 5,000 big hit. It will also be all these other amps that apply as they apply stacked onto that. And then for the fail to comply with license conditions, I thought it would be wise to increase it to $1,000. So that’s my motion as it is and I felt that that would just really constrict that loophole to the point where we know it will be closed off.

And again, like I said before, I think we need to start focusing on the N12 tool that will fraudulently be used and other tools as well. We know them. We’ve seen them already. We’ve seen landlords, bad faith landlords act with these other tools.

I’ve had many stories. I know many people in the gallery have seen other methods and I feel like we need to start focusing on those methods now. So that’s my motion. I’m looking for a seconder.

Thank you. It is on e-scribing in our screens looking to see if there’s a seconder of this motion. I’m seeing none online, seeing none in chambers. I do have a question of staff.

I normally won’t allow it, but as it’s a by-law procedural matter, Mayor Morgan. Yes. So I appreciate the chair allowing some leeway because I’m not opposed to increasing the fines. I’m just unsure if the counselor conversed with staff about the functionality of this level of fines.

Like, I think we should have a discussion about the fine levels. I think that’s appropriate for us to do. I agree that they could go up. I’m not sure the level that should be.

So I’m happy to second emotion, but I would reserve the right that I would need to hear from staff to get their feedback on the fines because I certainly wouldn’t want to put the fines to a level that it would have some sort of other adverse effect on bringing the by-law into force, in effect, because it would be, you know, a guarantee to be appealed or out of alignment with the general provisions of fines or something that I’m just not seeing myself. So I don’t know if the chair wants to handle that, if I can have information for staff first, or if you want me just to second it, and then we can amend it, but I might vote against it depending on staff’s advice. I prefer expediency and transparency. Let’s just go to staff first, and we’ll know how far down this we want to go.

Mr. Kotala, could you be the appropriate one? Yes, thank you. And through the chair, when AMP amounts are set, we focus on the spirit and intent of the Municipal Act, and Municipal Act states that the amount of administrative monetary penalties shall not be punitive in nature and shall not exceed an amount reasonably required to promote compliance.

These amps that civic administration are recommending are one of the highest of all the bylaws that we enforce. They are, in fact, much higher than Hamilton’s. For example, our recommended AMP for doing a renovation without a license is $2,500. Hamilton’s is $400.

Now, as I mentioned previously, because this is an amendment to the business licensing by-law, the current enforcement provisions of that by-law would still apply, and we use a progressive enforcement protocol. So a person could be charged a maximum of $25,000 for a fine through the courts, and for subsequent convictions, $50,000. A corporation could be charged $50,000 and $100,000 for subsequent convictions. In addition, through the courts, prohibition orders could be issued, and probation orders could be issued.

We have been successful in the courts in issuance of those types of orders. In fact, we had a landlord with a probation order that had to attend City Hall at a pre-specified scheduled time period with his probation officer to indicate to us the timeline to bring a property into compliance. Thank you. Looking to see if there was a follow-up on this from the mayor, and then I’ll go to any other committee members.

Yeah, so I’ll give Mr. Kritolik’s answer. I’m not going to second it this time. Was there any other questions of staff, Mr.

Councillor Trafsell? Thank you. This is simply to the amendment, and it’s simply to the level of fines through the presiding officer. I’m a little confused now, because from what I just heard, what we already have on the books can progressively become much greater than what’s in the amendment.

So while I support the intention of the amendment, I want to make sure that we’re not working at cross-purposes against ourselves. There is a distinction in my mind between the individual mom and pop landlord and the corporation, and I understand that the Hamilton by-law has a higher penalty for those using the corporate form, and I think I just heard staff say that that’s the case too. Could that be clarified? Certainly, Mr.

Kritolik? Yes, through the chair. As I mentioned, we use a progressive enforcement protocol, so administrative monetary penalties, the fine amounts are set by Council. If we have repeated violations, we have the discretion to double those amps.

The persons and corporations receiving those amps have the right to appeal, and they would appeal to a hearings officer appointed by Council. However, violations, egregious violations continue. We always have the option to issue what’s called a part three, and the decision is then made by the courts, and their guidelines is 25,000 for a person, and 50,000 for a corporation on first offense. Council Trust, have a follow-up, or are you okay?

Yes, thank you. That’s very helpful. In my mind, $5,000, $1,000, $2,000 doesn’t really cover what I think needs to be done. I understand that we can’t go to the level of being punitive, but before we reach the level of being punitive, we have to have a penalty schedule that goes beyond what would the cost of doing business?

And if worse gets to worse, you get caught. Well, if you’re able to vacate a tenant who has been in there a long time who’s paying $800 a month, $1,000 a month, pardon me? Yeah, it is on it. I’m trying to use it.

Sorry, I don’t have the master microphone on the chair seat, so I can’t stop anyone off. Just at this time, there’s no motion on the floor, just strictly questions of staff that would make you want to second this. If not, there’s no motion on the floor, and we’ll move on from this back to the original staff report. So looking to see if there’s any other questions in Mr.

Catolic about compounding court orders and whatnot versus what’s in here versus punitive. So just strictly on that this time, just for we follow along. Okay, so Councillor Ferra had moved his motion, which is the one on the screen you’ve heard from staff. I see no one online or amongst our horseshoe for questions.

Still looking to see if there’s a seconder. If not, we’ll go back to the original staff report. Seeing none, Councillor, it looks like he do not have a seconder at this time. That would take us back to the original staff report, A through E.

Councillor, would you like me to keep the chair or would you like it back as I’m just presiding at the moment? Okay, I get to keep it. Okay, so we have the original staff report, A through E, looking to see if anyone’s willing to move that at this time. Councillor Trousar, you know, Councillor McAllister, are you moving?

I’d like to move a referral. A referral of all of it, part of it? I’m moving the whole thing, but with specific direction. Hey, referral takes president, so please proceed.

Thank you. I’ll say what my referral is, and then I’ll speak to why I want to do the referral. I am referring this back to staff because I would still like to see what alternative accommodation and rent top-ups would look like in this by-law. Hey, that would be a seconder in Councillor Trousar, so I would start a speaker’s list, but I’m going to ask for a pause first and just let the clerks make sure they’re right, wording first, put on the screen, and then making sure that Councillor Pribble can fully participate remotely as well.

So Ms. Bunn, just let me know when you’re ready. I speak to this while the clerks are working just to save some time. Yeah, as long as what’s moved and seconded is what you’re speaking to that’s in the system.

To the committee clerk, are you good on? Okay, it’s up. If everyone refreshes, including Councillor Pribble, you should be able to see it remotely. Mover and seconder, if you just want to review it to make sure that it is your intention, and then I will start my speaker’s list with Councillor McAllister.

It looks good to me. Okay, and through the presiding officer, I do think that we need further back to staff. I personally think in terms of the intention of this, and I’ve heard this from the delegations, that one of the absolute imperatives of this by-law is to ensure that people stay housed. And I think that these are two tools that we absolutely need to look at for this by-law.

I can’t overstate how important this is. I really think that this is the real teeth behind this. I do understand in terms of the enforcement and going up to the bad actors and abusing this, but at the end of the day, this is necessary to keep people housed. And even for good faith actors, I think we have to acknowledge that this is something that we need to have on the books.

Yes, we have a low vacancy rate, but I hear this constantly, and I’m speaking from the stories that I’ve heard from my constituents. I had to call literally at 11 a.m. before this meeting of somebody experiencing this. Absolutely devastated because they don’t know where they’re going to live.

They cannot find something. And what’s driving me for this is that we really need to look at this from the human lens of what people are experiencing. And we’ve heard it today, and I will reiterate it again, this is impacting people’s lives. It’s absolutely devastating.

It’s putting people on the street quite frankly. And this is why I think we need to have this in the by-law. We are trying to keep people housed. We spend a lot of time with this committee talking about our response to homelessness.

This is something we can do to prevent homelessness before it gets to that level. And I think we need to take a serious look at it. I think we need to come back. Hamilton had these hard discussions.

I’ve listened to some of those recordings, and I hear those all the time from my constituents too. This is something I think we need, and I’m willing to take the time to do it correctly, and that’s why I want to go back to staff. And I’m happy to hear from my colleagues on their thoughts on this, but I think it’s vitally important that we look at this. Thank you, Councillor.

That was two minutes and ten seconds. Next, I had Councillor Ferrer and then Mayor Morgan. Thank you, presiding officer. I appreciate the comments from the council.

That’s exactly where I would want to go. But from our report that we had, I feel like we’ve already gotten that report back. The reason that you saw me going the route that I did on the other side, and I’m not going to speak to that, was because I’m just trying to make something that works, and I don’t want to be continually delaying things. I heard an individual at Webster speaking about her issues in this report, or this licensing regime is not going to help her.

She’s right. And even if we did the alternative accommodations, we’re still not going to be able to help her because we can’t apply it retroactively. Basically, I am worried about the more we push things back, and the more we find out that we’ve already have the answers, we’re just going to potentially lose the momentum that we’ve already made on council. I do want, you know, I would love to have the top-ups and the alternative accommodations, but from what I understand, this is beyond the jurisdiction of the municipality.

If we were at the provincial level, this would be much easier for us to do, and I would definitely be looking into that, you know, and pushing for that more, but I have seen that we’ve kind of hit our limit, and I don’t want to risk anything. Speaking to the point with the court ruling in Toronto, I am very worried if we were to have this licensing by-law, and we were to have that addition to that. You were definitely going to see challenges to that in the court, and I’m very worried that where that potential challenge will lead us to. I really would not like to see the entire licensing regime and work that we’ve- Councilor Raman point-order.

