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| Paul Lagace and Arnie Nagy spoke to themes of housing and the city's renoviction bylaw plans at Monday's council session |
The concerns when it comes to the available stock of housing and ever increasing cost for that which is here made for a review on Monday at Prince Rupert City Council as two advocates for improved access to housing spoke to the Council members as part of the Committee of the Whole portion of Monday's session
Paul Lagace, Poverty Law Advocate and Arnie Nagy the Aboriginal Advocate at the Unemployed Action Centre, brought the discussion on the challenges facing families and residents to Council exploring themes when it comes to single Family Dwelling Rentals.
Mr. Nagy provided some background on the scope of the work of the Unemployed Action Centre which has case files numbering close to 1,400 and how housing and income security are the two main themes that they are dealing with at this time.
"The Prince Rupert Unemployed Action Centre on average per year deals with about 1,400 clients between Paul and I, we average about 700 clients each. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. but it averages out to about 1400.
The main issue that we deal with is housing and housing security. And a lot of that housing security is through income security. So we do what we can to secure income resources for a lot of our clients.
As advocates we realize the importance of the housing needs in this community and from the past little while I think Council members have seen us getting up there and speaking about the need for housing"
Mr. Lagace, spoke to the regulations in mind towards the City's ongoing work on plans to introduce a renoviction bylaw, among his comments were themes related to proposed exemptions and minimum maintenance standards and how the City defines them towards different housing options.
"From our experience and we deal with all the tenancy issues, Im making a huge generalization here, but the larger landlords are pretty cooperative we find with things, there's challenges, there's dialogues and sometimes you know we have to do get orders for things, but ... the most problems I tend to see is in these single detached dwelling units, where there's two or three units in there, there's various reasons why this is the case"
Part of those issues he observed comes through what he sees as property flipping in the community, as well as to some of the areas where he has seen problems with landlords in town, while also noting that some of the elements of the renoviction bylaw may have unanticipated consequences for some of the smaller landlords who may just be renting out space in their own primary residence.
"There is a lot of property flipping going on right now and some of these units, investors are not sinking money in they're waiting for the market value goes up that's where some of the challenges is ... that's where you see a lot of absentee out of town investors that are not sinking some money into these units"
Mr. Lagace also offered up a partial compromise, as well as to note that some of the elements of the renoviction bylaw may have unanticipated consequences for some of the smaller landlords who may just be renting out space in their own primary residence.
"If the owner lives in one of these units as their permanent, primary residence not a manger but as an owner, I think in these cases, you know they're going to take care of their own properties cause they're living there.
So I would like to consider the single detached units be included in the licence set, perhaps with the exception of if the owner is in one of those units ... as primary resident, not their second house or third house, or whatever"
He also highlighted one case from last year that while rare is an indication of some of the concerns over what renters are facing and how the bylaw could address it.
"This case happened last year, there was a situation where in one single dwelling unit, there was ten, there was twelve migrant workers living in that house. And the rents were 1,600 dollars a room that's for a single room and 1,100 dollars for a shared room. I'm not saying that's a typical case but it could.
These are where some of these problems may turn up in the future, especially if the housing crunch continues, it would allow to deal with situations like this if there's a standard for maintenance or licensing issue ... I just want to point that out and ask Council to seriously consider that"
The housing advocate also had some reservations related to some of the elements that require landlords to cover the rent of tenants in temporary accommodation for the course of the renovations, noting of the inconsistent nature of timelines on construction and the lack of available space in the community.
"I mean it sounds nice and I'm certainly for tenants. However, I'm not sure that would be reasonable for the average Mom and Pop landlord to do. You know if you own another house and you gotta do the work on it ... Well you know work Prince Rupert, it takes they say three weeks and it takes four months. I just don't think the average person has the ability to put somebody up for three or four months.
Or you know even if it's a complex of ten, where are you going to put ten families; again I very much support tenants, but I can see that being slightly burdensome to landlords"
The Mayor observed that his comments were insightful and recalled a meeting that they had a few years previous on themes of housing.
As part of the conversation, Councillor Niesh asked questions of the City Manager to clarify some of the themes raised from the presentation, towards which Mr. Buchan provided a short synopsis of what the city's plans are when it comes to the renoviction Bylaw.
Councillor Cunningham also added some thoughts to the issues in the community, noting how he is strongly in favour of what the city has planned, but does have concerns for potential loopholes.
"I love this, I think it's a great piece of legislation and I'm happy we're going with it and I would, if I have to I'm going support it even with the exemption, even though I don't like the exemption it's just one of those things.
My concern is the loophole that's going to be there, where these people aren't going to say anything and live in these conditions. I've seen some of them with black mould and things like this and they're living there and they're unhealthy conditions and the average person wouldn't live in that place"
Mr Nagy rejoined the conversation to highlight how that condition is often found as well as to observe on the accelerating cost of housing and the challenges it is providing for younger residents and how there is a need to address those concerns.
The Mayor observed that they would be discussing housing issues later in the evening and when they did some of those themes from the pair made for a bit of the review.
As part of their work on the municipal legislation known as the Business Regulations and Licensing Bylaw Councillor Niesh asked if there was anything to take away from the presentation earlier in the evening from Mr. Lagace and Mr. Nagy.
City Manager Rob Buchan noted that what he took from the presentation support for the bylaw and that from some of the questions raised, that there could be a need for some education to create awareness of what people need to know to become involved in the process, observing that once passed the city would have more opportunity to do that.
"What I took away from the speakers was a great deal of support for this, some questions I think we answered the questions. There's one question that what hasn't been answered ... I think it was asked by Councillor Cunningham, is with respect to a property that is not up to standard, you know how does somebody know, somebody who might not complain.
Having a brief chat with the delegation after the Committee of the Whole Meeting, they would undertake to actually do some education, so that tenants would know about the bylaw and the property standard so there would be greater awareness for them to actually know what the bylaw says and get the city through a complaint process get involved.
That's something that we don't have the ability to do right now because the bylaw is not in place. So this bylaw actually increases the capacity for the city to have more of a role in ensuring that rental properties are properly maintained" -- Prince Rupert City Manager Rob Buchan
Mayor Brain spoke to the concerns raised about landlords having to relocate tenants and if there is a need for more clarity from some of the elements towards that area of the Bylaw, Mr. Bucahn observed that he would have an answer to that question at the next meeting.
Council Mirau also spoke to some of the guidelines references raised in the presentation, another area which Mr. Buchan said he would check into to ensure its consistent.
You can view both elements of those discussions from the City's Video Archive.
The presentation from Mr. Lagace and Mr. Nagy starts at the 51 minute mark, while the Council review of the Bylaw elements can be found starting at the two hour five minute mark.
More notes on Monday's Council session can be reviewed through our Council Timeline Feature.
A wider look at Housing issues and concerns can be found from our Housing archive.
Further items of interest on the work of Council can be examined with our Council Discussion Archive.
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