North Oshawa residents steamed over landlord exemptions

May 01, 2008 - 09:34

By Jillian Follert

OSHAWA -- Homeowners in north Oshawa are fuming this week after learning two landlords in their neighbourhood have been exempted from the City's tough new rental housing bylaw.

Homeowners living near the Durham College/UOIT campus have pushed for years to control the number of student renters in their neighbourhood. In February, council passed a controversial bylaw that requires landlords to be licensed and puts a four-bedroom cap on most rental houses near campus.

The bylaw doesn't take effect until May 30, but on April 21 council voted to exempt two landlords who argued they had put in extra bedrooms long before the bylaw was passed and had all the proper permits.

Council said it was only fair to grant the leeway because the landlords acted in good faith and spent money to renovate their properties. Homeowners were furious when they got wind of the situation and are now demanding the exemptions be rescinded.

David Bray, president of the Windfields Farm Community Association, said the new bylaw requires nearby property owners to be notified of variances or appeals related to a landlord's licence.

"Obviously, the correct process was not followed in the situation. Landlords were allowed to appeal the most significant portion of the bylaw without ever having to make an application for a licence," he said, speaking to council's finance and administration committee Tuesday. "Our residents were denied their rights in this situation."

But committee chairman Councillor Robert Lutczyk said the bylaw isn't even in effect until May 30.

"We haven't deviated from anything because it hasn't kicked in yet," he said.

The councillor doesn't expect there to be a deluge of exemption requests, saying there have been seven since the first two were granted last week. And he stressed not everyone who makes a request will qualify.

"Very few people will be in a position where they have the precise documents and paperwork that the first two landlords had," Coun. Lutczyk said.

But that doesn't comfort residents who see their victory in the bylaw slipping away.

"Given the amount of rentals in our area, it's not fair to allow someone to exceed the number of bedrooms that we worked so long to get," said resident Debbie Nickerson. "We put out faith behind this bylaw. To allow all the neighbourhoods to convert to rentals is not fair to traditional parent-child families."

The finance committee directed City staff to write a report on how exemptions should be handled going forward and voted not to grant any others until that has come forward.

Meanwhile, the request from the residents to rescind the initial two exemptions will have to be heard by council.

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