Thank you. I’m not a member of the committee, so I’m not sure if I can call a point-of-order, but procedure Lee, I’m just wanting some clarification as to Councillor presuming what legal action could potentially be taken, and then said result of said legal action. I’m not sure what Raman would fall into as opposed to chair. I’ll just caution against publicly speaking about what legal action may or may not take place in the outcome that may or may not happen.

Point taken, thank you. It’s just a worry of mine, and I don’t want to lose what we have so far, so that’s really what I’m saying, but that’s where I’ll leave my comments for now. Thank you. I’ll also mention that we’ve heard it said that this would be the multi-year update for the budget that happened in October.

The mayor might speak to that, and as always, through council, we can ask the mayor to write a letter to the province, advocate through there, through AMO. We do have great representation on those boards. My speaker’s list grows longer, but Mayor Morgan is next, and then I have Councillor, I usually go to committee members first, and then I have Councillor Privel, Raman, Lewis, and then we’ll keep going, and sorry, and Councillor Trove, so he will fit somewhere before other people. Yeah, thanks.

I’ll add a few comments, and on the referral, first to the comments that the presiding officer made, I do think that there’s a piece here that involves a coordinated advocacy. I don’t think it should just be a letter from the mayor. These are issues that are common across multiple municipalities, and there is an intersection here of municipalities trying to take action, but significant provincial legislation, as I play as well, even from the delegations that we heard today. The Human Rights was brought up, the Disabilities AODA was brought up, Bill 97, not being sent to the RTA, and the Fremont provision, the out-of-date aspects of that, all brought up.

There is certainly a conversation about advocacy and engaging with the province about some of these issues that I don’t think should be lost. Now, on the Councillor’s motion, I understand the Councillor’s desire to look into the piece that staff recommended against. My hesitancy in referring all of this is a timing issue. One, I actually think that there are steps that are really positive that are being taken here, and I wouldn’t want to lose that, because the issue of increasing our staff levels, setting the fines at a level, having the progressive fine system in play, I think are all steps are in a positive direction.

I would also say that for those who heard about the multi-year budget timing, yes, the budget will be tabled in October. Yeah, we will debate it after that, but it needs to be done, and assessed by our staff, written within at least a week or so. So, if we do not make a decision on this, we’re not putting $330,000 in the multi-year update this year. This is going to be something that we’re going to do next year, and I’m of the opinion that perhaps the best thing to do here is to move forward with something that improves the situation.

Continue whatever discussions we want to have about advocacy with the province or other pieces we want to do, but I don’t want to lose through referral the opportunity to take some action sooner rather than later on this. So, I’ll vote against the referral, because I’m supportive of having Council’s direction to move forward with the by-law that then can be funded and actioned, or at least I should say assessed by Council for funding and action, because there’ll be a process for that too, sooner rather than later. Council approval, and then Councilor Troso. Thank you.

Very brief comment. I will not be supporting the referral, and I will be speaking to the motion. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Troso.

Thank you to the presiding officer. I think that we should not overemphasize how difficult this referral will be. This will not require additional staff work, I think, other than taking the language that exists in the Hamilton by-law and inserting that into this by-law, and I’m wondering the question for staff to the presiding officer, could if it was the desire of this Council, and if it was the direction of this Council to include the accommodation/top-off language, would we be able to do that simply by referring to legislative language that’s already in the Hamilton by-law without having to go through another set of iterations of staff reports and research? When could we get this back?

If it’s simply a question of taking the Hamilton language and popping it into this by-law. To staff, really, and there’s always legal requirements as well, when would this, if it is referred here and goes to Council, when would we see this back before us? Best guess. Through the Chair, the earliest would be October 21st, CAHPS meeting because the Council meeting is September 24th, which would be too late for the first meeting of CAHPS, which is October 1st.

But I also wish to advise Committee that we already have a draft by-law drafted in anticipation of this debate today, but I also caution the Committee that for the spirit and intent of procedural fairness, we should likely have another PPM. Should this by-law be application to quash, it’s always good to involve a fulsome discussion on any by-laws and the regulations. So, my recollection to the presiding officer, my recollection was at the public participation meeting, the specific issue of whether a Hamilton-type top-off was thoroughly discussed. So, I’m not sure we would need another PPM on that.

At our last meeting, we asked staff, and I’m trying to be as so often respectful here as I can, but my recollection is we did ask staff to include certain things in the by-law, and we got back a recommendation contrary to that, which is fine, but I think ultimately this City Council has to make the decision, and I’m prepared to make the decision, and actually I’ll reserve what I’m going to say after this until we get to the major part of the by-law. But just on the referral, there are always going to be risks. Anything we do that disturbs the status quo is going to bring about risks, and we’re always being threatened with different things. I think the bigger risk is that we’re going to increase the number of homeless people who are being evicted just on the referral.

I think that the referral can be done quickly and precisely with some precision that does not have to take a lot of time, and I’d be happy with the date that was that was stated. I also think we could bifurcate this motion to get some of the other things moving, but I do think the question of whether there should be the top-off should be referred for purposes of putting language that we already have can’t back in the by-law. Thank you. Thank you.

I’ll also note that you cannot separate a referral. We’re referring the entire part and parcel back. So strictly on the referral, I have Councillor ramen and then Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you and through you, and again, I’m not on this committee, but first thanks to the committee for their work on what’s been proposed and just on the referral.

My suggestion would be to defeat the referral, to add Appendix E into, and I understand from staff that they’ve already crafted a version that could include the City of Hamilton application for exemption as provided in Appendix E, and although I do understand the risk associated with doing that, it is an option on the table and one where we’d have to ultimately consider the risk, but I do think that having two cities with similar by-laws actually strengthens our approach instead of having something that differs from Hamilton, and mainly because there’s going to be opportunity if there is an objection that goes to the courts, then we have a way to see how it plays out. We could have some supporting features in terms of how we look at it. I think that there’s strength in the fact that multiple places are asking for something similar, and I agree that it’s important, and I think my colleagues for considering the referral, but I do think that there is opportunity to make this matter stronger and to provide the safeguards that are needed for the community by doing so by just adding in Appendix E. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Madam Chair, and just on the referral, you know, and we’ve heard a lot of comments about what people would like to see, but what was put on the public agenda was the by-law as we see it today. Staff were asked to report back with consideration for the rent top-up and those components of financial compensation. They weren’t told to put it in.

They were told to look at it and come back to us, and that’s what they’ve done. They’ve come back and said, “We don’t recommend you do this.” I would encourage colleagues to defeat the referral as we’ve heard from the mayor. If we don’t have something in place now, we will not have something in place for a multi-year budget ask and deliberations that follow. So you are now, if we support this referral, even if staff bring it back in the next cycle, and I will tell you, I have zero interest in waiting into what is really section 54 of the Residential Tenancies Act of the Provincial Government’s Responsibilities, waiting in on that as municipality.

And the cost will not be the 330,000 that was in the report, because there will be staffing impacts as well. So I would encourage colleagues to defeat the referral, support the motion as it is written by staff with the staff recommendations, and let that work for a year before we start trying to make changes to it on the fly. And I say that because I’ve heard already, we can just copy and paste what Hamilton has done. What we’ve heard in the report, and yet another reason to not support the referral, is Hamilton’s by-law is inherently flawed, because if it wasn’t flawed, they would not be granting exemptions on their own by-law, because landlords are not capable of meeting the requirements set out in the by-law.

So as soon as we start handing out exemptions, it is actually an argument that by-law itself is flawed. So we shouldn’t be pursuing that route. We should defeat this referral. Councillor Strictly to the referral.

The staff recommendations. Thank you. Okay. My comment briefly would just be timeline-wise, that if the referral does pass, staff said October 21st, they’d hope to be back.

You will see the mayor’s budget release on October 28th and 29th, we would do it. So it would miss the mayor’s budget, because on the 21st of October, that would not go until the November 5th council meeting, in which case mid-November, you were in the middle of word town hall meetings with the budget and public participation meetings here at City Hall, just for, you know, where those things flowing together. This is Strickland referral. I see hands going out for a second round.

I’m just going to also note, you are within your time limits. Councillor McAllister, you had your hand up that we still have another two items on this agenda today, and we have been sitting for two and a half hours. Councillor McAllister. Thank you through the presiding officer, but I do think that this warrants the thorough discussion, so I’m willing to take the time.

I’m honestly trying to keep emotional composure, because I cannot overstate, and I said this before, and I’ll say it again, by not supporting the referral and not looking at these items, we are doing a disservice to our constituents. This is vitally important, as I said before, we talk a lot about, you know, as a municipality, how we respond to homelessness. This is something that is integral to keeping people housed. We talk about the costs, we use this analogy all the time, and we talk about provincial and federal, that, you know, if you, you know, don’t do this, then, like, the downstream costs are going to be this much more.

It’s the same for us. If we don’t look at something like this, we are then putting all those costs, we’ll have Mr. Dickens come to us and say these are things we need for our social services, and we heard this from the speakers today. These are costs that we are still going to absorb, but when people are homeless, and it’s a staged approach, I’ve seen this firsthand.

Some will be evicted. They’ll try to find alternative accommodation. They might be able to stay somewhere with someone for a while, then they end up in a car, and then they end up homeless. There is a progression here, and I’m trying to stop that, and I think these are very important things we need to look at, and I cannot overstate.

