In the past couple of months, the city has undertaken 20 inspections of rental units with fire and building services staff to investigate zoning and property standards violations.
“In some cases the city is working with the property owner to gain compliance,” according to a city spokesperson. “In others, orders have been issued relating to building and fire code and for various bylaw infractions.”
As always, their goal has compliance through education, city Corporate Security and Bylaw Services manager Stefany Mussen said.On occasions where there’s an immediate danger to residents, such as an absence of smoke detectors, it’s dealt with and resolved immediately.
“Some of the stuff is a lot more emergent and on the spot, and some of it relies on a summons to court,” she said, adding that there are opportunities to ensure compliance through legal channels in cases where education isn’t enough.
The most visible symptom of overcrowded rental accommodations is vehicles parked on front lawns. Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann co-hosted a community meeting with Ward 8 Coun. Al Sizer last month to help educate people on the topic and relay their concerns.This, in turn, spurred other media outlets to publish stories about crowded circumstances in rental units in the neighbourhood and for community members to file complaints of their own.
Mussen was well-prepared for her recent interview with Sudbury.com on the topic, as she said she has been talking about it a great deal lately.This education will extend beyond community meetings and media interviews, she said, adding that the city plans on reaching out to post-secondary institutions to ensure that students know what the rules around housing are.
“Our hope is just to have some education with students and some communication with students to educate them [on what] the rules are for renting and what the bylaws are in the community that they must abide by,” she said.
When it comes to the most visible symptom of overcrowded rental accommodations, she said that parking is only allowed on driveways, and “never on the grass.”
Driveways can eat up half of a residential property’s road frontage, and on-street parking is only allowed in four-hour increments per location, including overnight. Between Dec. 1 and March 31, the city doesn't allow on-street parking from midnight to 7 a.m.*
As for overcrowding, she said it can be difficult for the city to pin down those in breach of the rules because there are many ways people can go about it.
Whereas rooming houses are allowed in Greater Sudbury, they require proper zoning that ensures they’re not overcrowded and suffer visible symptoms such as pileup of garbage and vehicles parking on the lawn.In a typical rental unit, a landlord can rent it out to one person, but they can in turn rent out up to two accessory guest rooms to other people. The same would apply to a property’s secondary unit, meaning there could be six separate tenants within a lone residential property.
“That’s where we have a challenge to try to decipher whether it’s an illegal housing arrangement or whether they’re doing it lawfully,” Mussen said, adding that these tenants will on occasion rent out additional space to additional tenants, which is where the problems arise.“We want to make sure that people are kept safe, and we also want to make sure that our neighbourhoods and our communities are kept in line with the bylaws that are put in place to keep our communities safe.”
This isn’t always easy, she said, adding that with people having a difficult time finding affordable or suitable housing accommodations, tenants might be reluctant to co-operate with an investigation for fear of not having a place to live.
Greater Sudbury Landlord Association president Ray Goulet told Sudbury.com the market is so tight right now that anyone advertising a nice apartment is liable to receive up to 60 applicants.Although some people have blamed landlords for the issue, he said tenants aren’t in the clear.
Pulling aside one example of a crowded rental unit full of students, he said, “I would bet you a steak dinner the landlord is renting out three bedrooms, four bedrooms in this house, it’s the students letting students in by, slip me $200, here’s a room.
“There are some very resourceful individuals. These boys or girls are going to school and they have to think of a quick way to make a buck to lessen their overhead.”
This, during a time in which rental rates have jumped dramatically, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s latest Rental Market Report released in February 2022.
Last year, Greater Sudbury’s purpose-built rental market vacancy rate was a 10-year low of 1.8 per cent and the average two-bedroom rent was $1,286, which was an 8.4-per-cent jump compared to 2020.“It’s not entirely the landlord’s fault,” Goulet added. “(But) it is from the standpoint that he’s not monitoring his property, he wants to sit back and collect the rent.”
Landlords whose buildings become overcrowded have “lost your building; you’re out of control,” he said. Goulet said building owners should be checking in on their units on a monthly basis and including specific language in their leases to help prevent activities they don’t want to see take place at their properties, such as tenants renting out units to multiple people.
Complaints or concerns regarding rental properties can be registered on the city’s customer service line by phoning 311, Mussen said, adding that they can also be submitted via the online customer service portal which can be found by clicking here.Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
* Edit: This additional context was added after this story was initially published in response to a question by a reader.
