Two landlords granted exemptions from housing bylaw, others will be done case by case

OSHAWA -- Council has decided to give some wiggle room to two Oshawa landlords who renovated their student rental homes before the City's tough new licensing bylaw was created -- but they're staying away from a blanket exemption policy.

On April 8, landlords Jeff Gauthier and Danny Karakolis asked council's finance and administration committee for an exemption from the bylaw's four-bedroom limit, because both had renovated their rental properties before the change and are now stuck with rooms they're not allowed to rent out.

Mr. Gauthier said he bought a home in the Windfield Farms subdivision near the Durham College/UOIT campus with the intent of renting it to students and obtained legal building permits from the City to build two extra bedrooms in the basement of the four-bedroom home.

This all happened before the new licensing bylaw, which permits a maximum of four bedrooms in rental homes near campus -- although homes on Concordia Court, McGill Drive and Dalhousie Crescent are allowed up to six.

"Now I have two bedrooms I can't use and these are bedrooms that were built legally and met all the health and safety standards," he said. "I played by the rules, I was nothing but transparent."

A staff report that councillors received this week recommended against allowing any exemptions.

"By providing exemptions, council would set a precedent which could result in a deluge of requests to the four-bedroom provision of the bylaw," it said.

On Monday night, councillors voted to grant exemptions to the two landlords in question. However, they weren't comfortable making a blanket decision on other cases.

"This will be handled on a case by case basis. Council and committee will entertain individual requests," said Councillor Robert Lutczyk, who chairs the finance committee. He said it's the most manageable way to deal with the situation, because it puts the burden on politicians, not City staff.

"I don't see us getting a flood of these requests. There will be some others, but I think they will be few and far between," the councillor said.

Councillor Louise Parkes, who chaired most of the public meetings on the rental housing bylaw, said exemptions will only be granted to those landlords who can prove they did renovations before the interim control bylaw was introduced last spring and that all permits and documentation was obtained.

"We want to make sure people aren't using this as a loophole," she said. "These two gentlemen we have the exemptions to had exceptional documentation that proved their case."

The new rental licensing bylaw takes effect May 30.