This impacts people’s lives, and we have to take it seriously. I’m not, sometimes in these meetings, I’m not taking, like, you know, we do the day-to-day procedural, that’s fine, but this is something I’m very passionate about, because it’s keeping people housed, and I don’t think we should dismiss it. I’m sorry, but sometimes I hear comments that I, quite frankly, think are a bit too callous, and I really think we all have to take this seriously. This is something vitally important to keeping people housed.

Thank you. Looking for further speakers on the referral before calling the question, Councillor Ferra. Oh, you have two minutes and 10 seconds out of your five minutes that have been used. Thank you, Vice Chair, presiding officer.

So, you know, this is very, like, this is a big issue, and we’re very passionate about it, and I’m very passionate about it, and I’m doing work on it all the time, especially in my ward, knowing that we could miss that multi-budget, that budget update case, and not have this licensing regime in next year means we don’t have a tool to give to tenants so they can be protected for another year. If we need changes, I am more than willing, and I know other councils are more than willing to bring those changes in, if anything is not working. I don’t believe we are going to see too many issues come up if this regime is in place. I just don’t want to not have that tool to hand to people who need it and have them wait another year potentially.

That is a big worry for me. Again, what I was saying before, I feel like we have tightened the noose on the N13 tool with this licensing, and if we implement this, you are going to see those bad faith landlords using other means. They are going to change their plan and use the N12. They’re going to start using increasing harassment of that construction that I was speaking to before.

That’s what we’re going to start seeing. That’s where we need to start focusing. I am very worried that we are losing focus on the next step because it doesn’t end here. This license, this issue that we’re trying to combat doesn’t end here at the N13 license that we’re trying to bring through.

That will continue with the next and then the next. We need to get ahead of the game and start getting at that level before bad faith landlords start thinking at that level. If we keep on focusing on this, we are going to find ourselves possibly not even getting the tool, possibly not having people wait for another year or waiting indefinitely if we lose momentum, and we’re going to have all these other areas, these other means that we’re going to see bad faith landlords start using. I would caution on the referral.

If it doesn’t work the way we would like it to, I will bring some changes. That’s 30 seconds okay, then I’ll leave it there. I’m saying let’s not lose focus on this is not the end all and be all. We need to continue the work after this.

We have the work completed as it is in my opinion. We need to start focusing on the next step. That’s your five minutes. First round speaker, Councillor Cudi, you have all five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Presenting Officer. I appreciate the opportunity to speak at committee for the one and not a member. I would encourage all committee members to vote against the referral. Because as we’ve heard from the delegation today and many residents of my ward in 1280 and 1270 Webster Street, they’re looking for a solution now, not three months from now.

And I appreciate what my colleague, Councillor McAllister, suggested that very passionately, that maybe it’s not perfect. Well, it may not be perfect, but we need to have something in place now in the next few weeks. And by delaying this, we are doing it a service to the residents of my ward and to the residents of the city. And there’s nothing precluding Mr.

Kritolik and his staff coming back to us later and making recommendations to improve on the model that we’ll have in place. So in conclusion, Madam Chairperson, I would encourage all of you, all staff, sorry, all colleagues on this committee to vote against the referral. And let’s move this ahead. Thank you.

Thank you. Looking online or in chambers for further speakers strictly on the referral. Seeing none, it is loaded in eScribe, opening the vote. Building the vote, the motion fails two to four.

I think the referral is to fail, so we will deal with the report that’s before us in today’s session. Looking to see for a motion to be put on the floor, Councillor Troso. Given the, to the Presiding Officer, given the failure of the referral, I would like to put a direct motion on the floor now that the Hamilton language be inserted. And I would need a little bit of guidance in terms of exactly what that language would be.

But I would like, I would like the Hamilton language with respect to the accommodation or top up to be included in the bylaw that comes to City Council this time. The main, the main argument that I, well, that’s argument. I’ll see if there’s a second. I’ll need a moment to set procedurally with the clerks.

I believe Council’s direction was for staff look at and consider it and staff didn’t put it in as a direction so that this committee recommendation might actually be in contravention of the direction we already gave to Council. I’ll just have to check if you just bear with me for a moment. I didn’t make note of what your highlighted section was to the city clerk. If you want to just, I could read it out or I didn’t highlight it was so nice.

So it was that civic administration be directed to report back to the community protective services committee on possible temporary alternate accommodations for displaced tenants on short term rental top ups. I’ll note that staff did do that. I will rule this in order that staff brought it back. Staff recommended against it.

Committee is looking at doing it. So, Councilor Troso, you have your motion. I believe Councilor McAllister maybe was seconding it. You’re going to need to provide motion or like you’re wording to the clerks.

I don’t know at this point if we want to call a five minute recess to give time for that wording to get into the system. Okay, Councilor Troso says I have five minute recess because like the language is somewhere in this packet and it’s somewhere at this table and I just want to put it in without a referral and I just want to take the time to have staff assist me in finding that exact paragraph language. Yes. Okay, so we have a five minute recess.

Councilor McAllister seconds all in favor hand vote five minute recess. Okay, everyone in the gallery, you can grab something from the machine, a wash and break. We’ll start again five minutes. Okay, just a couple of minutes for everyone to settle back into their spots.

Okay, for everyone’s information. Okay, Councilor Troso has just rejoined us as they were the mover and seconder of the motion that we’re about to be aware of. That was our long five minute break. Next time, I’ll just make it 10 or 15 to start.

Just for everyone’s information, Mayor Morgan is back. Sorry, Councilor Permal is still online. Councilor McAllister, myself and Troso are with us. Clerks, we’re still just finishing getting into e-scribe.

We do have a mover and seconder. Is it in the e-scribe? Okay, if the mover and seconder be okay with it, staff did have a couple comments to update us before we go into the conversation. Are we fine to proceed in here?

That was while we’re waiting for e-scribe to get clerked. Okay, I have some nods. I will go to staff just based on it and having been asked to be expedient before with speakers as we move forward while waiting for clerking. I believe staff have a comment on potential costs, inflation and legal requirements for a change by-law for a PPM based on the changes made that were different from the prior public participation meeting.

So, I’ll go to Mr. Mathers. Go to Orest and then if Orest would like anyone else, we can tag them into you. Thank you and through the chair, at the earliest we could come back with a amended by-law would be October 21st.

Based on our experience, I would recommend another public participation meeting for procedural fairness because obviously this is going to impact landlords and they do not have the opportunity to speak about a revised by-law. Secondly, we have been in discussions with numerous municipalities across Ontario that are looking at this, Hamilton, Ottawa, Toronto and I posed the question about to Hamilton on staffing costs and they indicated that if they went to our model where we would may require a licensee to provide a sworn affidavit that they have complied with section 54 of the RTA, they would be asking for less staff resources. So, should this be put in place, we would likely be asking for additional staff resources in the multi-year budget amendment because what it does is it places the decision making on staff to provide exemptions and when you look at Hamilton’s exemptions, some real life exemption situations could be that the tenant may not like the new location that the landlord is providing because it might be little further from their children’s daycare, further from their children’s school, further from employment, further from transit. So, those are the types of real life exemptions that Hamilton might be faced with, recognizing that Hamilton’s by-law is not in full force and effect yet.

So, these are all scenarios that they’re kind of playing out in the discussions of how they’re going to deal with these exemptions. Thank you. If you refresh E-Scribe, the words, the words, they are words. The motion is on the screen.

If the movering seconder could take an opportunity to review it, to make sure that the wording encapsures what they’re hoping for. Before we proceed, I will also make note that I’m sure the movering seconder would like to speak. The mayor would also speak in his on a time limit of leaving at four. Councillor Trouso, the wording is what you were hoping?

Yes. Councillor Trouso, if you would like to go over your reasoning at this time, up to five minutes, then the mayor will take his opportunity and then depart and we can continue at committee as normal. I think, thank you for this further opportunity. I think I’ve made my arguments in terms of why I want to see the Hamilton measure in here.

I think with the top up, that does a V8 the need for numerous exemptions. And I think it’s one more incentive for a landlord not to do this. And I think that this bylaw would be better if we had it in there. Understanding the limitations that I’m hearing at the table today, I do want to vote on this.

And should this fail, what was said about having this warrant statement might be the next thing that I that I raised as a reasonable compromise that we could land on. But I think I’m just going to stop because I want to give the mayor time before he has to leave. Thank you. That was 40 seconds of your time.

Just as I do keep track, Mayor Morgan. Yes, I appreciate the Councillor trying to move an issue forward. He’s passionate about, I can’t support what you’re suggesting in the motion and the wording for three reasons. One, what our staff just said about their ability to actually bring a bylaw forward.

And although the Councillor may not feel that there is a need for public participation meeting our staff, and I’ve said it several times, and I certainly would want anything we passed to be defensible. And I think that there’s there’s some caution there that needs to be thought about. I mean, even today, this was not a public participation meeting. This is just people who wanted to speak.

And we heard from us segment of people who are hearing this and seeing this for the first time. There’s probably more. So I just couldn’t support this going and driving it to a decision to council on the 24th without some due diligence on that side. I have no idea how much this is going to cost in the multiyear budget.

That’s I don’t like that hanging out there and us making a decision. And then, you know, pretty much being forced to fund it after the fact without knowing what it is. This is not a motion to say bring forward a business case or do something else. This is a motion to say, let’s just do this.

