Follow-up: Maintenance and Occupancy bylaw
- May 18
- 3 min read
I made the following speech as a follow up to my intervention at April’s Council meeting on the new the Maintenance and Occupancy bylaw, and my post on the subject here
The fundamental problem with the Maintenance and Occupancy bylaw is that it doesn’t just protect heritage buildings and target negligent owners or speculators who allow vacant houses to fall apart to better justify demolishing them. It applies to every building in the City. Instead of focusing on the overall state of a building, the preamble and section 2.1.2 especially target and create specific offences for deteriorated component defined as broadly as “any part” of the exterior of a building from which there have been leaks, metal components that haven’t been painted, any rusted elements, cracks in a brick or foundation wall, damage to a staircase or walkway, inadequate gutters for redirecting rainwater, and the inability to heat any particular room up to 21 Celsius. These offences carry a minimum fine of $5,000 and a maximum fine of $25,000 and can be charged for every day the issue goes unfixed. In the ten biggest cities in Quebec that have adopted versions of this bylaw, the average minimum fine is just over a thousand dollars, or a fifth of what Pointe-Claire is proposing.
By contrast, if an inspector receives a complaint about a home that is so dilapidated that it can’t be lived in, there they have the discretion to charge no fine at all, and give the owner 12-18 months to carry out corrective work during which time they can file for a demolition permit with the Planning Department. The offenders getting the best treatment under the bylaw are the people it’s supposed to be targeting. That needs to be corrected.
In terms of the issue of inspectors visiting homes without notice, sections 1.3.2-1.3.3 of the bylaw allow them to do just that. I acknowledge that they can’t force their way in without a warrant. That is a matter of criminal and human rights/constitutional law as Councillor Stork mentioned. But the bylaw clearly indicates that the inspector can visit at any reasonable time without notice, and that if you refuse to let them in, they can charge you the $5,000 minimum fine. I tend to think most people not running a grow-op would tend to let the inspector in.
I represent the district which has the largest number of lower income home owners in Pointe-Claire. The part I grew up in is full of bungalows and townhouses built in the 1960s where you have pensioners and working-class families living paycheque to paycheque. These are people I’ve known my entire life. If a complaint from a malicious neighbour or a house flipper brings an inspector to their door who fines them $5,000 (almost as much as their tax bill) and gives them a month to fix a minor problem they’ve been saving to fix in 1-2 years or face a second fine of $25,000, then it is no exaggeration to say that this bylaw could force them to sell their homes. That’s not fear mongering, it’s an economic reality we need to be sensitive to.
My proposal is to amend this bylaw by limiting it to two categories of buildings: heritage buildings and buildings which are either vacant or in such bad overall condition that they aren’t considered livable or usable as places of business. I would also reduce the fines to the same levels as Montreal’s, include a minimum notice period for inspections and ban owners who receive a notice of deterioration or corrective work from submitting it to the Planning Department in support of demolition. If those changes or substantially similar ones can be made, I could vote in favour of the bylaw in its final version. If not I will continue to vote against.
