City’s proposed crackdown on nuisance calls targets landlords

City hall faces numerous barriers as it tries to reduce the number of nuisance calls to emergency services, a city report says.

The City of Saskatoon report, to be considered Monday by council’s planning, development and community services committee, suggests nuisance calls could be addressed in two ways.

City council will be asked to recommend the administration explore creating a licence for rental properties that would set certain standards, and to change bylaws to allow prosecution of landlords.

“Properties with repeated calls for emergency services where no emergency situation actually exists continue to be an issue in the City of Saskatoon,” says the report, written by city solicitor Patricia Warwick. “Both options raise practical, policy and legal issues.”

The report does not include information on how many such nuisance calls the city’s emergency services receive, but the report was reviewed by fire chief Morgan Hackl and acting police chief Mark Chatterbok.

Warwick’s report notes the city’s existing property maintenance bylaw sets standards for the state of structures and yards to address nuisances, but it does not address people’s behaviour.

A possible business licence for rental properties would set out maintenance standards and provide a way to address repeated nuisance behaviour in rental properties, Warwick wrote.

Several municipalities in British Columbia have taken this approach, the report adds. Toronto recently introduced licences for rental units of a minimum size.

LICENCE PROGRAM

Saskatoon would have to decide whether a possible licence program would apply to all rental properties or only those of a certain size, the report says. The city has about 12,000 rental apartments in 590 multi-unit buildings, and another 10,000 homes, duplexes and townhouses are rented.

Several details would need to be established for a licensing program. For example, the city would have limited enforcement tools other than denying the licence under current provincial legislation, Warwick observed in the report, warning there could be “unintended consequences on vulnerable persons” — if a landlord’s licence was revoked, tenants would have to find new housing.

A bylaw prohibiting excessive nuisance calls would also require a change to provincial legislation in order to charge landlords for the cost of emergency services, the report says. Such a bylaw could also inadvertently punish renters, who could be evicted by landlords even though they were not the cause of the complaint, it adds.

If council approves moving forward with these measures, it’s expected to take about a year for a study to be completed.