NORTH BATTLEFORD - Council members heard an earful at their meeting Monday about North Battleford’s proposed Protective Services Cost Recovery Bylaw.
The goal of the bylaw, which has already gone through two readings at council, would be to shift costs to a single property owner when their property is seeing excessive or repeated calls for service from the city’s protective services such as fire, community safety officers or the RCMP.
But there has been some concerns raised about what the new bylaw would mean for property owners and especially landlords throughout the city.
At the meeting Monday, members of council heard from the Saskatchewan Landlord Association as well as from a representative of Linda Bomok, regarding the bylaw provision.
One of the concerns raised was that the proposed bylaw might be too vague, and that there needed to be more detail with regard to expectations, warnings and enforcement with respect to the bylaw. Marshall Elwood, appearing on behalf of Bomok, wanted more details about what the time frame would be and how many calls would have to come in before the penalties would kick in.
There was also a suggestion that the city might better use other remedies at their disposal to address the issues seen. Cameron Choquette, CEO of the Saskatchewan Landlord Association, said his association supported “in general” what was being proposed and was in support of “encouraging responsible property ownership” in the city.
But he said he could not find data on the city’s website as to how big a problem it was in the city and even when reviewing the Fire Chief’s reports, saying “it was unclear where the repeat calls were happening.”
Choquette pointed to concerns about nuisance properties in which nothing has been done for months, saying that in the one case in which there were 30 visits to a property, it “did not need to be 30 visits if the city properly used the Fire Maintenance bylaw and Fire Safety Act” to respond to those.
In particular, Choquette called for tweaks to ensure law abiding property owners were not penalized. He called for postponing implementation of the bylaw to June 1 next year, to allow consultation with the community with respect to developing the bylaw and also to allow time for providers to amend their tenancy agreements to pass on costs to the tenants who are repeatedly breaking the law and racking up charges.
Next up is third reading of the bylaw which is likely to come back at their meeting Dec. 11, in which administration is likely to respond further to some of the questions and comments that were raised.
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