HAMILTON VOTES2018
The first in our series of election ward profiles kicks off today, featuring Ward 1. Learn about the issues, the area, the candidates.
Coming Wednesday: Ward 2
STUDENT HOUSING is the Ward 1 election issue that never goes away.
Nearly 24 years ago, Marvin Caplan campaigned for alderman in the west Hamilton ward vowing to crack down on absentee landlords of student rentals. The Spectator reported shortly thereafter on neighbourhood fury over a Winston Avenue home housing nine students (and creatively marketed as “Orgasmic House.”)
That year, McMaster University boasted about 13,000 full-time students. Fast-forward to today: the university has about 30,000 full-time students — with fewer than 4,000 able to live on campus.
Now combine that student squeeze with a city-wide housing affordability crisis. It’s a growing recipe for neighbourhood conflict and potentially unsafe student living conditions.
The challenge is not new — but it’s one every new council has to tackle, said Mark Coakley, chair of the Ainslie Wood Community Association. The group formed when Prince Phillip school closed in 2012 — a loss residents blame on a “dramatic” neighbourhood conversion of single-family homes to rentals.
Coakley said residents want “vigorous enforcement” of existing bylaws — and ideally, new rules — to help deal with unsafe “fire trap” apartments, garbage-strewn yards and illegally subdivided homes.
He said longtime residents would love “more balance” in the neighbourhood, but stressed the association is not anti-student. Bad landlords, he said, are the biggest problem. “Tracking these things shouldn’t have to be a resident hobby,” Coakley said. “It’s not fair to put those things on the neighbourhood.”
Council has considered but rejected the idea of rental licensing in the past. But a new Ward 1 councillor must decide whether to champion outgoing Coun. Aidan Johnson’s idea of a licensing pilot project in Ward 1. (A staff feasibility report is now out, but won’t go to council until after the election.)
Other proposed solutions come with built-in controversy.
Like a city pilot project that sees students policing students via a property standards co-op program. The experiment was initially criticized by student union officials for “perpetuating stereotypes” about students when the focus should be on bad landlords.
A university-planned, 12-storey residence on Main Street West, meant to house 1,400 students and ease pressure on the surrounding neighbourhood, has also attracted opposition over its perceived bulk.
There are 13 contenders for the job — tied with Ward 3 for most crowded race — thanks largely to Johnson’s decision not to run for office again. The winner will have to stickhandle plenty of other tricky issues. A sample:
Chedoke Creek pollution
A leaky underground tank forced the city to vacuum truckloads of sewage out of the creek that feeds eco-sensitive Cootes Paradise — and forced a ban on paddlers for weeks. Even without the leak, both the creek and marsh face smelly pollution problems linked to rogue sewer hookups and an aging treatment plant.
Queen Street
A new councillor will share ownership of the city’s highest-profile twoway street conversion planned on Queen Street South next year. The collision prone-street is a vital artery up and down the Mountain — but also a magnet for safety complaints.
Participatory budgeting
The last two councillors in Ward 1 have allowed residents to vote on how to spend $1 million-plus in annual ward-specific dollars meant for infrastructure. But how those dollars are spent is becoming an increasingly controversial issue.