Falls to consider boarding house bylaw
City council has directed staff to report back on ways to handle boarding houses in residential areas.
Niagara Falls resident Ross Hicks brought the issue to the attention of local politicians in a Feb. 5 letter, which was included in council’s recent agenda.
Hicks said for many years he and his neighbours have “put up with the turmoil and disruption” of a boarding house on a quiet residential street in the north end of the city.
“Renting rooms in your house for a couple of people does not rise to the definition of a boarding house, and with adequate parking usually has no ill effect on a neighbourhood,” wrote Hicks.
“In my case however, a bachelor with no children and no family, turning a five-bedroom house into an eight-bedroom house for the sole purpose of renting rooms for up to 11 tenants exceeds all expectations and established norms for a quiet residential street. Cramming six cars into a driveway at night to avoid overnight parking fines, then parking them on the public street during the day does not constitute an acceptable parking strategy.”
The parking and police complaints, the excessive traffic and noise and the long list of property standards disputes have created “an untenable situation” for residents on the street, said Hicks.
“I was always led to believe that we had a boarding house bylaw. We don’t. What we have is a definition of a boarding house with no bylaw to support that definition.”
Hicks said he has “anxiously” watched council deal with several other home-occupancy issues for the last several years, such as vacation rentals and accessory dwelling units, hoping council might address his problem.
“In both these instances, consideration was taken to protect and preserve the character and conformity of these neighbourhoods.”
Hicks said he attended several public information sessions, emailed department heads and has talked to “half a dozen” city hall employees from zoning, enforcement, bylaw and planning, “all to no avail.”
“No one was able to tell me who or how to initiate the process to enact a bylaw to address this type of incursion into my neighbourhood.” In his letter, Hicks requested the city consider a bylaw through licensing and zoning to regulate boarding houses in residential areas.
Coun. Wayne Thomson said he has been dealing with this issue for the last year and a half.
He credited Gerald Spencer, the city’s manager of municipal enforcement services and his staff for being “phenomenal in dealing with this.”
“I think the problem is we don’t have a bylaw regarding boarding homes in single-family residential areas,” said Thomson.
“I think there’s the possibility that a couple rooms could exist but having 10 rooms in that area is unacceptable to all of the neighbours in the area,” he said.