We don’t know the number at the very least here with the current direction staff have articulated exactly the resources they need to achieve the goals very clearly in the current direction. And I like moving forward with that. And finally, and I won’t talk about this, but I listen to our own camera advice and that factors into my decision as well. So I may not be able to be here for the vote.

I’ll certainly weigh in again at council. We should call these good luck in their decision-making, but I would say there’s probably a lot of other colleagues who want to weigh in on this as well. So finding the opportunity to get something that we can move forward with and take steps. I would strongly encourage the committee to try to do.

Thank you. Further speakers? Councilor McAllister? Thank you.

And through the presenting officer, happy to second this. I’ve heard a lot today in terms of expediency. We want something on the books. I agree.

I think tenants desperately need something, but I’m still in favor of having something that closes a loophole. And I heard from Councillor Ferrer in terms of putting spikes in place to try to mitigate, but personally, I want to close it off completely. I would rather, in ’13s, be completely quashed as a usable tool by bad faith actors. I think this is something that if we have the opportunity to close the loop on this, I think now is the time whenever we talk about, well, we’ll come back to it.

I rarely see that happen personally. I think that that’s a way of just pushing things forward without, unfortunately, creating a stronger by-law when we have the opportunity. I think now is the time. I appreciate Councillor Trosto bringing this forward because I still think more needs to be done.

I think this is, again, an important tool. We want to keep people housed. And I think, unfortunately, if we just go the other route, I don’t think it has strong enough language to make it as effective as we possibly could right now. Thank you.

So I will be supporting this. Councillor Ferrer? Thank you, Presiding Officer. So we didn’t get the spikes that I wanted the extra bigger spikes that I thought would be good.

But, you know, just kind of hearing what staff has commented on the public participation meeting component, that all equates up to me to this being delayed and possibly not being implemented next year. And I already have people that I’m unable to help, and it’s just breaking my heart that I can’t. And I don’t want to have that in the future. And I know there are more potential people to come.

I would like to give them this tool when that time comes. And I feel like I just don’t want to keep the landscape open without protection for anybody next year. So the quicker this gets implemented, if we need to come back to it, cycle back, I’m more than willing to do that. I’m more than willing to look into more things.

I feel like we did get the information we needed with respect to the alternate accommodations and top-ups. I would love to have that. I just don’t see that within our jurisdiction. And I’m worried that that would risk everything else.

So I don’t want to see this to get delayed any further, with that we can make some additions if we see things not working. I do intend to bring another motion for those extra amps at council, because I do feel like we need those extra spikes. As I’m saying, the loophole, as the Councilman Callister has correctly stated, he would like to constrict it. The loopholes that I’m talking about is it’s constricted, but it is a little bit open.

And that’s why I speak it to it as with spikes inside that loophole. So when any type of bad faith actor looks in, they’re not going to want to navigate that. And that’s why I keep on saying we need to start focusing on the next means that a bad faith landlord will be using. So with those in mind, I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that this is not over here.

I do feel like the licensing regime that we’re proposing will work, and it will see those bad faith landlords look to other means we need to start focusing there. Let’s not waste our time and get hung up here. So this is why I would not be supporting this motion as it is. I want to see this get to council.

I want to see it get approved. I want to see a budget update come in time. I want to see this licensing get implemented. And I want to be able to give that to tenants who come to me who are having issues with getting served fraudulent and 13s.

Thank you, Councillor Pribble. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will not be supporting what’s in front of us.

I will be supporting the original one. And I just want to let you know that what’s in front of us, we keep saying Hamilton is so far a theory. It’s on the paper. We do not know how it’s going to work out.

It very well could work out that the projects will be delayed, that there will be increased costs for the landlords. Guess what? They’re going to increase the cost for the tenants. Exemptions.

The exemptions. I can’t see that any landlord would not be taking advantage of exemptions. They would be against each other. So I believe that exemptions will be used almost or very frequently.

But I think that what we have from our staff makes sense. It’s moving us forward. We are in the right direction. Let’s see what that brings us.

Let’s see what happens in Hamilton. And I would love to pass this. Let’s move on. Tenants are more protected than they were before.

And let’s monitor it. And if improvements need to be done, we’ll make them. But I really want to move on. I want to approve what the staff presented to us.

I will not be supporting what’s in front of us. I do know what delays. And I actually believe that potentially it could even backfire on the ones that we want to protect. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. That’s I guess my next speaker was me on the list. Just I won’t be supporting this either.

Looking forward next round of speakers before calling the question. Councilor McAllister. Thank you through the presenting officer. I’ve tried to speak to the humanity of this, but it’s unfortunately not landing.

Just on the pure economics of it. What I don’t think my colleagues necessarily fully grasp is that fines are just one tool. And personally, I’ve seen landlords just absorb the cost of a fine as a course of doing business. And so what I see as spikes as Councilor has reiterated through this debate, it’s just going to be absorbed.

When you look at the massive increases of rent, it’s still too much of an incentive to try to go down a route with this, evict someone, and then jack up the rents. It’s too lucrative for some of our bad faith actors. And I still think unless you have this portion, which I view as the accountability side of the bylaw, that even if they decide they want to abuse it, that they’re still being bound to provide rent top up and accommodation. So for me, this is the backup.

And if you take away the backup, I still think you are going to have bad faith actors. And I unfortunately think the intention of this is going to be quite muted. And we even heard today that there’s a lot of this that’s going on that it’s completely under our radar as is. So if this fails and we move on to the next thing, I’m going to personally be asking for a lot of data on this because I think we need to get better line of sight on the abuses that are going on, because if we don’t have an accountability portion in our bylaws, they’re falling flat.

And I think that this is very important to have as part of our bylaw. Further speakers, not online, saying not in chambers, calling the question, closing the vote, the motion fails two to four. Thank you. We still have the original staff recommendation before us.

We need a mover and a seconder to deal with it. Sorry, the mayor is just advising. He needs to go. So for meeting minutes, he is now taking leave from committee.

Councilor Pribble, are you leaving to or you had something? Sorry, Chair, I thought you were looking for mover for the staff recommendation. I am. There is in the report, A through E, looking to see if someone had that or something else.

Councilor Pribble. Yes, I would like to move the staff’s recommendation. Okay, A through E, just making sure. Yes, correct.

Okay, so the entire staff recommendation as per the report, A through E, moved by Councilor Pribble, looking to see if there would be a seconder. Okay, the clerks can note me as a seconder, A through E’s on the floor, looking for questions or comments on the report or anything else as per committee. Councilor Treso. Through the presiding officer, this is to the staff and it’s with particular regards to what was said about requiring a sworn statement as part of the paperwork that goes in.

Is that something that would need or is that something that would benefit from an amendment to make it explicit that that’s happening? Would that require, in your view, a separate public participation meeting? Because it seems to me, as a short of everything else that we’ve been talking about, that would be better than not having that sworn statement. So how can we get this sworn statement piece in?

To staff? Yes, through the chair. Because this is an amendment to an existing by-law being the business licensing by-law, the license manager may place conditions on licenses. We do that quite often.

This would simply be a condition of holding the license and we don’t feel we need council direction to do that because it is a delegated authority to the license manager. Councilor Treso. That’s fair enough. I would just like assurance that this is something that would just routinely be done and that everybody that’s getting involved in this situation knows that they will have to file this statement.

There’s something very serious about an additional sworn statement and I think it’s better than not having it. What I think I hear you saying is you’re going to do it anyway and I’m seeing heads nodding in the positive. Yes, through the chair, our officers have discretion. So we look at every application individually and neutrally and we would have that option.

We have that option currently on all our business licenses and we use it where we need to. Councillor? Because the next one, I don’t know if you were finished, because I had Councillor Ferriar after you. Councillor Ferriar?

Thank you, Presiding Officer. So the reason I didn’t second or move this is because I do feel like we need that fee schedule to be changed just a little bit. You know, Councillor McAllister correctly stated, you know, he wants to, there’s the spikes and that’s kind of what I’ve been using as an analogy. I just want to make those spikes a little bit bigger.

With the economics of it all, if you look at my one portion of that with the fail to apply for license, that’s a schedule that will continue to be paid again and again and it’s set without any discretion on staff. That is just how it is $2,000 a month, then $4,000 a month if after three months and that just continues on and on. I think that would be a good enough to turn. I will vote for this as it is because I wasn’t able to get that amendment on, but I am going to bring that amendment to council.

We need to increase that aspect of it because I do feel that will tip it, bring it over the tipping point to be thoroughly effective. It’s effective as it is right now, but I think we can go a little bit further and get just a little more thorough on the effectiveness of this licensing. And again, I will also be in consultations with council and with the community because I think we start, we need to start looking at the other tools that are going to start being used by these bad faith actors. So at this time, I am only supporting it to get it to council, but I am going to bring that motion so expect that and I’m hoping that we get that approval at that stage because we can get a little more thorough with this.

Thank you. As always, I don’t do anything. Council just, you would need a mover and a seconder in that space as well. And ideally advanced nose to colleagues helps us be prepared.

Councillor McAllister, please proceed. Thank you. Through the presiding officer, just following up on Councillor Troso’s questions during Mr. Catolic, I don’t like that it’s discretionary.

Is it possible to have that as a matter of course for the licensing? Because my issue is if it’s just leapt up to the officer who’s issuing the license, I would rather, as we’ve talked about a lot today, have that as a as a matter of course that they are required to have that. Mr. Catolic?

