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Council Passes Anti-Renoviction Bylaw - 2026-04-14 - City Council
Kitchener · April 15, 2026
2026. Individuals interested in participating in today's meeting were eligible to register online using the delegation registration form at www.kitchener.ca/delegation ca/delegation or via email at delegation@kitchner.ca. Any written comments received prior to the commencement of today's meeting have been circulated to members of council prior to the meeting and will form part of the public record. The meeting live stream and archived videos are available at www.kitchener.ca/watch.now. As we gather this evening, I'd like to uh remind everyone that we're gathering on the traditional territory of the neutral Anesnabi and Hodnosoni peoples. We recognize our responsibility to serve as stewards for the land and honor the original caretakers who came before us. Our community is enriched by the enduring knowledge and deeprooted traditions of the diverse First Nations Matei and Inuit in Kitchener. Today, I'd now like to invite everyone to stand as they're able for the singing of our national anthem. our home. True patri love in all of us with glowing heart and far thee. keep our land glorious and free. Oh Canada, we stand on guard for the Canada. We stand on God for Thank you very much. Before we begin uh this evening's council meeting, I'd like to take a moment to recognize several days of observance. Today is the uh commemor commemoration of Yam Hashoa, a a day known as Holocaust Remembrance Day, a commemoration for the approximately 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its allies and for the resistance in that period. Tomorrow uh will be uh sorry this month is also seek heritage month uh across Canada. A time to learn and celebrate the rich culture and contributions of the sea community. For generations, seek Canadians have made significant contributions to our society to help shape a more inclusive Canada through leadership, entrepreneurship, volunteerism, and a strong commitment to serving others. These values of service, equality, generosity, and care for others are also central to Visaki, which is being observed tomorrow this year on April the 14th. Visaki is an important celebration for sea communities, marking renewal, community, and a shared commitment to service and justice. And so, on behalf of the council and city of Kiter, I wish se communities a joyful and meaningful Visaki. As we celebrate Sea Heritage Month, we also acknowledge that sea communities continue to face racism and discrimination, as do other racialized communities in Canada. I urge all of us to continue to stand against hate whenever and wherever we see it, so we can all work towards a more inclusive society where everyone feels like they belong. And I'd in closing like to also take a moment to acknowledge a couple of other events that happened in the recent uh weeks. Passover, Easter, and Orthodox Easter, which were recently observed by many in our community here in Kitchener and around the world. On behalf of the council and citizens of Kitchener, we extend our warm wishes to everyone who observed these occasions with family, friends, and the community. On motion by councelor Dave Schneider, the minutes of the regular meeting held March 23rd, 2026 and special meetings held March 23rd and March 30th as mailed to the mayor and counselors be accepted. All those in favor? Any opposed? That's carried. Are there any disclosures of pecunary interest? Councelor Misho. Yes, there are. Coming from caucus uh item 2.1 uh due to my place of employment. Okay. Thank you. Um, councelor Stretch. Yes. I have a conflict on item 6.2. Um, that's a rental replacement. Um, as previously stated, I own property and rent out two units at that property. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Singh. Yes. Uh, as pointed out from the planning and strategic committee, item number 6.2 uh as 7.2, 2. I the rental renovation licensing same as myself and family own rental property. Okay. Thank you. And councelor Deno uh uh excuse me arriving at the caucus. Uh item 2.1 um my wife works at one of the uh mentioned uh places. Okay. Thank you. Uh so if I can just remind everyone to uh file the appropriate paperwork for their conflict and we will deal with item 7.2 to I separately when it comes time uh for the for the vote. Uh I'll note the communication referred to file for the illumination for world pans awareness day and we'll now move into uh there are no presentations. We'll move into delegations to all delegations. The city values and encourages participation and dialogue in a democratic process that occurs in council and committee meetings and through written submissions and correspondence. It's important that these interactions remain respectful towards other members of the public, staff, and council. In cases where dialogue is not respectful or a delegate interrupts the mayor or counselor, staff or other delegations, makes derogatory statements about the mayor, counselors, staff, or others that are disrespectful or uses language that is considered harmful or defamatory. The chair may interject and take necessary actions to maintain a respectful and inclusive environment for everyone, which could involve removal from the meeting. One last reminder, delegations are permitted to address council for a maximum of 5 minutes, which will be displayed on the screens in front of you. When there is 30 seconds remaining in your time, you will hear a small audio tone that will signal 30 seconds remaining. Please take that time to conclude your presentation as there will be a second tone at the completion of your time and the microphone will automatically turn off shortly after the exceeded 5m minute mark. Lastly, please do not take offense if following your presentation there are no questions from council. This is council's time to really listen and reflect upon the opinions and ideas shared with us from our community members. I will note that there are many delegations tonight for a couple of items on the agenda. And I also want to uh remind folks that uh there are no uh public expressions of applause or anything uh after people speak. We'll begin with item 6.1 uh the heritage helping house building grant. Uh and we have one delegation uh KLG. Welcome Miss LG. very much. Um, yeah. So, I will try and do two things at once here. Advance my slides, but yeah. Okay, that's working. Okay. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you tonight about Architectural Conservancy Ontario's Heritage Helping Housing Grant proposal. My name is K. Elg. Now, my colleague Dan Schneider spoke to Kitchener Heritage on April 2nd and that committee has put forward a motion which we hope council will support. Now, We we came to this looking at what are the top of mind concerns for Ontarians. Now a poll last week Angus Reid had a slightly different order. The top concern now is the price um in cost of living and inflation but second is healthcare and third housing prices and affordability. So as acco we realize we really can't fight inflation, we can't intervene in the Gulf War etc. Um and we are individually of course very much supportive of public health care but our mandate as architectural conservancy Ontario is heritage and that's where we can do something about housing affordability. It's because there are 8,000 individually designated properties in Ontario and over 30,000 properties designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. And so these are ones that we feel if these were adaptively reused A number of these could could be put forth to quickly create additional housing units and create more housing period. And we have a great example just down the street, St. Mark's Place at uh at on King Street, where a former church that was worthy of heritage designation now has created 43 supportive housing units. And we feel this could be done in many other instances across the province. Um certainly here we feel that heritage buildings have some special properties that make this a good thing. Um they depending on the scope of the project adaptive reuse projects can reach occupancy much faster than new builds and they can be more affordable. They can be as much as 16% uh cost because We avoid spending on demolition costs and hauling those materials up to the or ever filling landfills. Um, as well as reducing uh the call for new materials and so on. And they are important for climate considerations, which I'm sure is a concern for counselors here as as you deal with the costs of mitigating these increasingly frequent climate disasters that we're likely to have. So the these building they're more um cons they're more sustainable but I think the biggest reason right now is that they create local jobs and you know we're hearing a lot about Ontario first and adaptive reuse projects are much more labor intensive. They can be as much as 60 to 75% labor compared to new builds which are typically 30%. So I think that's a really compelling argument for them right now. Now back in 2014 um the National Trust for Canada did a survey of people who had provided or who might provide adaptive reuse projects and said what would be the number one thing that would help you move forward on this more quickly. and they said an incentive a grant program provided that the grant was simple to apply for it and minister and the fund was large enough to meet 33% of the demand. So you had a one in three chance of getting accepted by it and so all these considerations led acco to propose a new housing focused heritage helping housing building grant and this is what we're asking you to in turn write to the province and ask for implic um application of this. We based this on an existing program in Alberta which had very simple application and administration that encouraged owners and developers to retain and renovate heritage buildings. It pays 50% of the costs up to a cap to building owners to renovate heritage buildings to create new housing units and 50% of the grant would be paid on approval to address the cost of borrowing and So, so here are some of the criteria that we've come up with that we're proposing that it must be a designated property under either part four or part five. It must create new housing units with a cap of 100,000 per housing unit that's created. The work must adhere to the federal standards and guidelines for the conservation of historic places in Canada. and we'd like 50% of the approved funding paid in advance. Is that my time up? Okay, just wrap up, please. You have any final statements? I'm sorry. Do you have any final statements? Just um Yeah, I was just going to show you some examples and and encourage you to uh to to follow the recommendation of the Kitchener Heritage. is basically writing in a letter to the Minister of Finance, Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism, Housing and Municipal Affairs, and Ontario Heritage Trust. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Sorry, I'm just trying to No, I'm just trying to see my lists and I'm not Sorry. There we go. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Chapman. Yeah. Thank you. Um and thank you, Kay, for coming in with this. Um I just wondered if you could tell us whether you've um spoken to other municipalities around the province and how this proposal has been received. We've been speaking to a number of municipalities and and some are lined up. I know it's coming to Waterl Council in a couple of weeks. I'm speaking to Cambridge Heritage on Thursday. Um, in this bill, council uh adopted a motion um and I think there's one other one, but we're in the process of of doing that as well as meeting with MPPPS, a number of whom have been very encouraging. So, we're basically on a campaign and trying to create some momentum before May because councils can't cause pass too many motions after after May, I realize. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And just to correct that though, actually council can continue passing motions um right up until the close of nominations in August and um and then it'll really depend on um how many people are either running or not at that point whether lame duck kicks in. Well, thanks for that clarification. Okay. Um there are no other uh there are no other delegations on this. Uh no other questions. Sorry. Thank you very much, Miss LG. Thank you very much. Councelor Chapman, you want to bring this one forward? Yeah. Um if staff can put up the the motion that was passed at Heritage. Oh, it's on the agenda. Okay. So, do we have to vote on it or Yes. like you you need to bring forward um item 7.1.8. Okay. So, I want to bring forward item 7.1.8. Okay. Um Council Misho, are you seconding that? Yes. Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor? Any opposed? That is carried. Thank you for coming in, Miss LG. Uh we'll now move on to item 6.2, rental renovation licensing bylaw. Uh with the two noted conflicts, there are written submissions from uh several folks. Um Sarah Molnar, JT Mloud, Leslie McCrady, Acorn who also previously delegated, Kayla Andrade, uh Maryanne Fleming Miller, Jennifer Roswell, Greg Canel, Peggy Nichols, Barbara Smith, Magdalina Milos, and Darlene Raymond. I will also note that there are um four delegations that have delegated uh previously. Um Barbara Smith who delegated at FNCS, Ken Vulpole and Jackie Wells on behalf of ACORN who delegated at FNCS, Kayla Andrade who delegated at FNCS and Meg Walker who uh delegated at FCS. Uh and so I just want to remind those delegations that you can only bring forward new information and not uh repeat things that you presented previously at committee. Um so our first delegation is Hafi Hussein. Um Mayor, welcome. Can you guys hear me? Yep. Okay. Good evening, mayor, members of council, city manager, and um city clerk. I wanted to come in today um because I wanted to bring a perspective from an outsider and honestly saying that from this when I first heard that this ren rental renovation bylaw was coming to the city of Kiter. Um I used to work in the city of Kitchener and I felt it a place to be called home. However, um I'm not a landlord. I don't own property in this municipality. However, I wanted to come to you today to just bring a perspective of um why regulations and bylaws such as this deters investment away from this from the city. Um so currently I don't um I do have the opportunity to invest to offer affordable housing to others but I choose not to because it's hard these days to promote local or as the banners have connect local support local. um when constant red tape and regulation is there in place. Um so my dad was a victim of fraud. Um he was a landlord for 30 years and suddenly just now retired. Um I as our parents get older the kids take over and so I had to look after his financial affairs and as a result of that um a lot of the times I was dealing with issues such as um stuff that was beyond our control. So my dad took it upon ourselves once the tenant left his property a few years ago um to just leave it empty and we left it empty for a year and a half. Then the municipality introduced a vacant house tax which uh led us to sell the unit and my dad was providing affordable housing for 30 years and he sold that unit and now is making uh more money in the in a GIC living office his retirement than providing affordable housing. Um, so the more and more that municipalities stretch out their regulations because there are regulations on the provincial level and that constantly build in bylaws that haven't been challenged in our courts. Um, and go beyond the municipal act. I'm not sure the guidance with the city solicitor has provided to this council. Um I just wanted to bring that perspective that you are the count if you know from regulations such as renovation bylaws u licensing more and more constantly puts burdens on mom and pops such as my dad who's 76 and will just deter us providing housing and bring our um investments outside. So currently I do own a property but it's not even in Canada. Um I do provide affordable housing to um to someone or family in the US. Um the regulations in that county, in that municipality are night and day. Um, and I just wanted to bring that to this council's attention that um, there are already regulations in place on the provincial level such as um, renovation bylaws or renovations or N13s or tenant protections. But the more and more that you continue to put on our parents and our mom and pops, the more you're just going to drive us to sell and invest elsewhere. I would like to invest in the city of Kitchener. I've worked here at um across the street at 25 I mean across manual life years ago but it's hard to come back into this municipality when constant red tape and stuff that is already on the provincial level comes to the municipality. So if this renovation bylaw does go past today um you're just going to deter Canadians such as myself to just leave. Like I'm already in the process of just bringing my money and invest in the US. I don't have to deal with red tape. I don't have to deal with rent evictions. I don't have to deal with municipality bylaw enforcement. You're just It's like why why why go with this battle? I might as well just take my money else outside if we're trying to um work as a team to support local or support Canada. What what are keep what is keeping our dollars in this country going to do? So I'm just wanted to bring that perspective is I would like to invest in the city of Kitchener but there's no incentive because I already have better incentives and lower taxes in other jurisdictions outside this country. So I wanted to conclude that um the more that this council should look into the perspective on both ways. There is strong tenant protections out there. However, the onus on providing affordable housing to our parents when they've had these properties for years, their child children have grown up. It's a second property and we can't continue to manage it. And if you continue to put red tape and burden of us, you're just going to create more of a crisis rather than solve this crisis and that the second tier municipality, the region of Waterlue will cover the cost. So, it's just I just wanted to bring that perspective because I would like to invest in the city, but this the the more red tape, the more stretching the municipal act doesn't allow me to do it. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Hussein. We do have a question. Councelor Jano, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And, uh, so, uh, Mr. Hussein, where do you currently live? Um, I live in Toronto. Toronto, but I've worked in kids. That's fine. Um, and so London, Missaga, Hamilton, Toronto all have rent eviction bylaws. Did you delegate at those uh councils? Uh no. Okay. Um and so what kind of incent uh investment incentive would would make you want to invest in Kitchener? Um like just less red tape and less burden. Like that's just I don't want to like I don't want to deal with bylaw enforcement. I don't want to like if if my unit is up to code in Ontario building code and there's rules that are already there on the provincial level like I just want to work with the municipality that works within its guidelines like I strongly feel like municipalities are stretching beyond the municipal act and why are we creating duplications of laws when there's already there in the provincial level and I'm not sure if this regulation if the city solicitor has given that guidance to this council that this I strongly believe this is interference with provinial legislation that overrides like the municipal act doesn't cover. So that's why I'm here today just to let you guys know. And you're not a a municipal attorney or lawyer, right? No, it's just that I've learned to follow the municipal act and I strongly believe that the this bylaw it even though it has not been challenged, I'm not sure what the city solicitor has provided guidance is overriding or providing more red tape that is already there in the residential tenency act and in the Ontario building book. Thank you very much uh for coming in this uh this evening. Next delegation, I believe joining virtually is Sarah Molner. Good evening, Sarah. Good evening. Good evening. Um, my name is Sarah Molner. I am a property manager and I'm here representing the small and midsize housing providers who make up a significant portion of the rental housing in this community. I'm going to be direct. This proposed approach to renovations is not grounded in evidence. It duplicates duplicates provincial law and it risks making our housing situation worse not better. Let's start with some facts. There's no clear data showing that bad faith evictions are happening at a scale that justifies new municipal regulation. If it is widespread issue, then where are the numbers? How many landlords have been fined? Because under Ontario law, bad faith evictions are already illegal and enforceable through the res. So what exactly is this license solving? Because right now it feels like it's a solution in search of a problem. Now let's bring this back to what's actually happening locally. In the Kitchener region, the rental vacancy rate has risen to about 4% a multi-deade high. Vacancy increases vacancy increases are being driven by new supply and reduced demand, not displacement. What does that tell us? It tells us that the market is already adjusting. It tells us that competing for tenants, offering incentives, lowering rent, and trying to keep units built. And most importantly, it tells us that this is not a market where landlords have unlimited power to displace tenants. Now, let's talk about landlords. There is a narrative that landlords are large institutional players acting in bad faith. That is simply not reality. In Ontario, very large portion of rental housing is provided by smallcale landlords. 39% of homeowners reporting space to tenants which shows how much of the system relies on individuals not corporations are families retirees and local investors trying to maintain a properties and that brings me to the double standard when public buildings hospitals and municipal infrastructure reach end of life we invest in them we don't question whether there should be repaired we plan for it when but when private Housing reaches the same point. Landlords are restricted, scrutinized, and increasingly regulated. We are expected to upgrade aging buildings while being accused of acting in bad faith. That is not balanced policy. Now, let's talk about the real risk here. Costs are rising across the board. Interest rates, insurance, labor, materials. At the same time, right controls limited revenue growth and financing is becoming harder to access. If the numbers don't work, banks don't lend. And if banks don't lend, buildings will get fixed or worse, landlords exit the market. A 2025 Ontario Real Estate Association Advocacy found that about 20% 27% of landlords have considered or are already taking steps to exit the rental market due to regulatory and operational challenges. This should be a warning sign. What happens when small landlords who provide a large share of rental housing decide is no longer viable because adding more bylaws, more cost and more uncertainty does not encourage reinvestment. It discourages it and when reinvestment stops, housing quality declines and supplies shrink. That is how you make a housing crisis worse. Now let's talk about jurisdiction. The issue is already governed by the province. Creating a parallel municipal system is duplication. It adds, sorry, just one time. It adds cost for taxpayers and complexity for housing providers without evidence that it will improve outcomes. If the goal is to protect tenants and preserve affordability, then let's focus on solutions that actually work. Expand expand community improvement plans to support building repairs. Create financial incentives that make renovations viable. Improve access to capital so landlords can maintain agent stock. Invest in tenant education because many renters don't fully understand their rights under existing law. And important most importantly engage with us because we are not the problem. We are the ones providing housing. It will this approach seems like a wild goose case. It will not increase supply. It will not improve affordability. And it will not deliver better long-term outcomes for tenants. What it will do is push more housing providers out of the market and that is a risk this community cannot afford. So I ask you to pause and reassess and work with us because if you want real solutions, we are ready to bring them forward. But we need a seat at the table and not a layer of regulation. Let do what we do best and help. Thank you, Miss Molnar. We do have a question for you, Councelor Schneider. Thank you, Mayor. Uh thank you Sarah for uh speaking to us. Uh you mentioned operational challenges in your speech. What are some of the operational challenges a landlord would face? Is that things like um interest rates going up? Uh utility costs going up. Could you kind of uh maybe speak to the those challenges? Yes. So yeah, so you've got insurance, property taxes, just your regular utilities, everything is increasing. Um, and we're just trying to um we're just trying to stay afloat, especially with a lot of our older buildings. Um, they need major renovations. Okay. Thank you. Those are all the questions we have. