In 9-1 vote, council agrees to try rental licensing in Ward 1, 2

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After a decade of complaints about vulnerable people stuffed into unsafe rental housing — particularly around the university — city council voted 10-1 Monday to try a licensing system as a two-year pilot.

The project would run only in wards 1 and 2, where the college and university are respectively located, and where longtime residents have seen their neighbourhoods transform into student-saturated rental havens with accompanying complaints about unkempt properties and unsafe living conditions.

“Hopefully we can move the needle and protect the tenants, encourage landlords to make investments and deal with concerns raised by residents who see an evolution happen on their street,” said Mayor Drew Dilkens, who opposed rental licensing the last time it was proposed in 2018.

Hopefully in a couple of years the data will support moving it citywide

Council at the time opted for beefing up the existing bylaw enforcement system as a pilot project which has had mixed success. On Monday, Dilkens said: “Although I don’t know if this (licensing regime) is going to work, I can support this because it’s a sensible to explore whether it can work.”

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But he maintained his concern that charging landlords an annual licence fee to pay for regular fire, electrical and building inspections will end up making the current affordable housing crisis even worse.

“You can bet your bottom dollar (landlords) are going to pass on every penny of this licensing regime to their tenants.”

Ward 2 Coun. Fabio Costante, who’s been trying to find a solution to the problems in the residential streets around the university, said the rental licensing debate returned to council for the third time in a decade because things have gotten worse. The inflow of thousands of international students to the college and university in recent years has caused demand and rents to skyrocket, he said, and tenants left with no choice but to live in unsafe conditions without complaint.

“The narrow issue today is tenant safety and setting the standard in our city that respects the building code and fire code.”

City administration still have to do public consultations, craft a new rental licensing bylaw and get the pilot project up and running. That probably won’t happen until the first quarter of 2022. It would apply mainly to the houses that get converted into apartments or rooms, since large apartment buildings are already subject to stringent inspections.

About 18 people appeared as delegations during more about four hours of deliberations Monday, including landlords arguing that licensing will raise tenant rents and do little to go after the bad landlords who aren’t following the rules. They would simply not register, not get a licence and “fly under the radar,” they said.

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But tenants and their advocates talked of “deplorable” conditions they’ve witnessed, such as garages illegally converted to rental units, sparking electrical outlets, ceilings crumbling onto kitchen counters, leaky roofs causing bedroom ceilings to sag, holes in floors, homes so poorly insulated the landlord supplies space heaters, rodent infestations, mould infestations, and six people allowed in a two-bedroom unit with mattresses on the floor.

“We have landlords who refuse to fix broken furnaces in winter, landlords who refuse to fix broken toilets leaving tenants to use a bucket, and pipes bursting causing pools of sewage outside the home,” said Anna Colombo, a lawyer at Legal Assistance of Windsor. “This is why we need a (landlord) registry.”

Hyun An told council about coming to Windsor as a young university student and having no idea who to go to about the horrible living conditions he was expected to live in. “Since that time I have only seen conditions deteriorate,” said An, who recalled in 2015 speaking with University of Windsor student Andrew Kraayenbrink, 19, who died in 2016 in a fire that ripped through a Rankin Avenue rental house shared by six students.

“Must we wait for another death to happen to revisit this issue?” he asked.

Gary Langill, who lives near the university, said one of the most prevalent rules being broken in his area is the minimum ceiling height allowed in a bedroom — six foot, 11 inches.

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“I can tell you that probably two-thirds of basements in this area do not meet the height requirement,” and yet, almost all the rental properties in the area have bedrooms in the basement, he said.

The only councillor voting against the pilot project was downtown Coun. Rino Bortolin who didn’t like the fact the issue of substandard housing was being cast as a student issue. While students may live in bad housing for a school year, they can go back to their parents’ home and sign on for a different unit the next year, whereas other people throughout Windsor are stuck for years, he said.

He said he recently dealt with a rental housing catastrophe where tenants were living in a house with three feet of sewage in the basement for months. They were afraid to complain because they couldn’t lose their spot, given the dire shortage of affordable housing, he said.

He said while the pilot project goes on in wards 1 and 2, people in wards 3, 4 and 5 will have to wait years before it gets rolled out in their area. But he agreed with the sentiment of Ward 4 Coun. Chris Holt, who voted for the pilot project despite wishing for a citywide licensing system.

“Baby steps,” said Holt. “Hopefully in a couple of years the data will support moving it citywide.”

bcross@postmedia.com