Through the chair, there are a number of requirements in the by-law for affidavits as part of the application. However, we may run into situations because whether you’re a landlord that’s using this to evict or whether you’re doing a necessary renovation, we may not require that because the landlord is actually provided housing. So we don’t want to put additional steps which may not be necessary. And that’s why currently the business licensing by-law has the discretion of the license manager to issue conditions and special conditions.

And we use those conditions all the time. And if you don’t comply with the conditions, the license may be suspended, revoked or cancelled because you’re not complying with the conditions. So City Council has delegated the authority of business license issuance to civic administration. And that is why we are recommending that where we’re going to have potential issues, we ask for a sworn declaration.

The alternative is the Hamilton model, which will what will happen there is landlords will then come to the city licensing area with a number of exemption requests. And the decisions that are going to be made in those exemption requests are going to be on the by civic administration. They won’t come to council. So that is why we have delegated authority and discretion in the issuance of business licenses.

Councilor McAllister. And thank you and through the presiding officer just as a follow up. So I just want to get a better understanding of the discretion because my issue is are we taking it at face value that the landlord has found alternative accommodation because I think it’s appropriate that we have to do some sort of follow up because my issue is they can come to us and what’s to say that the tenant actually has it. Like I think that it’s important that we hear from both sides.

And that’s why I think there needs to be again that accountability portion as to following up not only with the landlord but with the tenant. So do we have anything in place that would address both parties to staff? Yes, thank you for the question. And through the chair is part of the application process.

4.1 F the applicant the landlord must provide written notice from the tenant indicating they wish to exercise their first write a refusal. So there will be a lot of communications between the city the landlord and the tenant as part of the application process. Councillor. Thank you and through the presiding officer I’ll wrap up my comments here.

I know we’ve had a long discussion about this but as I repeatedly said I think it’s very important. Unfortunately you know the two efforts that we made to try to strengthen this didn’t succeed. You know the will of council. I’m expressing my disappointment that we didn’t get a stronger by-law.

I’ll support what we have considering there’s clearly not the votes to do anything else and I don’t want to go on the record voting for nothing because I still think tenants deserve something. I would have preferred something stronger. I unfortunately don’t think there’s enough support around the horseshoe for that. I will keep a close eye on this to Councillor Ferris point.

I think we should come back to it. We would obviously you know whenever it’s implemented this is something we really need to keep eyes on. There’s much more work to be done and 12s. There’s many more avenues unfortunately that can be exploited so we really have to keep a close eye on this.

I will support it but I do have to be grudgingly because I think we could have done a lot more with this. Thank you. Yep sorry I do see Councillor Trousa’s hand. I’m going to Councillor Pribble first as he’s not an opportunity to speak first on this.

Please proceed Councillor Pribble. Thank you for inviting your officer. What I heard today from the staff the timing with the budgeting update the public participation meeting etc. I hope we pass this what’s in from us.

I hope on September 24th the people who are sitting at the balcony and thank you very much for coming. Thank you very much for advocating for yourselves and for all your close ones but I’ll tell you right now if we move forward September 25th will be something in place that’s better than it’s ever been and let’s move forward from there. One more and I know I mentioned it about Hamilton you know when we talk about bad actors can you imagine if there is a bad actor that wouldn’t take advantage of the exemption and trying to make a case for himself for herself I can’t if they are bad actors. Let’s please move this let’s move forward September from starting September 25th will be something better than ever and let’s build on that data very important what my colleague Councillor said and we’ll work with that we are moving forward thank you.

Thank you Councillor Trousa. To save a little bit of time through the presiding officer I’ll incorporate by reference what my colleague said in terms I’m going to be supporting this because I’d rather have something than nothing however I would like a separate vote on E and I’m going to be voting no on E because I think this is something that we could defer with without doing any damage to the implementation of this by-law and in fact do I need to make a motion to take E out or would I simply vote vote vote vote it down in that case I’m just going to urge my colleagues to vote no on on E because I think that we we can come back to that we don’t have to make the determination that we are not going to expand the licensing by-law today it’s not something we’re doing today I understand that but I think that the language that no action be taken is setting up a decided matter of council which would preclude us from bringing this back within a year and I’d rather keep this flexible so I guess my question to staff is would you have an objection if E came out? Procedurally I’m fine calling E separate I’m not sure what it mean by came out but we will certainly separate E from the rest of the votes okay so I will ask the clerks to separate E from A to D and I would just need to know which section you’re going to load into E-scribe first okay so we’re going to put E in first looking to see if there’s other further comments or speakers before we call E so E is open in E-scribe this is just strictly section E and we’re using the same mover and seconder closing the vote the motion fails two to three and loading into E-scribe now will be section A to D the staff report that has been already moved and seconded it’ll be opening for a vote momentarily so Pribble and Trassel closing the vote the motion carries five to zero thank you that disposes item 2.2 we still have 2.3 and 2.4 to take care of it committee today members of the gallery are welcome to stay or take leave as the presiding councilor trouser believes it’s a good time and you can spend the rest of the afternoon with us uh councilor would you like me to return the chair to you for item 2.3 being the regulating maximum temperature and rental units thank you presiding officer i can take the chair for that item all right just uh just a second counselor um right 2.3 regulating maximum temperature and rental units um i will we have a staff recommendation but i will look to counselor trassel um thank you very much to the chair i would like to hear um a little bit from the staff particularly on the precise question of the applicability of a potential ordinance of a potential bylaw to uh units that do not currently have uh air conditioning uh and i i also would like to move that we uh we hear the delegations uh a and b okay counselor just a second it’s uh to hear the delegations is moved by counselor trassel i’m looking for a seconder seconded by counselor mccallister and we will call the vote closing the vote the motion carries five to zero okay counselor uh you did have a question from staff so i will go did you ask that question i can’t remember i do have okay i’ll go i’ll go to you first um first of all thank you for that report it was it was very thorough it was very helpful i really appreciated your canvassing of the other jurisdictions which i think are helpful i think there is an anomaly in uh in provincial law right now in that um especially in light of uh climate change it it it’s not covering this so my question is um when i look at the when i look at the beginning just the what’s on the table it doesn’t preclude looking looking at units that don’t have air conditioning but when you look to the last the second to the last page it says accept so i’m i’m wondering if we could just get clarification on that because especially in light of the fact that there is a um report that’s going to be coming from the medical officer of uh from the middle sex uh health unit next week um i would rather not preclude i’d rather keep this open so it we’re not necessarily precluding um considering the um uh inclusion of units that don’t have uh air conditions air conditioning units already keep in mind that this is going to go to a subcommittee that’s going to include the rental industry thank you counselor i will look to the staff for that thank you for the question and through the chair that is exactly the reason that we’re suggesting a subcommittee of an existing tenant landlord task force because uh the municipal scan that we did the the focus is on where air conditioning is currently provided and having a maximum temperature in there but we we were unable to find anywhere there’s uh bylaws that require all rental units to have air conditioning so we are aware that the Canadian Board for harmonized construction codes is talking about this we have been speaking with uh multiple municipalities across Ontario we’ve been speaking with our local health unit and the goal of this subcommittee would be to look at the possibility of requiring that all rental apartment buildings provide air conditioning units and also requiring that all new apartment buildings have air conditioning so there there’s uh it’s a big picture because when you start talking about retrofit it’s it’s not that easy to just retrofit an entire apartment building with air conditioning and um Hamilton has a program very similar to ours how we deal with uh vital services where we lend out heaters where there are issues with vital services in the wintertime Hamilton’s looking at a program where they would lend out lend out air conditioners and they would have criteria and who would get those air conditioners obviously there’d be a cost to lending these out so there’s a lot of issues on the table this is only our first report on this there’ll be many more as this task force convenes and talks about the uh possibility of all rental apartments having air conditioning. Thank you mr.

