Hello all,
I`m requesting help and advice from any landlords with experience in renting to students in Ontario and in dealing cities wrt this issue.
The city of St. Catharines has begun "cracking down" on student rentals in the city. An article from the st. catharines standard is below.
http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/Article...e&e=1711766
In the process of all this:
1) The city has forced the evictions of students if they are living within a group of more than 4 in a house (i`ve personally spoken to a student who was evicted), even though the house was perfectly fine.
2) have threatened landlords with work\stop orders if they do not allow city officials to inspect the inside of their premises
3) required renovations to either make a single family house compliant to building code requirements for a rooming house or ask that any bedrooms in excess of four bedrooms be converted to a common area (i.e. remove doors to make into another living room\rec room, etc)
What i`ve written above is just a quick synopsis of what`s been happening in St. Catharines as of the middle of the summer.
(if anyone is familar with the legality of what the city is doing, please contact [email protected] or post a response )
The consequences of the city`s action are going to be detrimental the neighbourhoods of the city, to the students and landlords, e.g. some of the potential problems are of increase the number of student rental properties making it harder to enforce safe living standards, increasing noise in otherwise quiet neigbhourhoods, increased rents, decreased home values, lower profitability for landlords, ..etc. i can go on, but i`ll stop with that.
The city has consulted no-one in this other than the city itself. It`s a lose-lose situation to almost every stakeholder in this situation. As an investor\business one always tries to go for the win-win-win situation. Before this gets out of hand, I`d like to get together group of any and all landlords in the st. catharines area to begin some kind of dialogue with the city. A better solution is needed than the one currently being implemented by the city
I truly believe we can come up with something that meets the needs of everyone involved It`s just a matter of creating a dialogue with the right people and working collaboratively with the city. I`ve already met with a small group of landlords and property managers in St. Catharines, who have the same vision and we`ve begun moving forward contacting city officials, meeting lawyers etc to figure out a good plan of action.
If anyone wants to join in, please let me know and I can get you on our email list\discussion group.
if you have any help\advice\experience in dealing with cities who have done something similar (e.g. guelph, oshawa), please post or contact me.
some other random thoughts:
The city is in the process of crafting and passing a by-law which essentially limits the number of students living in house to 4 or less. it hasn`t been announced yet, as they are still in the process of coming up with a proposal. we`ve placed calls to the city to verify and it has been verified. At some point they are going to have a public forum to allow citizens to discuss the merits of the proposal. We need students,landlords, everyone affected to come out and voice the opinion (hopefully objections) on this matter.
The city`s stance is one of safety, yet it`s easy to see--even from the article--there`s a lot more to the city stance than safety (i.e. politics) and many inconsistencies in the way they are carrying out their new policy of safety.
As a landlord, I`m all for safety and providing a great living environment to my tenants, be they students or otherwise. I`m in agreement with the city on this. I, however, am not in agreement with how they`ve carried out their "solution". it`s probably a couple of bad apples who put 14 students into semi-detached that`s gotten the city riled up.....
Cheers,
Howard
I`m requesting help and advice from any landlords with experience in renting to students in Ontario and in dealing cities wrt this issue.
The city of St. Catharines has begun "cracking down" on student rentals in the city. An article from the st. catharines standard is below.
http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/Article...e&e=1711766
In the process of all this:
1) The city has forced the evictions of students if they are living within a group of more than 4 in a house (i`ve personally spoken to a student who was evicted), even though the house was perfectly fine.
2) have threatened landlords with work\stop orders if they do not allow city officials to inspect the inside of their premises
3) required renovations to either make a single family house compliant to building code requirements for a rooming house or ask that any bedrooms in excess of four bedrooms be converted to a common area (i.e. remove doors to make into another living room\rec room, etc)
What i`ve written above is just a quick synopsis of what`s been happening in St. Catharines as of the middle of the summer.
(if anyone is familar with the legality of what the city is doing, please contact [email protected] or post a response )
The consequences of the city`s action are going to be detrimental the neighbourhoods of the city, to the students and landlords, e.g. some of the potential problems are of increase the number of student rental properties making it harder to enforce safe living standards, increasing noise in otherwise quiet neigbhourhoods, increased rents, decreased home values, lower profitability for landlords, ..etc. i can go on, but i`ll stop with that.
The city has consulted no-one in this other than the city itself. It`s a lose-lose situation to almost every stakeholder in this situation. As an investor\business one always tries to go for the win-win-win situation. Before this gets out of hand, I`d like to get together group of any and all landlords in the st. catharines area to begin some kind of dialogue with the city. A better solution is needed than the one currently being implemented by the city
I truly believe we can come up with something that meets the needs of everyone involved It`s just a matter of creating a dialogue with the right people and working collaboratively with the city. I`ve already met with a small group of landlords and property managers in St. Catharines, who have the same vision and we`ve begun moving forward contacting city officials, meeting lawyers etc to figure out a good plan of action.
If anyone wants to join in, please let me know and I can get you on our email list\discussion group.
if you have any help\advice\experience in dealing with cities who have done something similar (e.g. guelph, oshawa), please post or contact me.
some other random thoughts:
The city is in the process of crafting and passing a by-law which essentially limits the number of students living in house to 4 or less. it hasn`t been announced yet, as they are still in the process of coming up with a proposal. we`ve placed calls to the city to verify and it has been verified. At some point they are going to have a public forum to allow citizens to discuss the merits of the proposal. We need students,landlords, everyone affected to come out and voice the opinion (hopefully objections) on this matter.
The city`s stance is one of safety, yet it`s easy to see--even from the article--there`s a lot more to the city stance than safety (i.e. politics) and many inconsistencies in the way they are carrying out their new policy of safety.
As a landlord, I`m all for safety and providing a great living environment to my tenants, be they students or otherwise. I`m in agreement with the city on this. I, however, am not in agreement with how they`ve carried out their "solution". it`s probably a couple of bad apples who put 14 students into semi-detached that`s gotten the city riled up.....
Cheers,
Howard
