‘Proactive enforcement’: City of London housing blitz aims at helping tenants address issues with landlords

Richard Haynes from SIREG Management (centre) speaks to City of London Municipal inspectors during a blitz at 740-758 Kipps Lane in London, Ont. on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024 (Source: Brent Lale/CTV News London)

The City of London’s municipal enforcement team spent Saturday at 700 units on Kipps Lane, helping tenants address property standards issues.

“We're looking at quality of life,” said Orest Katolyk, director of municipal compliance for the City of London.

“We got this idea several years ago when we shadowed the Toronto property standard inspectors because they run this program called ‘Rent Safe’. We took the best parts of that program and applied it here in London.”

The program is focused on a proactive inspection and the property owners and tenants are both notified in advance of inspection day.

Many of the complaints were minor in nature, but some could have a more serious impact.

“In my building, only one elevator is working,” said Harsh Patel, who lives at 758 Kipps Lane.

“It's been one year since they have fixed anything. One day it’s not even working. I once saw an old lady and her dog had to walk upstairs by themselves. In an emergency case, what do we do?”

City councillor, Peter Cuddy, has been dealing with tenants on Webster Street in London, who are fighting renovictions.

A city of London municipal enforcement officer checks the stairwell at 756 Kipps Lane during a property standards blitz at 740-758 Kipps Lane in London, Ont. on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024 (Source: Brent Lale/CTV News London)

He was on site on Kipps Lane Saturday, along with Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis.

“This is really important for me because we're now at the end of the renoviction bylaw coming into place,” said Cuddy.

“It goes through CAPS (Community and Protective Services) next week and then the following week it goes to council and for final approval. We want to show tenants, and we want to show landlords, that we're serious in this city about taking care of our constituents.”

The city set up a tent on the grounds and tenants were encouraged to approach them with issues.

“Some of the violations could be the elevators not working or it could be issues in the common areas,” said Katolyk.

“There also could be issues in individual units. That’s why we are here today, for proactive enforcement”.

Katolyk said many of the landlords encourage the partnership with the city, so there is someone on site to speak directly to their concerns.

“We spent some time trying to understand what this exercise was about and understanding the transparency,” said Richard Haynes, vice-president of management for Simple Investor Real Estate Group (SIREG).

“It’s been a painless experience. We want all our tenants to communicate with us and we want them to know we are here to do the right thing. If they’re dissatisfied, we just want them to know we’ll fix the problem. If a tenant brings us a work order, and it’s a reasonable repair request we’ll get it done as soon as possible”.

Cuddy said he’s been dealing with the Webster Street tenants on a daily basis complaining about cockroaches, garbage not collected and other issues. Luckily, those same problems aren’t occurring at the Kipps Lane buildings they inspected Saturday.

The new renoviction bylaw will allow tenants to have greater autonomy over their own units. Landlords won’t be able to arbitrarily evict them without going through the proper process.

If that process isn’t followed there will be penalties, and financial penalties, which could be steep enough to detract landlords from doing that.

“I think is going to make a huge impact on the city,” said Cuddy.