Catolic uh we’ll go back to County Council. Yeah thank thank thank you that that addresses my concerns I just want to make sure that by approving the staff report which is fine well I want to hear from the public who who are delegating here we are not precluding the addition uh to all to all to all units and I think your your answer is that’s still on the table one other procedural question is and I think the answer to this is going to be no but I have to ask um can a counselor sit on this subcommittee thank you counselor I will look to mr. Catolic thank you for the question and through the chair uh normally when we have uh task forces it is made up of uh specialists so in this instance we would be having uh landlords tenant advisory groups property management uh advisory groups the health unit london hydro building code specialists we already have a tenant landlord task force and in fact uh many of the people that want to speak on this today are already part of this task force thank you back to counselor trussle before we move on to the public if you have the list in front of you would you mind listing off the uh people who are on that landlord tenant task force hi there through the chair yes um the landlord tenant task force currently includes members of the london property management association life spin a corn the london development institute um neighborhood legal services um often members of our our housing department and municipal municipal compliance as well thank you for that looking to committee for any other comments before we go to the delegation council please thank you just more of a technical question through you to staff um in the executive summary about um units I already have air conditioning or new buildings that might incorporate an air conditioning system as we move through climate change and green economies um just making sure that in the industry parameters of an air conditioning system anything that’s geothermal would also be incorporated into that if that’s what person has for cooling um of a building thank you counselor uh just now oh yes that’s correct we would look at any heating air hvac systems that are available currently in a marketplace thank you counselor uh my final one would be as we talk about um for units that already have an air conditioning system what is the current licensing or bylaws if any that govern how quickly repaired to those systems are to be implemented uh staff through the chair it’s under our property standards bylaw and we look at each situation uh independently uh there have been some supply chain issues in getting repairs to some of the larger systems that’s why in the winter time we have a program where we lend out on a short-term basis heaters and possibly under this program we might be lending out uh portable air conditioners thank you uh counselor just overall like i’ve just heard from some tenants that you know there’s we’re in the middle of a heat wave and they’re like oh i’ll send out like a repair person ASAP to like look at your individual like townhouse unit and it’s over a week and it’s like you haven’t even sent anybody just generally what what are the parameters i know some build big buildings absolutely got HVAC and fancy stuff but just sometimes it’s just yeah mr katolik thank you counselor mr katolikin yes through the chair we have to follow the provincial procedures of property standard orders however we try to do our best in you know convincing landlords that this is a high priority issue uh probably a little bit more important than some of the other maintenance issues because it affects people’s health thank you counselor that’s it thank you all right i’m looking to committee okay miss velastro are you are you ready oh it’s not miss velastro who is the cat i have a k-pagni yellow apologies if i if i no worries directly okay i’m pleased to state your full name and then i’ll tell you when you have five minutes certainly christy pagnallo you have five minutes thank you um i will be brief you have our written submission on the agenda um and the research attached i’ll be brief because clearly this is in its early stages and there is going to be i know lots of more opportunity for input of course as you may have guessed um the main thing i’ll be saying is certainly from our perspective what we see in the clinic representing tenants across London and Middlesex this is a step in the right direction but and and certainly will help as it’s as if if we’re talking about units that already have air conditioning certainly there’s some help in in what’s been worded so far in that um those tenants may get faster service on repairs and that sort of thing if the landlord is subject to a maximum temperature however it really is so narrow um and it really is when we’re not talking about units that don’t have what when we’re when we’re eliminating units without air conditioning from the maximum temperature then of course we’re not getting at the real health crisis and the real um problem and what is is causing people um huge consequences with how short or how short our winters are and how hot our summers have become and so certainly we’re thrilled that though there’s going to be the subcommittee that’s going to look at how this can be of how the maximum temperature by-law once done can be applied to units without air conditioning there’s great research out there that there’s other ways to cool a unit besides air conditioning glaze on windows, awnings, roof vents that sort of thing those things need to be looked at as well we’re fortunate in this city that currently there is as part of discretionary benefits people who are with health conditions have the ability to go to the city for help with putting in air conditioning or money to to do better and and we’re in the subcommittee we’re hoping as well that there’s uh perhaps something like that could be expanded to include seniors and low-income people where through discretionary benefits they can access these cooling devices and that sort of thing um one more thing um and that is and it’s in our written submission an easy partial fix to this um could be uh simply amending the vital service of that by-law to allow for air uh air kit that heat to be turned on later and heat to be turned off earlier in the spring um to take some to to make the the fall in the spring heat waves um less of a problem so we certainly look forward to working with the city um on this um and we’ll certainly exercise our voice wherever we can including to the task force but those are our comments at this point and our submissions subject to any questions you have thank you um i will we have a another uh delegation um requests so the second um speaker i’m just asking for the mic from this velastra please uh state your full name uh my name is animal you have elastra okay thank you and you have five minutes starting now there’s a subcommittee needs to include uh small landlords if you have an older house that’s heated by water which is a clean form of heating it doesn’t share air between units they can’t have central air you can’t do that also some tenants can’t afford air conditioning if they pay their um electrical if they have to pay their own hydro a lot of tenants don’t want the extra cost and so i um i do think um um it’s important to recognize that there’s lots of ways to cool a building down and temperature is very personal sometimes it’s just the humidity that people can’t tolerate but they can tolerate a dry heat so i um i i just think that all these have to be considered and not be um you can’t dictate that people only use air conditioning because air conditioning contributes to climate change and if you’re serious about climate change if you were to regulate that every building every unit in the city have air conditioning you’re just perpetuating a problem and i feel like the overall heating of a city is really the responsibility of the municipality they need to ensure that when they build a city they don’t create heat domes that they build in such a way that they offer coolness and places for people to go get relief you can’t just rely in relief in your own unit okay it has to be brought down across the city so um i just um i just think it’s important that you recognize that there are houses that have clean heating through water that cannot have a central air conditioning you need to recognize that heat as a personal preference and sometimes it’s just the humidity but they like the dry heat people with respiratory problems can’t have air conditioning at a high temperature it hurts their lungs that’s me myself i cannot sleep in an air conditioned room unless it’s on very very low so um it’s not as simple as just regulating air conditioning you shouldn’t air condition should not be a go-to solution because it perpetuates climate change all it does is take hot air from inside and it puts it outside and you don’t want that you need something that is uh a more passive more gentle and i think the city needs to get serious on how they build their city to ensure they’re not making climate change worse and heating worse for the people that live in this city thank you thank you mr last round um that is it for the delegation requests that i have for this item so i will look to uh committee um i do we do not have any motion on the floor yet for that okay so i’ll look to committee uh for any motions uh council proposal you’re willing to move uh staff recommendation okay looking for a seconder seconded by counselor trussle okay i am looking to committee now for debate and discussion just a second counselor sorry i’m not mind it’s just a question and just one go ahead um just if a draft bylaw is prepared for future mean you know services uh that just making sure that ppm would that happen at the same time that we got the draft bylaw back just procedural to the staff thank you counselor uh is this mr patolic yes mr patolic thank you uh our normal process is to drop a bylaw and then we’ll have a future ppm to allow the public to read the bylaw and uh get some opinions on it thanks thank you counselor you’re good okay looking to the rest of committee counselor trussle i understand from the staff report through the chair that we are going to be receiving a report from the medical um from from the medical uh unit and i think that that report will help uh inform this and i think it goes without saying that that report is going to be forwarded on to the to the subcommittee that that’s that’s working on this and that does not have to be included in the um motion thank you counselor back to mr patolic yes that’s correct that’s a separate report from health unit staff to their board publicly available counselor that’s what i thought and um i also want to note that the the title of this whole piece is is not mandating air conditioners it’s regulating maximum temperatures and i think to the extent that there are there that that there are other ways of of doing that um this broad framing of what’s in the uh eight we’re receiving the report a draft bylaw be prepared um i think that’s very general and very broad and it can include a a number of different things so um i’m just not going to be tinkering with this uh i’m just going to support support this staff uh recommendation and my understanding is that this subcommittee um will um we’ll look at a range of different options thank you counselor uh looking to committee for any further comments before i call the question i see none first second last call okay let’s call sorry counselor but i’m sorry counselor go ahead thank you and uh going in my previous business in the uh when i was operating the hotels there are yes it’s true there are different initiatives not that did not just the air conditioning units to cool down the air yes it’s true i’ll tell you right now i don’t find one yet there would be inexpensive personally i think and i believe when i read this report first time my first thing was dollar signs for the not for the landlords because guess what it’s going to go up to the tenants both utilities and the capital expenditure for the units i’m not in support of this i’m uh honestly when i look at this i will can we please vote on a and d separately i will be voting yes for a i will not be supporting b because i really don’t think that uh based on the things i said i really don’t want staff to come back to do all this work and again what is the result afterwards i do understand that uh what’s requested and we talk about 26 degrees but again all these initiatives are very costly we look at the affordability guess who’s going to pay for it thank you thank you counselor i will more thoroughly look to committee okay i see no one first call last call okay let’s call the question sorry sir chair are we splitting in the a b yes apologies we’re going to split a and b uh to vote separately as you requested apologies closing the vote the motion carries five to zero such trusso and polosa closing the vote the motion carries four to one okay that leads us to the last pulled item for consent which is item 2.4 special events policy update we do have a delegation request uh so i will look to committee you’re looking to move uh accepting the delegation okay looking for a seconder seconder by counselor trussle all right um i will call that question closing the vote the motion carries five to zero thank you i will