Negligent landlords face fee for inspections
November 4, 2008
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Donovan Vincent
CITY HALL BUREAU
More than 150 of the worst apartment buildings in Toronto are being targeted by a new city enforcement team that has the power to slap negligent landlords with $60-per-hour fees for inspections.
The new unit, announced yesterday by the city's municipal licensing and standards officials, will begin its work Dec. 1, focusing on common areas in buildings; parking garages; balconies; electrical, water and heating systems; and exteriors. Its targets could include substandard community housing owned by the city.
Separate teams will address tenant concerns about specific units.
Councillors, city staff and residents have identified the 176 buildings that will be inspected in the new unit's first year – four per ward. That compares with just 14 inspections done in all of 2008.
There will be two inspections of a building where work orders will be issued. If fixes aren't made and a third visit is required, the $60-per-hour fee will apply until the building gets up to standard.
"It's not fair to the citizens of Toronto to bear the cost of re-inspection fees when landlords are not complying over the long term,'' Jim Hart, executive director of the city's municipal licensing and standards department, said yesterday. Results will be posted on a new city website.
If landlords refuse to do the work, the city will complete it and charge for the repairs through the tax bill.
The new unit won't cost any extra because its members have been redeployed from other areas in the licensing division.
The inspections won't include registered condos, but will include the city's troubled Toronto Community Housing buildings. The city will have to cover any fees charged to those buildings, said Councillor Howard Moscoe, chair of the licensing and standards committee.
Meanwhile, city staff will explore long-term options to deal with problem landlords. They'll make their recommendations in 2010, but licensing landlords won't be one of them, Hart said yesterday.
"If you have a landlord with 10 buildings, and one is problematic, the other nine in good shape, do you then take away the licence from the landlord to operate all of the buildings? One building? And what is the consequence of taking away a licence? Does that mean (tenants) are de-housed?" Hart said.
Moscoe, who predicted last year Toronto was destined to get landlord licensing, says after having an "opportunity to explore the issue," he concluded licensing isn't necessary to get fees from landlords.
Another option being explored is an across-the-board fee-based scheme where all landlords could be charged per unit or per building to keep Toronto's stock up to par.
Hart says that isn't his preference, either. "My preference is to do it with the resources we have today."
But Moscoe cautioned that if the fee being tried now isn't enough to move bad landlords to action, the city could "up the ante."
Toronto has 6,385 buildings of six or more units, 80 per cent of them more than 40 years old. About 600 are in bad shape, Hart said.
The move to vastly boost inspections was welcomed by Brad Butt, of the Greater Toronto Apartment Association. "Zero in on selected buildings with a history of problems and allocate resources to that. We've been advocating for that for years,'' said Butt, whose group opposes licensing.
The housing advocacy group ACORN, however, criticized the new plan, pushing for licensing.
Toronto Star