City of Windsor recently passed a new by-law, requiring owners of rental properties in Ward 1 or Ward 2 that contain four or fewer residential units to secure a Residential Rental licence for each unit they rent. The fee for the first year could add up to close to $1000, if every single inspection passed; if not, the cost could be thousands of dollars if not more. When the landlords’ cost increases, they will have to pass it on to the tenants. Even though this is a pilot study for Ward 1& 2, if successful, the requirement will be expanded to other wards, so every landlords and tenants in Windsor will be impacted, sooner or later.

 

Renting properties are not for fun or charitable intention for most private landlords. Without profit, the landlord would not be able to keep the properties, thus seeking to sell and having to find other places to invest. Windsor will lose its competitive advantages as a market with cashflows. Unless other cities like Toronto, people may keep investment property for future school/job opportunities or retirement even when they are not having positive cashflow, Windsor won’t attract this type of investors. As soon as the cashflow becomes negative, many investors will choose to sell the properties. If sold to buyers for their family use, most likely it would, since there’s no prudent investor who’d like to take over a negative cashflow rental unit in Windsor, then the city loses another rental unit. 

 

Further, staff report C54/2022(https://www.citywindsor.ca/cityhall/licensingandregistration/Documents/2022C54.pdf is based on Residential Rental Licensing Public Feedback Survey. Numerous issues regarding this survey:

1.     Means of public exposure: It was posted online for three weeks in fall 2021 and paper copy was also available if requested through 311. How come this survey wasn’t mailed through mass mail to all property owners in the wards and only the notice to implement the program was mailed to all property owners?

2.     Public response: “Sentiments returned by all participant groups tended not to support the proposed licensing program, or questioned its effectiveness, or expressed concern about its costs”. If most of the participants are not supportive of the program, what is the purpose of the survey in the decision making of the program? Public input is only a formality and it doesn’t count if it doesn’t align with the city’s decision?

3.     Supporting group: “Comments expressing clear support for the proposed licensing framework were provided most often by owner residents.” Owner residents refer to residents who own a property and live in the wards but are not landlords. And their primary issues are related to “the number of occupants sharing a property, like overcrowding, parking availability, or noise and nuisance complaints”. These concerns simply can’t be addressed by the licensing program, which is trying to lay extra charge on the landlord, as if the issues are all created by the landlords. The landlords are victims of situations such as overcrowding, when the lease is signed with one person in each room and two extra in each room were moved in as long-term “visitors”. Landlords suffers property abuse, sometimes extra money towards utilities and prolonged waiting period for hearing to evict the tenants. If the city is so concerned about overcrowding, will bylaw officer be able to evict the tenants who are not on the lease?

4.     Content: “91% of Landlords indicated they would pass licensing costs on to tenants. Most Renters indicated that if this cost was passed on to them by their landlord, they would either struggle (46%) to pay their rent or would be unable to do so (29%).” This meant 75% of the renters will feel the rent will be more unaffordable, which is one of their primary concerns (housing affordability and availability). The licensing program is NOT the solution for the issue on hand!

Public consultation: The staff report C54/2022 states “Administration presented this initial framework to the Town and Gown Advisory Committee and HHAC to solicit feedback from the key stakeholder groups from where their membership is drawn from.” None of these organizations include private landlords as key stakeholders. Taxation without representation is tyranny. Landlords especially private landlords were severely under-represented or not represented at all. In the report, Town and Gown Committee expressed their concern about the students’ safety and affordability. If they are so concerned about the students, why don’t they lobby the university to lower their rent for the students, so they can all live on campus safely? How many students are forced to live in rental properties outside simply because living on campus is not affordable? 

Financial Implication: The city has budgeted $1.38 million revenue for 2023-2024 from this revenue line and the cost to hire 7 staff only for dealing with rental licensing is $742, 258. Where is the excess fund allocated to? Will it be used toward evicting tenants for the landlord? What services are the landlords receiving? It sounds like a parent hires another nanny to monitor the parent if the parent is a good parent. And $742, 258 to hire 7 new staff to manage rental licensing program whose purpose is to reduce actionable complaints regarding rental properties. One logical question is how many staff hours were spent in dealing with the actionable complaints in the last three years, is it even close to $742,258 each year? Out of these complaints, how many were caused by the landlords?

Required document in the application:

Proof of Insurance: Nobody would risk placing a stranger or some strangers in the rental properties without insurance. All their investment could be burnt to the ground by someone’s carelessness. If landlords are required to have proof of insurance, will the bylaw officer ticket any tenants who don’t have tenant insurance?

Criminal record check: If that is required from the landlords, can the landlords ask the tenant to show a clean criminal record? How can a landlord trust a criminal with his/her investment/hard-earned saving? Landlord should have more concern over this issue than the city or tenants have on the landlords. Think about a case if a person is freshly out of jail jobless, and all he/she has is a property that he/she wishes to rent. Because of the criminal record, this person can’t rent the house nor find a job right away. What does the city expect the person to do to survive? 

 

Tenants/students, this bylaw is not to protect you. It makes housing less affordable to you and the city knows that and still decides to implement it. You need to fight for it!

Residents in Ward 1&2, your fellow Windsorites are facing injustice. Come out and fight with us. We will help you when you are facing something like this.

Landlords, we need to act strategically. Please sign this petition online and forward and copy and paste the content and send it to your councillor and mayor. The rental licensing program need to be revoked immediately!