just look to committee for any questions or comments before i go to the delegate i see uh i believe this is uh anna maria velastro uh for this one so uh you’ve already stated your name so i’ll make you do that again so you have five minutes the request is that um crafting a bible on these to include the residents that are most infected impacted by these uh events they need to go and actually reach out to people to talk to them they can do that through neighborhood associations um and they know who they are there’s lots of complaints about um the festivals as they currently are and i don’t uh i don’t appreciate having um a stakeholder consultations without residents because they have um they have skin in the game and i find it disrespectful so um if if you’re going to um bring forward a bylaw that looks at extending um you know events to i don’t know five days ten days you wanted to go to midnight or twelve thirty you need to have the residents at the table because when you extend it to twelve thirty you have to remember that there are thousands of people potentially that when they leave that uh event they all filter through the neighborhoods so right now uh a deadline of eleven o’clock at night it takes about an hour and a half for all those people to filter out through those neighborhoods and it doesn’t get quiet again for residents to calm down and go to sleep till about one o’clock in the morning so if you’re extending it that much later not only does it reduce the times that people can then go downtown and drink at a bar or eat at a restaurant you’re also imposing all that mass exodus on residents till late two two thirty in the morning so they have us uh skin in the game and i don’t think that this bylaw should be crafted without representation and consultation from the neighborhoods that are most impacted um by this potential new bylaw and they should be at the table not responding for five minutes um after bylaw has been introduced and they had just a few days to review it gather their thoughts and then they get five minutes um i think people are getting frustrated with that process and that’s why i’m here uh requesting delegation thank you uh thank you um i actually have a motion for this so i’m going to recognize myself as first on the list and i would like the presiding officer vice chair to become presiding officer if that is okay you can hand the chair over doesn’t mean i’ll go to you first but uh i will take the chair um i just had some questions about the policies but looking to the counselor for uh for your motion and then if you have a seconder if the clerks have it do let let us know thank you counselor apologize uh for having myself first on the list i know i get a a little advantage for that um but i just wanted to kind of make just little remarks and then because i do have a motion so just to set things straight so i’ll start with the accessibility for Ontarians act i like the alignment of that i think that is very good um the waste and litter management plans very good uh safety and security plans very good again and the single point of entry for booking for clear timelines and things like that and the events promoting public uh an active transportation very good i like that um with the water bottles another big thing i know i’ve had a little bit of communication uh with water balls i like i like to see that i only have one issue with the policy and i’m sure it’s no one because i think i was on the news on it but i haven’t read that um and it was with respect to that extended period uh for the sound policy for special events amplified non-amplified sound for those locations of Victoria Park Harris Park and Dundas place i i’m not willing to support that i have had a influx of communications since the time that the report came out till now and i’m sure there’s more that came through during this meeting saying that they don’t support that either so i do think it might be wise um to maybe uh uh engage um with the the neighborhoods and the associations around those specific areas um i do i do see that um we this report you know it did engage people uh it did engage the external interest holders it did engage event operators cultural groups internal groups and regulatory bodies and interested organizations i would just like to maybe uh also engage uh the community and neighborhood associations and generally the people who live around the area i do think that uh they would have a very good or weesh would have a very good input on that i know myself i calculated this out with google maps i’m about 900 meters from Harris Park i am hard of hearing and i can hear rock the park quite well and i do also um i have we’ve have had experiences and just in my household with our child not being able to sleep and that does affect us the next day and possibly two days after and there are many there are many families between me and Harris Park you know we got black fires and between us we have Wellington Road between us we have the kinsman area neighborhoods between us so i do know that maybe we should engage with that so my motion that i’ve submitted to the clerk and and hopefully the clerk can put up for everybody to read would basically be just that for civic administration to be directed to hold a community meeting with residents and neighborhood associations near Victoria Park near Harris Park and Dundas place to address the impacts of changes to the special events policy on their neighborhoods so i would move that i would hope to have a seconder on that okay um just for clarification counselor is your intention for each of these meetings to be one meeting with residents versus three meetings i think one meeting would be good um and that would not be the public participation mean that would be triggered by a by-law it would not be a separate meeting it’s looking for just the community engagement with those stakeholders in the near vicinity uh for those three locations specifically okay counselor trust that you had a procedural question on this not seconding before i decide to second it or not um i’d like to know if um that could be included in the public participation meeting but more specifically um is this gonna hold it up i i want to make sure that this that this project is in place for next year’s well rock the park to be very frank because i think there’s some changes in here that are very very important to get through i do not choose on the other foot from where it was before i i just i just don’t want to hold this up cannot cannot be accommodated quickly without holding this up or would it be more direct to just make a motion on the floor to limit the time till 11 o’clock that’s okay uh from staff looking at timelines of this ppm’s council of at what point do we hold our own sales up thank you and through miss presiding officer uh our next step in this is actually to go out and fully engage the public through our get involved website so as soon as this passes by council we have a survey we’ve got our website ready to go and get involved and we’ll be sending out that uh to receive an input on all aspects of the proposed options in the policy um we purposely then uh put off coming and doing a public participation meeting until november that gives us at least a good month to get uh community engagement from community members throughout uh the city on on the proposed options in the policy so i’m assuming and i don’t want to speak for my team but if this passes and you direct us to hold a community meeting we i’m sure we can hold that the end of september early october as we won’t be coming back uh to this committee until november to hold our public participation meeting which then allows us to bring back hopefully a revised policy by december so that yes cancel trasso it will be coming to effect january 1st 2025 is our hope one other follow-up question through the chair um does does this i don’t think we’re ready to make the decision on the 11 o’clock versus later so to the extent that this policy purports to extend it could we take that out and put it in sort of option brackets say to to be determined because i am not i can tell you right now i am not going to support going beyond 11 o’clock plus 15 minutes for the reasons that were um that were that were stated but um i just i want to support this um and i’ll save my other comments on why i want to support it for a few minutes but uh to staff thank you and through mr. presiding officer we have actually in our report we have highlighted five um five policy updates so we can specifically articulate where those policy changes are for example uh water as much as possible our waste management plans um extending to to midnight so we can clearly articulate what the recommendations are we can provide the community’s feedback on those recommendations and then your correct council can look at the policy if they wish and say yes or no to those specific recommendations and changes okay um council approval do you have a comments on this or questions are you looking to second or just go in the speaker’s list actually sorry do you know i didn’t know i’m not ready to second i actually thought i was seconded i just had a couple of questions for the staff but i guess appropriate would be first if someone wants to second it sorry councilor mccouser is that you seconding i guess it’s a question of is it necessary is a question for councilor for because it’s his motion if if he satisfied with staff’s answer in doing extra engagement through neighborhood association so he knows exists uh and councilor thank you for deciding officer for recognizing me the reason that i was looking for a community meeting is because i do know that a lot of the residents that um are not communicating still may have issues so that’s why i was thinking of something beyond um uh online and the reason and i’m with the counselor on the extension of the time but you know there’s things that i know so time out so you still want this to stand yes yes councilor mccouser is still seconding it and for clarification through you just you said you made a comment that you said hold a community meeting your expectations are in person and not virtual or hybrid i would assume that a hybrid model would be the most capturing of all the demographics i’m just concerned with people yeah or in person and recorded for later i don’t know sometimes that’s the sticking point that holds us up or me up sometimes just to staff see it’s sticking spot uh to staff yes thank you through the chair hybrid would be fine we’d be happy to accommodate that thank you okay so we can just put uh hybrid community meeting into the wording so everyone’s on the same page we have our seconder uh starting my continuing my speaker’s list council approval thank you answer the chair to the staff um i know it says harry’s park maintains a limit of 12 days uh 12 days can please let me know how many how many events are there currently and also it stays victoria park nine days between sorry councilor preble um strictly on the amendment on the floor um we’re not to the whole one yet for all the questions i think we harle have our list of questions we’re waiting on it’s strictly um the one that’s in east crime not sure if you’d see it um that was councilor freira that a community meeting be held uh near one meeting for the neighborhoods around victoria park harris park and danda s place uh that’s it right now and then once this is taken care of we can do the main motion as amended and then get into all our questions about the other parts did you want to hold tight for now i’m going to hold tight just by it over my hand okay i will hold tight for now uh councilor mccouser strictly on the amendment on the floor uh yeah i’ll be very brief uh through the presiding officer um happy to support it um totally understand where the counselor’s coming from on this especially with all of those um being in his ward i could understand uh you’ll definitely get a lot of messages about that so um as much engagement as you need uh happy to support it thank you uh my brief comments are as much as we think it’s a downtown thing for whatever reason the geography of the city being full-shaped the river whatnot ward 12 this comes i could sing in my backyard and i’m moron cliff inside of dale area i do not always enjoy it um nor do my children when they ask you to stop and you can’t make it stop um council provol you’re just in the main speaker’s list or do you want to get in on this how to get in okay go ahead yes i will uh do you want i’m actually i’m not going to support it and reason actually i’m not going to support it because i believe that i know what the neighborhoods uh would want and i’m actually in line with them so i’m not going to support it and i would be satisfied with the plan that the staff had and how to move forward so i will not support this thank you hey that’s all my speakers on this item just on the amendment then we’ll get to the main motion so just the amendments on the floor for this extra engagement with some communities uh calling the question closing the vote the motion carries four to one um so i would need to move in a seconder for the main motion as amendment which would be the report be received draft by law prepared and then the motion that just passed for the the stuff we just did and then if we want to add other stuff and that’s fine.