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Our next delegation is Barbara Smith. welcome Barbara and just a reminder to focus on new information, please. Hi. Um, okay. Thank you to the mayor, city councilors, and city staff. I would like to address some concerns and statements brought up at the last meeting discussing the renovation bylaw. Something often brought up was the jurisdiction of the municipalities and the concerns that licensing would not stand up in court. But according to the municipalities act in section 8, municipalities are given the the power to interpret their juris jurisdiction broadly and provide for a system of licenses respecting the matter interpreted. Jurisdiction of the municipality includes 2.6 the health, safety and well-being of persons and 2.8 of protection of persons and property including consumer protection as seen in section 151g municip municipal powers include licensing real property used for business and the persons engaged in it. And part 13 allows fees and charges relating to those bylaws. And section 394 gives municipalities the option to assess fees or charges related to real property based on the location. Even the income tax act supports municipalities in their attempts to preser preserve affordable housing by no longer allowing businesses deductions for short-term rentals operating outside of compliance with municipal restrictions. Another objection at the last meeting was the myth of the small landlord. This notion of a small landlord was held up as a big reason to forgo the renoviction bylaw. They are too small and cannot afford the extra cost. According to Statistics Canada, lessers of residential buildings and dwellings are operating with an average profit margin of 36 to 37% in the early 2020s. Surely there's a little room in the budget to assist a tenure tenant that dutifully paid their rent for years, sometimes decades. For me personally, my small landlord was a senior land development manager and I was a server. Even small landlords are in positions of economic power. Let's be honest, even a small landlord owns two or more properties. Renters own none. And how long will we pretend that the right to profit is the same as the right to a safe place to live? And with the place of current inflation and wages, that does not appear to be changing anytime soon. In fact, I would love to know the ratio of new reents being built to new developments being built where housing will be offered for sale. Lately, it seems as though every new development is a rental, rentals with no rent control. In Canadian Review of Sociology, Sarah Jervis and Fiona Martin explore how market-based housing plays a role in homelessness. If, as the quote reads, rent supplements and incentives to developers have been used since the '9s, I think it is time to try something new. In fact, another article highlights how the financial financialization of housing leads to a decline in living standards and abuses by those with stronger economic power are highlighted. one another. Study after study shows that the financialization of housing harms communities. And how did these units become in states of disrepair so profound that the tenant must move out and the place must be gutted? In my case, it was a slow progression. The photo of this rotten deck was taken from the current real estate listing of the property that I was rented from. First off, I see this record. This rotten deck was not deemed a necessary repair during the latest renovations, which is odd to say the least. And secondly, this was reported to the landlord at least 5 years ago and allowed to continue to cause damage. Now they are attempting to pass it off to someone new. Not enacting this bylaw is rewarding this behavior. My last rebuttal. Oh, why didn't that one not change? Anyway, my last rebuttal is to the costing side. How funds would be raised and budgetary impacts were a main concern at the last meeting and I thank council for their due care taken with their responsibilities. However, there are other ways to recoup costs of this bylaw such as vacant unit taxes or transient accommodation taxes. It is time to lay the costs of homelessness on the feet of those who profit from it. Cities are passing these bylaws already. By not enacting them, you are encouraging bad actors to come here where they may continue to abuse the comm the community and discouraging families from starting their life here. As our young people look toward their future, what will hold them to the region? If I was presented with two opportunities, one in a community where I would be protected and one where I wouldn't, I would choose to be in the one where I was protected, wouldn't you? Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss Smith. We do have um some delegations. Uh councelor Deno, what did I say? Oh, sorry. Question. Sorry, I'm having technical problems, folks. My mouse isn't working. So, councelor Deno, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I can delegate a little bit later if you need me to. Um so, uh Barbara, you mentioned uh that you were uh revicted. Yep. So, what were the reasons why you needed to vacate your premises? Uh, well, I had lived there for 10 years, and my rent was $1,020. So, rent for a two-bedroom apartment now is about 2,000. So, the whole time that I had lived there, I had spoken to the landlord about things like water in the basement, which they choose to ignore. Um, I have other pictures of tree roots growing into the foundation of the house, which they also chose to ignore. And then they came and said, can't afford market uh interest rates. We need you to move so we can sell the house. And I said, "No." Um I don't need to move for you to sell. I'm in school right now and I can't afford to move for you to sell and I don't want to. They they tried to give me a very low amount of money, which I would have, you know, as as a student, how do you pay $2,000 a month rent? So, I fought it for as long as I could. And then I lost as I said in my And did they end up selling the house? Uh, the house is currently for sale right now. Um, in our hearing at the landlord tenant board, I was granted the right of first refusal, but that was never offered to me. So, I was just I moved out and and now they've listed the place for sale. Councelor Chapman. Yeah, thank you and thank you for coming this evening. Um so you mentioned the um this the myth of the small landlord. I wonder if you could talk a bit about you know a renovation bylaw with the compensation that's that's proposed in the amendment and you know would you distinguish like say well we don't need to do it for smaller landlords only so many units or can you speak to that a bit? The thing about the so many units for me is my landlord um as I said was a senior land development manager for Madame Homes. He had a six-f figureure salary. Over the 10 years that I lived in his property, they purchased three other properties. So by the time they wanted me to leave, they owned three houses plus their own personal property and are still considered a small landlord, right? Because each of those properties was only duplexes. their only uh compensation required to me was one month of rent. And considering that my rent being 10 years old under rent control was $1,020, what is that compensation compared to today's rental markets? It's nothing, right? So, I think that the strong like the strongest if if someone if there had been a bylaw in place when they came to me and said that they needed to renovate and I knew that first of all I was going to get help and second of all that I for sure would be allowed to move in. I never would have fought them in the first place. I would have moved out right away. But I also don't understand how they're allowed to just let these places fall into disrepair and then say, "Oh, you got to move, right? They're they're financially incentivized to allow these places to fall into disrepair." Right. So, it doesn't matter if you're one unit, if it's a house or duplex or a six-unit building. It's it's um the impact on on you as a tenant would be the same. Right. Right. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And those are all the questions that we have. Um, we'll move on to the the next delegation who's Anastasia Portnik. And I I just want to remind council we have 24 delegations on this item in total. Um, and three on the next. So if we can endeavor to focus any questions on questions of clarification. Not here. Okay. We'll move on and check back later. Um, Marshall Sandeu. Welcome, Marshall. Yes. Uh, thank you, council. Uh, I personally believe we are currently facing a crisis of aging infrastructure by adding layers of licensing fees, bureaucratic delays, and rent gap payments. The city is effectively telling landlords, "Do not improve your building." When you make it a legal and financial nightmare to to ensure that housing stocks remains in a state of decay. This doesn't protect tenants. trap them in deteriorating buildings because owners can no longer afford just the entrepreneic including compensation and the right of birth. This bylaw is a redundant layer of red tape. The city is attempting to act as a secondary landlord and tenant code which is outside legal jurisdiction. We already have a building permit process to ensure the work is legitimate. We don't need a permission to renovate. We should stop using to build another. If the provincial system is broken, we should fix it there. To me, this bylaw appears to paint every landlord as a faceless corporation. In reality, we are engineers, teachers, and retirees. When you mandate that a landlord must pay for a tenants comparable alternative accommodation or huge rent gap payments, say during a six month structural repair, you're asking that a landlord many times essentially go bankrupt. Small investors, as other people have said, are already fleeing Ontario because the numbers no longer work. When small landlords leave the affordable units, I request respectable council members to not attempt to obtain short-term votes today from a tenant majority at the expense of the housing supply tomorrow. Every landlord we drive out is one more family without a home. And honestly to me it seems that this bylaw assumes that every landlord is acting in bad. It creates a guilty until proven innocent environment. By encouraging tenants to fight every necessary repair as a renovation, the city is fueling a culture of entitlement that ignores the reality of inflation, taxes, rising interest rates, falling rents and so on. You are actually incentivizing tenants to block necessary construction, putting entire buildings at risk. Leadership is about telling the truth that buildings need maintenance and maintenance costs money. As a licensed professional engineer in Ontario, I worked with the city of Kitchener at upgrading their wastewater pumping stations from 2017 till 2023 and 2024 and have dealt with safety and standards every day. I also