Ontario city cracking down on ‘slum’ landlords who ‘ruin neighbourhoods’

The mayor of an Ontario city struggling with rental and renovation problems says the rollout of a strict new landlord licensing pilot scheme has been a “resounding success” in the parts of the city it has been applied, just under half a year after it was launched.

Early in the year, Brampton launched — and then after backlash, relaunched — a program to make small landlords in some of the city’s wards obtain business licences and agree to enhanced scrutiny.

The city’s Residential Rental Licensing pilot program makes landlords of between one and four units sign up for licences and submit to inspections.

As of Sept. 16, Brampton said 2,200 licences have been issued in the city and 4,700 inspections have taken place. Those inspections have been 611 penalties handed out, with fines totalling $83,500.

Coun. Rowena Santos, who has been a key champion of the program, said it was targeted at bad actors.

“This work we have been doing on the RRL to deal with slum landlords in particular has been going on for a while but it is only one tool that we are using,” she said at city council on Wednesday, recounting a story she said a resident shared of a home with eight refrigerators because there were “like 20 people living in it.”

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Though it is early in the program — with barely 25 per cent of the city’s secondary units registered into the new scheme — Mayor Patrick Brown said he was pleased with the progress being made on the crackdown.

“It’s going to take some time,” Brown cautioned, praising “the fact we’ve been able to deal with 43 of those slum lords.”

“Ninety-five per cent of landlords are good landlords; what we’re dealing with are those two bad apples that ruin neighbourhoods,” he added, suggesting that without inspections some “people will play the system — they’ll get a legal unit and then they’ll alter it greatly.”

A staff report presented to councillors on Wednesday, suggested a slew of fire safety issues have plagued rental properties in the city.

Proactive enforcement by fire staff at 225 properties resulted in 25 escalation orders, the report said. They were mainly for a lack of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and maintenance issues with smoke alarms of improper modifications to basement units.

Global News previously reported that the vast majority of basement fires in Brampton were taking place in unregistered units that have not seen inspections take place.

2:19 Majority of Brampton basement fires happening in unregistered units

While most councillors praised the progress of the rental pilot — and the public and media attention that has followed it — one suggested it may be “premature” to tout its successes.

“How do we know it’s a massive success if less than 25 per cent of the (registered additional residential units) are coming into the RRL program?” Coun. Gurpartap Singh Toor asked on Wednesday.

“And the majority of the ones that are coming to the RRL program are already registered ARUs, like previously compliant?”

The pilot is operating over a two-year period, with a vocal group of landlords holding regular protests at Brampton City Hall calling for it to be scrapped.

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