Councillor Trusso was that a Councillor Ferri you can move your you can move it as amended that’s fine too like you did it okay so Councillor Ferri has moved the staff report we can make amendments as we go if we want with the one that just passed as well for extra engagement it was seconded by Councillor Trusso everything is on the floor open season on questions uh Councillor Pribble do you want me to start with you because you’ve mostly held tight yes please okay i will start sorry i’m guys now there’s the question again with uh Harry’s Park and Victoria Park the 12 days nine days through the chair to the staff can you please tell me how many we have currently in these two parks on an annual basis mr. Smith thank you and through the chair there are limits and this this proposed policy does not increase the number of special events in London as we do not have the operational capacity to do this so that means it will maintain nine events in Victoria Park five and spring bank parks and currently we allowed 12 up to 12 days of amplified sound in Harris Park this year in 2024 that meant there was only two events in Harris Park one was canceled due to the rain Councillor Pribble okay thank you and thank you and uh no more questions and i’m just gonna make a comment or statement what’s in front of us and i know there’s no decision made now and then the staff is going to come back to us and there’s going to be involved in other community but i really uh to be honest with you if you were voting for it today i would not support it and from various reasons actually certainly from the neighbors neighborhoods absolutely to end at 11.1.2 when i look at cultural economic and social fabric of London there are a lot of actually businesses that when concerts uh finish at 11 o’clock outdoors there are individuals that go actually indoors and they still continue socializing they are still having a cultural experience and there are many economic benefits to the businesses and just to add uh just to add to be up front not to my business i’m closed by 11 o’clock so i’m not i’m not talking from my personal advantage but i really when i when i went through the report to be honest with you i don’t see uh i don’t see any great benefits for us to go beyond 11 o’clock so that was the thing why i voted last time no uh sorry last time five minutes ago because whatever staff planned to do with our communities and reach out i was satisfied with that and uh that’s all i have to this one thank you thank you uh and not that anyone ever has to but just declaring publicly that you have no pecuniary interest because you’re not open i appreciate the transparencies we moved through this conversation um council trial so i believe y’all had next you mommy next yeah sorry words game blurred you’re next well through through the presiding officer i i just want to really profusely thank you for this report as you know this has been something that i’ve been really looking looking forward to and there are a couple of issues in here that are very important to me um first and foremost is the availability of water i think that’s a human right and this is this is what set me into becoming interested in this policy in the first place what you put in here is exactly what we should be doing and i really i really hope that this is something that the operators just realize is is something that the community really wants and needs and we can just get to this point there is a little bit of ambiguity in terms of um whether or not the water is available in the park but i think to the extent that the city has already shown that they can they can they can get their third stations the harris park i think that removes that if if that could if that’s probably something that’ll come up at the public participation meeting um what’s really significant here is the operator does not have the ability to preclude people from being from bringing in um their their own their own uh water water bottle containers and frankly if you wanted to say no glass that would be fine with me um but um i think i think allowing people to come in with um even an empty um water bottle or a full water bottle that is um make sure it’s sealed you want to make sure it’s not vodka or rum or whatever wherever people might put in these things that’s fine but the fact that you’re you’re not making people get rid of these things is is so important the other thing that’s so important here that i really want to call out for special positive attention is is this is this is this cycling i think that what you’re doing here is you’re you’re giving people a positive incentive to bring their cycles if you’re telling them that there’s going to be a place where they are going to be cared for people are scared to bring their cycles to a lot of these um events because of the theft so this is just so important to the cycling community thank you for that um the only real issue i have with this and this will get flushed out i guess later on at council and at the public participation meeting is uh is the hours of operation i feel very strongly that this needs to not be extended past 11 yes 15 minute grace period but i think that gives the operators advanced notice that they’re going to have to plan their their events to uh to fall within this i think i think the point that was made about it takes people a while to get out of the park and then get to their cars um if this is going to be going on for a couple of days it is going to be it is going to be um on on one week nights um so i’m very i’m very happy about that and the one thing i do want to clarify and i i think the answer is is is is evident through its absence is i don’t think the operators should be able to then go to municipal compliance to get a class two special events permit to go beyond the 11 o’clock if we put into the bylaw that it’s 11 o’clock i i want to make sure that uh that that that operators do not feel that they can then use the sound bylaw because this is not just the sound bylaw this this goes beyond just the sound bylaw and and i i think the answer to my question is that’s covered but i just want to make sure that we’re not creating any unanticipated loopholes here and that’s those are my comments thank you thank you again thank you uh staff reply to comments made by the counselor if they wish thank you and through miss uh presiding officer i believe there are no changes to the sound bylaw in this report and it would be if it goes to 11 a.m which is currently in the policy it is 11 it is 11 a.m it ends at 11 a.m it would not change it would not change based on our current policy but i will double check that with mr katole like and uh have an answer for you for council okay thank you uh i’m somewhere on the speaker’s list uh councilor fair is somewhere on the speaker’s list technique speaking councilor fair is also the chair’s committee um would you like to take it back okay so councilor fair is going to take the chair back i will let you know that councilor pribble has used a minute and 32 seconds of this five minutes and councilor troso has used three minutes and 30 seconds of his five minutes and at some point i would like to ask an onslaught of questions thank you counselor um you have five minutes and i will go to you thank you uh and thank you to staff this report we’ve been waiting for it to help clean up some things and do guidance of communities and special events so i appreciate it um my questions are random and throughout the report so i will start in numerical order on page 51 it was the best specific policy updates that the events must be compliant with the aod a um so it’s accessibility front areas with disability act um which is great just are our parks fully compliant themselves i know sometimes walkways get any water or i know victoria park at one point we put the stones along the pathway i’ve had my own issues with the rocks with children and not paying attention does that is that still compliant like is our park facility compliant before we even ask others to be compliant thank you counselor uh miss sure thank you mr chair i can start maybe mr yoma may wish to add to that all of our parks are designed and managed with respect to the current legislation for compliance there are um certainly temporary conditions that would restrict access that concludes snow ice flooding those are not covered under the act because they are temporary conditions versus design conditions that would also apply in the case that perhaps the turf or other surfaces are interrupted by um damage those sorts of issues uh we are moving away from the idea of using things like um brick pavers that can easily pop out because the maintenance to keep them in compliance with the act is extremely high and there are really good alternatives like stamp creed on the market so uh we move towards better compliance across the board with every park project we do uh but certainly the parks that we’re discussing for these events we do not have compliance concerns thank you counselor thank you um page 56 um 4.6 was non-profit and profit events i know i do help out one charity that does work in our parks um just i know when the however the city manages their their contracts for for-profit events is this saying that they’d have to show us like all their books like i’m just not aware of like proprietary information if it’s if this is getting because it just as any event operator um may be required to complete it and and submit a business plan event summary report and event financial statement i just don’t know what an event financial statement is of like do you have security or first aid on site or is it like how much are you making how much are you charging vendors what’s admission fee how much profit are you making who’s the shareholder like i just don’t know looking for more guidance and clarity on this one thank you counselor miss halleck thank you for the question and through the chair it would be specific to the event so we wouldn’t be looking for the books of not-for-profit agencies it would be we may require to understand particularly if it’s a not-for-profit that’s looking to host a gated event um what the event uh revenues and expenses were and it would be in a template that is suitable to the city of london so it would be just specific to the event thank you is there an example in existence of what that template currently or would look like that could be an appendix to this report thank you uh back to staff thanks and through the chair yes we have actually had event operators submit their reports in a template that is suitable to them but as part of the development of the administrative procedures that will be um supporting the special event policy we’ll be looking to develop templates so we we could provide that in advance if you’d like or it could be something that you would see as part of the administrative procedural manual based off of the direction from council uh for the special event policy thank you thank you counselor thank you mr chair um if possible um i know this goes through council and there’s a future p m pm if it was ready for the ppm just the public had feedback as a non-profit of if they understand it if it’s too complicated if it’s wonderful just if they’re here anyways if it’s prepared in advance that would be appreciated um sorry just let me flip um 4.16 was inflatable inflatable things mechanical electrical rides just my question was um vehicles and trailers associated with mechanical or electric rides and inflatables are not permitted to maintain on site after park setup um i think what i was thinking with that one i was thinking like if cuz there was other stuff on vehicles not staying on site that if someone had like a vehicle or trailer that was like a cooling center for staff but it’s a vehicle or trailer and so electrical is does this prohibit it from staying on site just sometimes there’s like first aid trailers or tents that are just looking for clarification thank you counselor mr thank you and through the chair um this specifically tells it within the park on the grass for example when um it allows so our our rides and our trailers can be on the um on the roadway and often what event operators do work with uh the special events team and close down a portion of the of roadway so that would be where the mechanical rides any of the trailers that are required especially for food events like rip fest thank you to you counselor please okay thank you yeah i’m just trying to bounce out when you see the big events that we enjoy downtown versus the candidate celebrations and parks of lots going on with different people um and different providers coming into the city um i think i have one more just oh yes uh page 60 say it then not get an accent from somewhere um item 4.25 um since we discussed penalties and by-law so so much today um that this was a fee of the special event operator would be subject to a food dealer per vehicle administration fee um that could be for like vehicles left in the park realizing that some events are multiple days is this like oh you parked on our grass here’s the 50 dollar fee enjoy the rest of your free parking for the rest of the event or like we come back every few hours until this car is moved and you get a reticket or it’s towed just looking for how fast we’d want that vehicle moved in the policy for penalties thank you counselor i will go to mr johnson miss pallet miss pallet miss pallet yeah thanks for the question to the chair so this i think you’re looking at the old policy so appendix b so that is not in the proposed changes for appendix a and parking violations um are administered through our enforcement officers and and not through the special event policy thank you thank you counselor true i am in the current one so is that changing as per the new one or is it just and then it so my okay so it’s changing for the new one parking enforcement will do it so is that parking enforcement coming back like every so many like i know how they do the street ones they chalk wheels and eventually come back um just just think it’s a special events in a park and thank you if staff knows if not i’m finding that answer for council i know i think if i have questions in advance so apologies to the chair i’ll look to staff and if anybody wants to answer uh feel free too yeah thank you for the question we will get a defined answer for you by council we’re not exactly sure right now it is it is currently enforced by parking so we’ll get an answer for you by council thank you thank you counselor thank you for your indulgence my questions that concludes the mr chair thank you counselor looking to the rest of committee comments questions okay last call let’s call the question closing the vote the motion carries five to zero okay we’re in the home stretch that is it for items for direction no deferred matters or additional business that i have confidential has been done so that leaves us to adjournment looking for a motion move oh that’s correct i will look to my vice chair to do that thank you council reporting out that progress was made for the item in which we went in camera for that’s on the public agenda thank you so much okay now that’s a motion to adjourn moved by counselor mccalister seconded by counselor trussle yes second okay i am vote all in favor i’ll opposed that’s carried this meeting is adjourned thank you