want my buildings to be safe. These bylaws, they make a secondary fire priority instead of aligning with popular political group think. I urge this council to stop treating property owners like criminals and start treating us like the essential housing providers we are. Grab the license, simplify the permits and let us fix our Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh Mr. And do uh there don't appear to be any questions. Thank you for joining us this evening. Our next delegation is Douglas Quan. Welcome, Mr. Quan. Right there. Thank you. Uh so I'm the director of advocacy and legal services at the Advocacy Center for Tent Ontario. I appeared last year supporting our renovation bylaw. So some stats that you're already well aware there's 85,000 Ontarians that are unsheltered last year according to AMO 72% of uh increase in those who are receiving social assistance have gone homeless in the Wateroo region over the last two years just the last two years we've seen a 10.5% increase in two-bedroom units and in the War region uh there uh well established reports that renovations have have gone up by 55% between 2017 and 2022 We also h know that uh University of Wateroo study stated that corporate landlords primarily use rent evictions as mean to displace their tenants and then uh rent out their units for higher rents. So a lot has been talked about the landlord tenant board. So the landlord tenant board today has historically been unable to protect tenants from bad faith evictions such as rent evictions. It's well established that it's not a place for tenants to seek redress because tenants have to wait twice as long for a hearing compared to landlords. Also, when they do finally get to the tenant application, they they they don't issue orders against the landlords and find them. And on those occasions when they have issued orders, 13 between 2020 and 2023, only four of those landlords actually paid their fines. And none of those 13 orders were more than $10,000, which is easily recouped in in a short span of maybe a year and a half with new rent. In summary, the LTV is not a place for tenants to protect themselves from bad faith evictions. The province also recognizes rent evictions are were a problem. Three years ago, they passed bill 97. The former Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing said, "We've got a bill before the House right now, the Helping Home Buyers Protecting Tenants Act. We've been responsive to many of the tenant concerns and also the human rights commission. Many of the recommendations that we put forward in that bill respond directly to some of the concerns that tenants have expressed in our government about renovations and landlords own use. The bill had some promise. Unfortunately, it was never it was passed three years ago but is yet to be enforced. Despite the recognition that renovictions is plague in the entire province, it has not come into force. It cannot be used. Which brings us to municipalities because you are the front lines. You see the impact that residents uh have been experiencing over the last three years of renovations. Even more so than that and municipalities are stepping up beyond Hamilton, Toronto, London, Missaga just passed their bylaw. G, Chattam, Kent, Wateroo, Ottawa are all passing bylaws this year. Smith Falls are investigating into bylaws. The difference between what the province passed and has yet to be enforced and what municipalities are introducing is you have an independent body to determine whether a unit has to be vacant to perform the renov uh renovation work. You have the bylaw department. You have a licensing program. You have and an education program for landlords and tenants. Some bylaws introduce tenant compensation. Some municipalities have also added fines to uh to tack on situations where it's particularly grievous where landlords are really gaming the system and earning immense profits from this action. We have some new data from Hamilton a year later after it was introduced. Hamilton reported an 80% drop in the number of rent eviction filings 119 in 2024 compared to only 23 last year. Service providers who support tenants have said they're getting fewer calls about bad faith evictions. Landlords in Hamilton are still, despite all this, are able to make repairs about fixing their uh leaky faucet, cracks in their ceiling. They're still doing the work. The difference is there are far fewer landlords who are using those repairs as an excuse to evict their tenants. Hamilton's bylaw includes a rent gap payments, compensation for tenants. London's does not. Missaga, which recently passed their bylaw on April 1st and is to take effect on September 1st, has a strong tan compensation portion. That is why we recommend that council pass the renovation ball because it supports your housing for all 2020 blueprint, which is to retain residents, make sure that they stay housed. We support the motion by councelor Chapman for tenant compensation because that is a key to success that what we've seen in Hamilton can work here. This the proposal before you does does not offer any compensation whatsoever. It's important that this council act today and immediately to protect its residents because all of those who are affected are long-term residents, mostly seniors who are facing renovations. So, we urge that the time is right to take action now. Thank you. Thank you. If I can ask the clerk to click out of the Okay, councelor Deno. Thank you. Uh, excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And you actually answered one of my questions. Um, you know, what the data is at who's the most risk uh in our population around evictions and and I knew in my back of my head it's seniors. Um but would you say it also includes newcomers to Canada? Um single parents, people on ODSP or other um social welfare programs through you, mayor. The people most impacted by rent evictions are those who've been in this community for multiple years. Those who've sent their kids to school and raised their kids, those who've participated in community events. Those are the people who those are people who know you are being affected by the renovation bylaws. It's not new renters because simply their rent hasn't changed compared to market. Okay. And and you may not know this answer the answer but do we know what the you know when landlords provide N13s what is the biggest reason why they provide those like is it a full uh redo of the apartment or is it like we hear in some situations well they want to take down the cupboards and and put new cupboards up like do we have any idea of what the biggest reason why N13s are are given? I want to be clear, there are some there are some N13s that are legitimate and that landlords apply because the the place needs to be gutted, the the copper tubing needs to be replaced, what have you. We here at Actto hear the worst situations where it's a replacing a counter or um a door needs to be replaced. Anyone who's ever done any renovations in their home or any family or friends, they know that there are some renovations that you could you just go outside, take a walk in the local park and you come back and the work is done. The N13 is a process where a repair is necessary and vacant possession is necessary and renovation bylaws act as a uh it dissuades bad faith landlords from acting uh improperly uh leaving only those um N13s that are necessary. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Deno. Councelor Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Mr. Quan, for coming in tonight. I appreciated your presentation. Um, I'm wondering if you can provide some data to us. And I I don't know whether or not you'll have this data, but you've heard tonight from uh landlords and from others who say, you know what, the sky is falling. If this if this comes in, we're not going to be able to rent. We're going to have to move to another country. We're going to have to uh give up our rental properties. Do you have any data that would sub substantiate that or that would negate that? I I am concerned about the rhetoric that we've heard so far and perhaps what we might hear in the next couple of delegates. The fact of the matter is there is no legal authority to allow your building to go into disrepair to allow your building disrepair. The rhetoric is is frankly it concerned me that they might know not know the law. The residential tenencies act is clear. Landlords have an obligation, regardless of the rent that they receive, to ensure that their unit is in a good state of repair and inhabitable. Now, whether or not that makes economic sense or not, that is up to the investor themselves, but the law is clear. So any messages stating that well we're just going to allow the building into go into disrepair. Frankly, they're saying that we're going to purposely not follow the legislation or not follow our obligations on the law and those have serious penalties and fines attached to it. Yeah. I'm um Thank you. Yeah. I'm wondering if you have any any data around, you know, um uh I think I think we've heard that people would have to sell and that they wouldn't be renting rent renting anymore and that rental rentals would disappear. Do you any data around that? It's probably hard to hard to find that piece, but I I don't have any data. I I haven't heard data from other delegates who are asserting that position. Certainly um these are financial assets that value can go up and down. They can make decisions as to how they treat it. Um you know if if they can't find another investor certainly that asset can be available to a homeowner or a potential homeowner. So I there aren't any actually any data available publicly on that point. Thank you. Thanks Councelor Johnson. Councelor Schneider. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Douglas, for coming in. Uh, you did state in your delegation that the LTB does not prevent renovations. Yet, here in Kitchener, we had a high-profile case at 250 Frederick Street. Well, the where the LTB did rule in favor of the tenants and against the landlord. So, what are your comments on that? Yeah, it it doesn't act as a deterrent. If that what I mean is if you're comparing the landlord tenant board to this bylaw one the landlord tenant board only provides redress after the fact after the N13's been served after I I don't know how many people have received that paper notice and left voluntarily and then those who remain are the ones who are challenging the decision. What the bylaw is meant to do is to dissuade the N13 from being served in the first race. So when I say that the LTB does not prevent uh rent evictions, I mean in the sense that they don't their actions do not dissuade that activity and how can I support that? It's through some of the data that we've seen out of Hamilton. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to be clear on that. So it's not prevented to sway. Thank you. Thank you councelor Schneider. Councelor Chapman. Yeah. Thank you. Um and thank you for your presentation. I just wanted to ask a similar question that I asked to an earlier delegate delegation and that was um is there a difference between a small landlord say a one unit or duplex or a triplex versus a a sixplex and when it comes to renovictions do do you think it should be treated differently? I think the impact is the same on the tenant. Okay. So, it's the same. It's a It's a distinction that has no bearing on the 10 who's facing the renovation. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Chapman. Councelor Davyy. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. I was looking at the Hamilton data with interest as well. And one thing I learned a long time ago is that correlation does not imply causality. And so, I guess I'd ask, have you like could there be any other reasons that the uh renoviction rate has gone down? through you may I I like what what's happened to rent rental rates for example in the last year from 2024 to 2025. Yes. What's happened to rental rates in the province? They gone up or down? Sorry. Have they gone up or down? Right. As I understand, rental rates have plateaued. Uh depending on the type of asset, whether it's a condo, we've seen more vacancies for condos. Whether it's purpose-built rentals, there's less vacancy there. So, uh, if your question is about vacancy rates, I what I see from the data and data and what from municipal staff at the city of Hamilton are saying is that there is a correlation. Um, they've they issued a report that these N13s are measured by looking at landlord tanning, which means that there's only certain types of filing related to renovations. It's there might be some other reasons, but it's a dramatic difference to suggest that there are other factors at play. The most significant factor that happened in Hamilton appears to be the renovation by you. You mentioned that one of the differences with this bylaw is that there's an independent body making the determination. Is the LTB not an independent body? They do not. They like as I said earlier they are not the ones to determine um they determine whether vacant possession is necessary after the N13 is served at the municipal level. No no that that's enough. Thank you. And you mentioned that um the appeals that you saw that went through if the if someone went through our our bylaw process for those for those N13s went to the LTB um that the LTB approved as being relevant and those people should be re renovicted frankly would that would this bylaw change that at all? I'm sorry can you repeat that question? for cases that go to the LTB. So let's say someone goes through the process here and then they still appeal to the LTB. For the ones that were approved in the past, would there be any different outcome for those people that lost at the LTB? So the way this bylaw should play is that those who genuinely require vacant possession due to the renovation work can proceed accordingly. Think of it as a filter, right? You're pouring water through a filter. The first layer is the bylaw and then only the ones that can justify that vacant possession is necessary make it to the landlord tempo and then they determine whether the to grant what the landlord is asking for. But anyone can anyone can appeal to LTV if they get N13. Correct. Uh the the N13 is filed by the landlord and tenants sometimes can respond to it. Other tenants just see the first letter and they just leave because they're scared. So final question then if somebody not everyone attends to the landlord tamp board who receives an N13 if that's what you're asking. Yeah exactly. So my final question then if someone knows the rights and they are being sorry two more questions. First one is if you get an N13 and you appeal it does it does the tenant get to stay in their home until the LTB makes a decision? The LTB uh is the final determination where vacancy is granted. But you you referenced that the backlog is a big pressure for tenants and I'm just asking if the backlog is a big pressure for tenants, what happens to them once they file an appeal? Do they have to leave their home? Well, if if they challenge the decision and appeal the decision isn't final, they do remain housed until it's finalized until there's an LTP ruling. Okay, great. And my last my last question then, if someone is educated, they know their rights and they are being e evicted illegally with an N13 and they go to the LTB, how will our bylaw be any different? They have to do a ton of work ahead of time. they they are facing at the LTB. Usually the landlord sends in an engineer or someone who's a contractor who can identify hopefully they they say that he's he or she is a specialist or knows what they're doing and then the tenant has to marshall evidence to refute that evidence to say that it's an illegal act or it's a bad faith eviction. Okay. And the difference is you have a third party a bylaw someone in the bylaw planning department to make that determination. uh that is the difference. In other municipalities, they have an architect or an engineer or a specific person who has the expertise to make that declaration. Thank you. So, at the Landlord Time Board, as you know, it's highly latigious and both parties are not coming in at an equal footing where they can marshall expert evidence to support their position. Okay. Thank you, Councelor David. Councelor. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor Verbanovic, and thank you, Mr. Quan, for coming in. I missed what what you were who you represent. Who do you represent? We're a community legal clinic funded by Legal Aid Ontario and our mandate is to advance tenants rights across the province. So you're just about policy or do you represent tenants in at the LTV? We provide tenant duty council program that represents tenants at the landlord tenant board. We also have lawyers who go to the Supreme Courts on land issues. And do you do you charge those services or are they free? No, they're they're they're paid by the province. They're paid by the province through Legal Aid Ontario. Okay. So, when a landlord goes in, who does their legal? Do they get their legals free? Yes. The landlord self-help center is funded by the province and they help small. No, that's not true. I don't I don't believe I I I I assure you exist. I assure they exist and and as an organization councelor Councelor Ionitis the delegation is answering their question to the best of their ability. Wow. Well, they're not being truthful. Okay. Councelor Ionitis, that's not appropriate. Anyways, so you mentioned that there's a big backlog at the at the LTB, correct? Yes, there is a backlog. What is the number one issue that is causing that backlog? The number one issue is the move to digital hearings. Pardon me? The move to digital hearings. To digital digital hearings. Okay. Wh why would that cause more backlog if if you don't have to go in person? You it seems like that would expedite it. It is for tribunals that are not busy that but this tribunal hears 80,000 applications every year. Much like council return to in-person meetings, parliament sits in person. You can have multiple conversations as opposed to zoom hearings where only one person can speak. It's very inefficient and as a result that is why there's a backlog. Okay. So you had a lot of stats about N13s and all that stuff. What's the number one form that's filed at the LTB? The most frequently filed form is for renters. Pardon me? Rent a rears. Renters. Do you have a percentage of what that is? I believe it's just under 60%. Under just under 60%. Yes. So do you think it's a fair system in general? the LTB for whom? For everybody, it's not operating well. Landlords have complained about it. Tenants have complained about it. Um, we've seen legislation that are trying to address situations that the landlord templar cannot meet. Municipalities are acting uh in in the housing sphere to try and support the residents. Okay. I I wouldn't say that everything's working well. Okay. So, why aren't you here representing landlords? You said you give landlords free advice. Why aren't you here representing landlords for for not getting N4 for their N4s through your mayor? I I did not say I we represent or serve landlords. Okay. We're the advocacy center for tenants Ontario Council. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you, Councelor. And thank you uh Mr. Quan for coming in this evening. Thank you for your time. Uh folks in the audience, please hold your reactions. Thank you. Uh our next delegation is Rachel Whitney. Welcome, Rachel. Good evening. I wanted to give my perspective as a member who went through the experience of the N13. My building was served N13s and I had to witness what it did to our members in our building. As mentioned here, a majority of them took the money and left. Um, I do know some of them ended up living in their vans. A couple of them moved back home with their parents and some of them even left the province. And mostly they did that not because they didn't know their rights. I hear this a lot from your side. Did they know their rights? Did they know that they had options? They know. But we also know that there's no real uh consequences for landlords acting in bad faith. when they are brought to uh the first right of refusal, there's oftent times where people move back in uh and then there's oftentimes where they don't and they put the unit up for listing for double the price that it was at because they were paying market rent for years and there's nothing they can do to get back into their unit at that original price. Landlords are very rarely held accountable when they do this and they often don't even pay the fines if they are fined. The LTV has such a long waiting period that there were people in my building that were waiting for six, seven months before they even got a response. Most of them also know that they have some recourse in terms of the advocacy groups that are out there, but most of them represent people who earn less than they do. So, a lot of my building members who are earning $55,000 living paycheck to paycheck didn't actually qualify for legal aid. So they couldn't get any legal advice and then they couldn't get legal representation and then they had to try and find time off of work when they worked two to three jobs and their work didn't give them any paid days. It was only ESA covered, unpaid, three sick days and maybe a family emergency day. So like leveling all of that to them then having to be experts when they do go to the LTV to be able to fight the N13 to know the levels of service that they have to put in their seven days of evidence that they have to serve the landlord who already has an expert on their side. They took the money they were offered and they left. So effectively there are three new homeless people in the system or they are precariously housed in the sense that they're living with family members or in their vans. And those statistics don't often get added to the list because they don't actually make it to the court which means the N13s are never actually registered. So that has happened in my personal life. I do know that the members that did fight the N13, it took hours and days and so much effort and work that one of them has been medicated to try and sleep at night. They are stressed out about it happening again because the landlord technically didn't get a hearing against them. they just dropped theirs and so they can pick it up at any moment's time and it has caused such distress in the building that people are still looking at their options for whether or not they can stay or they should leave. And not to say as well, but the landlord is not a particularly nice person. And now that they were not successful with the M13, there is a ton of other issues that they're facing, such as bylaw um issues that they've been calling bylaw for. Not picking up garbage, doors not closing properly, units that did need some repair, but not to the level of N13, getting that repair ignored. There has been a non-stop call to this landlord to try and fix certain units, and they've gone unresponsive. So, it's an aftermath that they are still dealing with from their daytoday. So, I'm not sure if that's really discussed enough here. Often, we hear that landlords are struggling, but I do find it really hard to believe that we are all paying for landlords to for us to live in this unit, giving our salary to them, and they're not able to finance that salary or properly invest that salary to maintain that unit as we live there. Um, and a lot of the times I think it is very difficult for anybody to overcome the amount of work it's required in order to go to an LTV hearing and actually be successful to fight that landlord on a bad faith eviction. That's all I have to say. Okay. Thank you for your uh delegation. Uh, Rachel, we do have two questions. Councelor Chapman before coming in. Um, so you say that um many of the tenants took the money and left. Um do you know how much money they were compensated and were they given moving? No. So it well I mean there was a few members that were outspoken about it but there were also some members that were not and I do believe that's because there was some negotiating between them and the the landlord. However, they said they signed an NDA and they wouldn't talk about it. So uh there were people that were offered three months rent and in the mind of of that individual um he chose to live in his van. He said that he understood that the landlord was probably going to win this N13. That the LTB is not on our side and that historically he's seen this happen before. So he'd rather take the money while he could because once you lose in the court, you no longer get that funding. You are just evicted. So he took the money and he left. And he didn't get or did he get money for um moving expenses? No. Just just the money offered in the N13. Thank you. Uh thanks uh councelor Chapman, councelor Deno. Thank you, Mayor Verbanovich. And you mentioned unfortunately people, you know, cash for keys, they're sleeping in their vans or they moved out of province. Um and so if a policy um like the one councelor Chapman has uh proposed, a rental bridge between uh vacancy, you go somewhere else, if the rent's an extra $600, that is covered. When the renovation is done, you're allowed to return. If if a rental bridge was was enacted, do you think we'd still see people sleeping in their vans or moving out of province? No, I think they would have accepted that because there was a lot of questions around that on whether or not they would be put up in a different place and if there would be cost covered. The answer was no. It was cash for keys or you fight the N13 and they took the cash for keys. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, councelor Deno. Thank you. Those are the questions we have. Okay. Our next uh two um our combined delegation, Ken Vogle Pole and Jackie Wells from Acorn. And Ken and Jackie, if I can remind you since you've delegated previously to uh only share new information this evening. Thank you. Good evening, council and the mayor. You know me, Jackie, chair of Waterl Region Acorn, and this is Ken, co-chair. Um, since we last met at the committee meeting two weeks ago, Missaga has passed their own renoviction bylaw. The reason why this is relevant is three-fold. Missaga is a city in a two-tiered municipality in the region of Peele just as Kitner is in a two-tiered municipality in the region of Waterlue. Number two, not only did Missaga pass the bylaw, they included tenant compensations in the bylaw. These compensations require the landlord to cover moving costs for the tenant and provide alternative accommodations and rent gap payments to the tenant for the duration of the renovation. Despite passing their bylaw the day after the committee meeting in Kitchener, Missaga's bylaw will take effect September 1st of 2026. They are not delaying until 2027. And of course, this is despite the fact that municipal elections are happening in their district as they are for all municipalities across the province. It seems as though Missaga city staff are capable of handling both projects. If Missaga passed their bylaw with tenant compensations just two weeks ago and have it take effect September 1st of this year, then what reason would Kitchener have to not do the same? In the amendment before council tonight, the moving costs to be covered by the landlord are a onetime payment of $1,000 no matter what the size of the unit being vacated. This is comparable to Waterlue's bylaw. However, it is important to note that Missaga's bylaw offers $1,000 to $1,500 depending on the size of the unit. For Toronto and Hamilton's bylaw, the moving compensation is $1,500 for a studio or onebedroom and $2,500 for two or more bedrooms. Therefore, the moving cost compensation in Councelor Chapman's amendment is already the lowest being offered by any existing renovation bylaw. I also want to point out because there have been a lot of questions and confusion tonight about whether this bylaw would actually be effective and why don't people just go to the LGB and get their um N13 case taken care of there. We have said this multiple times before, but just to clarify one more time, the point of this bylaw is to deter the N13s from being issued in bad faith because it actually eliminates any financial incentive for the landlord to evict a tenant in bad faith. Of course, if the tenant is evicted and has to go out as ruled at the LTB and the right of first refusal is allowed at the LTB, we know that the existing issue is that in reality many landlords will not respect that right. The whole point of having tenant compensations added, including moving costs as well as rental gap payments, is that it actually just does not allow the landlord to profit at all from getting rid of their tenant, bringing in a new tenant. So the it is actually in the financial interest of the landlord to get that renovation done quickly and efficiently and get the tenant back in. Allow me to remind council that the person shouldering the burden in the situation is really the tenant. The tenant did not choose to live in a building that has been allowed by one means or another to enter a state of disrepair. The tenant needs a place to live. The tenant also does not reap the benefits of the improved property value as a result of a renovation except by residing in the renovated apartment which they already pay for. It's completely reasonable to expect the landlord who has chosen to get into the industry of being a landlord as the business owner to shoulder these costs. Thank you councel. For the second part of our delegation, uh we wish to address landlord concerns that a municipal renovation bylaw will add administrative burden and complexity. As a business owner, landlords should already understand that risks will and do include changing market and regulatory conditions. Risks sometimes involve taking a loss in the short term to keep your business viable, paying a licensing fee, consulting a qualified professional, and paying for the cost burden placed on the tenant should be the cost of you doing business. Any uh arguments to the contrary, we would not allow in any other business environment. We don't allow restaurants to simply opt out of health and safety regulations because we're they're expensive. We say this is important and we make the businesses follow that uh that guideline. Businesses that are viable will continue. Businesses that are not will not. And that's just the reality of doing business. According to the previous delegation, it seems like the profit margins aren't actually so bad. If a renovation is essential, then a renovation by all will not deter a landlord from doing a renov necessary renovation. Ne necessary renovations are important because they ensure the long-term viability of the business. However, necessary renov renovations that are so extensive as to require the tenant to temporarily move out and therefore fall under the purview of a renovation bylaw should be a very rare occurrence. The reality is that most renovations are not so extensive that they require the tenant to leave uh vacate their unit for months on end. In fact, most renovations can take place while the tenant safely remains in their unit. And in these cases, the bio will not affect the landlord. In summary, an effective renovation bylaw can actually prevent delays and reduce complexity for both the landlord and the tenant. ACORN urges council to pass this renovation bylaw and vote to include the tenant compensations in this bylaw. And I'd like to add one more thing. I do appreciate the the work that council has done on this matter. And I know that you're probably getting sick of seeing this because we've been here a lot lately. Uh a lot of the people, the tenants that you see in the room, you've seen them before, too. And we're delegating on this a second time. We're here and we come back time and time again because for us this is a question of life or death. This is a question of actually being able to live in a home to live in this city that we love. For some of the people that are coming here to speak against the bylaw, this is the first time you've seen them. And for them, this is a question of business. And I would act to ask council which they believe is more important, questions of life and death and residents of this city or questions of business for people who do not even reside in this city. Thank you. Okay. Um, thank you very much for your delegation. We have some questions. Councelor Chapman. Thank you for coming in again to delegate. Um, I just wondered if you had any more information on the the Missaga case. So, this came right after our um after we last met in the finance committee, right? Um, and do you know if there was any discussion or back and forth about whether to include compensation or not or or was it just that's the way it was tabled from the beginning and and they ran with it and did they I guess the other question would be did they reference the Hamilton data that was provided to to make their decision? Go ahead. Uh, I actually haven't read the minutes from, you know, whether it was an amendment or whether it was already in the bylaw from the outset. Um, what I can tell you is that, um, whatever the decision was, um, it came after Waterloo's and, um, they did decide to offer more in terms of compensation for moving costs than Waterlue did back in January. Um but yeah, I mean I I don't know what they deliberated on like in terms of whether it was amendment or not. Is that if that's what your question? Yeah. No, I just wondered if you had any more information to as how the that process went. Okay. But thank you. Thank you, Councelor Chapman. I don't see anyone else in the queue. Um you did ask a question. And I just feel I I do need to respond on behalf of staff um about about workload and so on. And the comparison to Missaga um Kitchener has about 300,000 staff. Missaga has 800 thou sorry 300,000 residents, 800,000 in Missaga. We have 2,300 FTEES. Missaga has about 8,400. The reality is uh at election time, our clerk staff actually have to uh assist in in projects like that where Missaga has the ability to um obviously have more flexibility on that. So I just wanted to answer that on your behalf. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you. Next delegation is Kayla Andrade. And Kayla, I just want to remind you as well since you've delegated before to just focus on new information, please. Okay, first time using this, so hopefully I don't mess it all up. Uh, thank you council and and staff for for hearing me again today. I brought bringing you some new information. Um, my I'm Kayla Andred. I'm the founder of Ontario Landlords Watch, a small group of landlords across Ontario. Um, I'm also my whole family is tenants, my husband's family is landlords, and I have lived in government housing in Newfanland as well as Ontario. So I definitely like to see it from both sides. I would like to point out that a lot of our small landlords are going to be our between 47 49% of our housing supply across. So it's not big big corporations. You will see this chart will will give you an idea of what we're looking at from the individual investors private corporations. Even though you see private corporations, they could be small landlords as well. They just put themselves as a corporation because of tax purposes. Now are we solving a problem? And this is the biggest question. Are we trying to avoid bad actors or are we trying to get ourselves preventing uh housing providers from actually doing what the province allows them to do? This is the breakdown at the landlord and tenant board. We have over 87,000 applications at the landlord and tenant board and over 77,000 of these applications are going to be landlords with over 10,000 of tenants with only 941 applications being considered bad faith. This is not going to be if you look at the number one application for landlords, it's non-payment of rent. And if you look at the application, top application for tenants, it's going to be tenant rights. Now, through the process, and I don't want to bore you guys through this, but I wanted to make sure you had the information just by giving you the step by step of how the tenants do not have to move out of their home. We could talk about the delays at the landlord and tenant board, but get they get to stay put right there until there's a sheriff to evict them. And the tenants do have the right to apply for a stay. They can reply for a re review and they can also appeal this at the divisional court before they are issued to leave the rental property. Tenants protection from the residential intent act the landlord and tenant board. We have to give them compensation three months if your units five or more. One month's compensation for under. We also have tenant insurance which they can include their benefits of an additional living expense and they have the right to return. And as you know, we got uh we got legal aid here telling you that they are here to support tenants and give them free legal advice, tenant rights and challenges. So they are going to be able to move in. They don't have to move out. They right away they have two years to file for bad faith and within bill 97 they're going to be start starting to charge landlords $100,000. But let you be clear that we do have the rental enforcement unit where taxpayers pay 1.8 8 billion a million, sorry, for them to come in and find landlords. And this is that situation where this person, a landlord, was fined $25,000 for each tenant that was inside of this unit. And they were told to pay up within two weeks after they were fined by the rental enforcement unit. This is another win for tenants, showing that the landlord and tenant board is working so that they can fight it. But for this situation, the landlord just didn't give compensation and he can apply. But this is how compensation works at the landlord and tenant board. This is the case study with it's a win that the landlord and tenant board would deny the eviction just based on the landlord didn't meet their strict technical requirements of the RTA when vacancies. We're talking structural major electrol we're talking about foundations that are leaking and upgrades that need to be done. We don't want to do this but we don't have an endterm lease in Ontario. So, this is something where something happens like my unit right now, my tenant vacated, but we have water coming in and everything needs to be taken out. And we're talking serious money. These small landlords are going belly up because they can't afford these prices. And this is what tenants don't get to see is the price tag. They don't have this in their bank account. They actually have to pull this out from a line of credit or they have to fix it, go in debt, and sell it to an owner occupier or a developer. Now, this is where the landlords are also dealing with loss rent, the loan interest, the permits, the taxes, the utilities. This is financial hardship to the small landlords, the people who you need to help provide housing. And this is just a stat to show 38% of the landlords are losing money, 34 are making profit, and the rest are just breaking even. There's insurance gaps where they don't fix the help the landlords do the aging, infrastructure, electrical, or planning. We have undetected consequences and this is how it's going to avoid our landlords from investing into your city and reducing the housing supply and it's going to create unsafe living arrangements for the tenants. And this is how much money we're costing taxpayers. We pay over $102 million for the tribunal system with the LTB eating up most of that budget. And now we also have the enforcement unit. Taxpayers are paying $1.8 million. And you now want to put 3 five or 250 annual cost 250,000 onto taxpayers of Kitchener. I think I'm done, but I do have I hope that you guys are able to go through everything that was uh provided with you. There's a lot of information that's happening and I hope that you vote against this because we already have a process in place and it's a very costly one. Thank you. Uh thank you, Miss Andrade. Um, for some reason it's not clearing uh the presentations. Thank you. I have four people in the queue. Councelor Deno, thank you. Uh, Mr. Mayor, and I was reading that Hamilton ruling as well, and you mentioned the the landlord was fined $100,000 for the four units that were um improperly vacated. Who got the $100,000? right enforcement unit and the tenants had to leave already, right? They left. Uh usually sometimes when there is a situation where the landlord is caught in bad faith, the board can issue the landlord to pay for the moving expenses and for the one-year compensation that the tenants had to have uh because they got moved. So there's also so that is just the enforcement unit. That's not even including fines that the landlord and tenant board can do and give compensation to the tenants. But those tenants did have to leave in the meantime though and they were displaced. So obviously it had to go through the landlord and tenant board if they showed proof. It's just that they didn't allow the tenant move back in. But we have to also understand that the tenants also have to do their part where they have to provide their information, their their contact information and the landlord has to update them. Okay. Uh you you saw the lady that was on the front uh page of the or the front uh yeah front page of this article, a senior citizen. Mhm. Um would you say senior citizens are as adept at at filing um online forms or or knowing their rights compared to somebody who's a little younger? Um for for an N13 for anything though. Well, I I think if it's if our landlords are going to be giving N13 to their tenants, the verbiage on there is very clear as crystal. You do not have to move out. And it also gives the tenant information letting them know where they can get legal aid. and legal aid is offered as duty counsel at the hearing as well for tenants. So we have to also consider that it's not just about the lack of information is that we have Google, we have AI, we have tenant unions, we have tenant support, we have a lot of these tools. Folks, if I can just ask you to be respectful of the delegations. Thank you. There is a lot of information. And I can tell you right now, I run a landlord group for landlords, and we have over 10,300 landlords in this group, and I tell you that our tenants know more about their rights than our landlords do, unfortunately. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, councelor Denote, Councelor Schneider, Mayor, and thank you, Kayla, for coming in. Uh, you spoke of some of the financial challenges, and that that slide came up fairly quickly. Um, I wonder if you could speak. Uh so when a landlord sets their rate for the rent, what goes in to setting that number? What what do they have to consider? Of course, they have to make some profit, but what goes into Well, it all depends if you're a new landlord that gets that chance or you're going to be someone who inherited a property. So, I think it's going to be two different type of landlords you're working with. But obviously, you're going to be looking for your property taxes. You're looking for your maintenance. You're looking at banking money away not as a profit, but when that roof needs to get done, how costly a boiler system happens, when tenants don't pay their rent, as you can see through this. So, we also have to take into those considerations because those bills for landlords, they'll keep coming in, they'll keep getting interest paid. Right now in Cambridge alone is 39 million in outstanding in property taxes. So, we we're seeing a dire need not just for the tenants out here, but we're also seeing it for the landlords. And that's why we will er again that the landlords are leaving Ontario. They're going to go to Alberta. They're going into the states because Ontario became very heavily towards protecting just tenants and putting small landlords a social agency for the government with no compensation. Okay. So in the case of a a landlord who may have an unexpected large uh renovation to do that requires the tenant to leave, uh that could be in the I don't know, 1520$20,000 range or something like that depending on that. Uh but then they can still, you know, charge the the rent that they're currently charging if the tenant comes back in. H how long does it take to recover from that? And we heard of a someone say like take take a a short-term loss, but it's would it be challenging like taking up a line of credit or Oh, it's going to be challenging because they're going to do the line of credit. They're going to have interest rates being put on them and fees that they have to pay and they have to give it back. And this is where we're going to see the landlords change hands. They're going to change hands to owner occupiers, people who want to buy it for their family members to move in. We're going to see them sell it to a developer so that they can demolish it and rebuild as much as they to get more supply on that land. That's what is happening. We're seeing landlords in Toronto taking a triplex and bringing it down to a single family home. If you talk to a brokerage, where I'm going to be speaking with one on my channel, um she's saying that her clients don't want to see anything that's tenativeish. That's a major concern that we have people who don't even want to look at properties that are tenitish because they know that it could be dragged through the landlord and tenant board. They can drag it through the divisional court and that is what's scaring so many landlords from Ontario. Okay. Thank you, Kayla. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Schneider. Councelor Chapman. Yeah, thank you. Um just a quick question. Um you said that um in the data that you provided 47% of the landlords are you considered them small landlords. What what do you mean by a small landlord? Well, this would be the small landlords between you know one to five properties is what I'm assuming from CMHC. That's where you know what what's to identify that we have a small landlord just because they own five properties. Those five properties are mortgaged. They have a bill that needs to be paid. So I don't think we should be trying to discriminate based on the size. The fact remains is that our city and our province needs to be working with the investors so that the taxpayers do not have to keep building, managing and maintaining subsidizing. And our corporations and our nonprofits, they are struggling. I speak with them. They were talking about people inside of London who are punching holes inside of their walls and filling them with needles and they have to strip the entire pro building down to the studs. They are now crying looking for money from the government to say, "Hey, we need more money." So, we can't be really defining big or small. The fact remains that the majority of us are small mom and pops who still work Monday to Friday and they still work a full full-time job. So that you're you're going beyond my question, but so a small landlord could be one unit like a house or it could be a duplex or a triplex. That could be considered a part of that 47% of the small landlord. Put it this way, I would say that our small landlords are not retiring on tenants rents. I think that's what we're going to be identifying as small landlords. We're not sitting at home doing absolutely nothing and just waiting for the rent to come in. We work. Thank you, Councelor Chapman. Councelor Deno, I think actually uh counceloritis hasn't gone yet. No, he was you're next in the queue. Oh, okay. Um just a follow-up question uh to councelor um Schneider's question. So, if there's a if if you have to have a large renovation, the roof has caved in, um you have to do substantial repairs, can the landlord apply to the board for an increase above the legislated um yearly increase of rent? It would have to be capital expenditures. It would have to be an application with all the evidence provided, which is very extensive. And it could also take two years, but they can. They can. And I would like to say that my friend had done an AGI regarding her property. She put $200,000 into her rental property, took the heat away from the tenants, so the tenants didn't have to pay for the heat, and they only granted a 7.1% increase over three years. So, it's a lot of work that a lot of a lot of landlords don't do. The only ones that really do it are going to be the big corporate REITs um because they have the landlord, they have the lawyers to do so. And I'll just I'll just count it. The 7.1 uh rental increase is more than people's uh increases on their their yearly wages. And so it is a substantial increase to people who only get a 1% raise um at their workplace. Well, we have 2.1% right now as our base rent control unit right now. And I would like to look at what our increases are for our landlords with property taxes and insurance and their maintenance and their lawyer costs and labor costs. So if we want to keep things fair, we have to keep it fair for all residents uh in the city, not just special tenants. Thank you, councelor Jeno. Councelor Initis. Yeah, thank you uh Mayor Verbanovic. And I'm pretty sure our property taxes have been higher than what that that the province has been allowing landlords to uh increase the rent. Pretty sure of that. But anyways, I guess my my question would be with regards to all I hear is is a one-sided story and and the one delegate that I had asked the question about and fours, he had He had mentioned that it was 60% of the cases in the LTB. Is that your experience as well? Yeah, the the last stats that came out from the landlord intended board is 77,039 for for landlord applications. That was uh 45,435 non-payment of rent applications. That is the number one application filed by landlords. Why do you feel that doesn't get any attention? You know what? I think it does need to get attention and I think it needs more attention because there is rent relief, rent banks uh in every municipality. We have Mayor Olivia Chow coming out on TikTok and making it like we have rent banks. Like it's the services are there for the support. The services is there. If you're in financial hardship, it's about not it's about dealing for with the people who not can't pay who won't pay. And that's the thing that we have to understand and that we do have abuse and I can see this as a as a policy that you guys want to implement also being abused. What the rents driving down, tenants are vacating. We're seeing that as landlords. We're having a hard time renting our rental units. And what we're going to see now is that if you're a tenant and you don't want to live there anymore, but you want your expenses paid. Why would wouldn't I come come in, call the city, call bylaw, do a couple of damages in there. They would say, "You have a grocery list of things that you need to do through property standards. The landlord's going to do what they would normally do. Okay. Well, I need you to leave because it's going to be extensive with drywall dust and not having a kitchen or a bathroom." And now we're going to see them using the landlords to get compensation. Compensation for moving, compensation to help them pay for the x amount of money for rent while they get positioned because they wanted to move in the from the get-go. I know we want everyone to think that they're good and and we do have bad landlords and that's where the provincial government has put very strict measures and the landlord and tenant board is not even very investor friendly as itself. We have a lot of adjudicators that just try to go with their heart and they end up just siding with the tenants. But we do have to see that there is a huge abuse that's happening at all systems. And this is what I'm seeing now uh as an advocate for 15 years is that they went to the province so much to try to get these rules changed so that it takes away the landlord's ability to maintain their properties and now they couldn't get through the province. So now they're taking advantage of the municipalities because they don't have a very detailed understanding of how deep the residential tenency act and landlord tenant board is. Okay. I guess my other question, you mentioned that tenants know their rights more than landlords. Are you saying that that there's professional tenant thieves out there? I would say it's called rent theft. Um, and you know what, we've seen an article just a couple of months ago where we had someone that got charged for stealing 39 pounds of apples. Um, but I just had someone on my show who's got a tenant that stole $64,000 in unpaid rent and took them four years to evict them for non-payment of rent because there there are loopholes and there is a lot of support even though from legal aid uh they are supporting tenants to make sure that they stay inside of their homes and that's how they're able to do it. So, if if there's individuals that do that and they go through the tribunal and they're awarded costs, what are the chances of that landlord getting those costs back? Oh, very slim to none. It's uh you got to have a wage that can be garnished. You have to take them to small claims court. We can only as landlords be able to report our tenants unpaid rent to the credit bureaus uh through front lobby so that we are able to impact their credit through Equifax, TransUnion and Landlord Credit Bureau and try to warn other landlords that there is tenants out there like that. But a lot of landlords are very fearful of reporting because the tenants are still in possession of the property and they can cause thousands of thousands of dollars including putting cement down the toilets of of some rental units. Okay, that brings me my last question with regards to let's say if some uh there is a judgment against the tenant. How long does it take for for for a landlord to legally re remove someone from a t uh from a unit? Like what's the average for which type of situation? Any situation? Any situation? Because all I hear is is a system that is totally, you know, one-sided to one argument. And I I feel like there's way more to the than just so I want to see I like to see a balance and that's where I want I like that's where I'm leaning towards. Well, now that they've hired more adjudicators at the landlord and tenant board because they threw more money at the landlord and tenant board. We are seeing hearings now between two to three months to get in front of an adjudicator. But what happens is that they overstock their their hearing rooms which result into adjourments. Uh so you might have to wait another two months before you can actually get in front of an adjudicator again. Then they have a mandate between 30 to 60 days before they provide an order to the landlord. You need a stamped order from the landlord and tenant board before you can even apply for the sheriff. And there's also a sheriff cost and a wait time for the sheriff as well because we only have one that's operating within our region. And at the same time, even if you get that order, like I mentioned earlier, the tenants are going to be able to apply for a stay. And then after that stay hearing, because that's going to be some some time as well. Uh then they can reply for a review to say that the adjudicator made an error. Um then after if they still grant the eviction for the landlord, the tenant then can take the ne next steps and the tenants stays in in their spot until the divisional court hears their hearing. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Andrade. Those are all the questions that we have. Thank you very much, council. It's um it's now 9:10. We've been through nine of 24 delegations. I just want to remind council um to please limit yourself to questions of clarification. Uh please don't ask leading questions and please refrain from making comments in your questions. You'll have plenty of time uh afterwards to do that. And I'm saying that to people on both sides of uh the argument. I know there's lots of passion on this issue. Um Ron Draen Mill. Welcome, Ron. Good evening, council. Uh my delegation is going to be a little bit different than what you've heard tonight. Um I'm going to give you my perspective on this process that has drug out for so long. I live downtown. I shop local. I show my support for our many events and do my best to patronize as many local establishments as possible. I pretty much embody what you have on those four banners behind you. I first moved to Kitchener 12 years ago, and my first one-bedroom apartment was $750 per month. Presently, it's $1,900 per month. This isn't ideal, but I make it work. I am mentioning this because I believe it's important that you understand how drastically the scales have tipped in favor of the people who are renting out properties in your city in such a short amount of time. I attended my first city council meeting back when you were voting on this on March 30th. I was curious and even a little bit excited to see the process and how the local government would operate on a matter that relates to me as a tenant. I have to say what I watched was pretty underwhelming and left me feeling quite furious. so furious that I felt compelled to stand here today and tell you about it. If you ask anyone who knows me, this is completely out of character for me. As I watched the last session, I tried to relate it to how I handle my own clients at my job. After all, you are elected to provide a service and the citizens living in Kitchener of your customers and also your boss. I myself work as a branch manager for a company who provides a service to customers. I was interested to find that the city of Kitner and my own branch's budget operate very similarly. I sat in that uncomfortable gallery seating and I listened to a third party company hired by the city for $300,000 give you the results of their study and report in favor of this bylaw's implementation. I then listened to your own staff do their best to professionally tell you that this bylaw's implementation wasn't feasible. They base this on the upcoming election. When I think about my own job, no matter how many projects, big or small, we have on the go, if a new customer project comes up, we as service providers, figure out how to make it work. There's a big difference between the words can't and won't, but neither are acceptable in the corporate world. Especially when the customer is asking you to do something that will not only benefit them, but also strengthen the relationship that you have with them. After hearing your staff stance on this bylaw, I would go so far as to say it's probably not it's probably good for them that they don't have to worry about securing votes to keep their positions. I listen to people stand in front of you and give you their honest, emotionally driven, and very real testimonials about how rent evictions are actively affecting their lives. Rather than listen and show even the slightest bit of empathy, some members of council bered them with questions that in the end I perceived to be on the cusp of bullying. These left me very uncomfortable and I cringed a lot. These people took time out of their already chaotic life situations to plead with council for help and some receive such blatant disregard for their situations as a response. Definitely not the sort of thing you expect to see from elected officials. It certainly wouldn't help in customer retention. There were plenty of others delegating who were not so personally affected that could have answered any questions that you had. I heard the most egregious statement of all near the end of that session. I heard a counselor say, "This isn't the job I signed up for." When providing a service, you must be open to change. Plain and simple. If not, you will be left behind as your customers look to find someone who is willing to take action on their everchanging demands or your boss is going to find somebody who is willing to adapt and evolve. In the service industry, progress and change happen constantly, and you cannot dig your heels in and say no to it. That behavior and mentality is the opposite of progress and growth. Even though it has been three years of delay after delay on passing this bylaw, I get the sense that council and staff are acting as if enacting this bylaw is some kind of groundbreaking work. But in reality, you're not pioneering anything. It is something that has already been done by multiple surrounding municipalities. So I ask you counselors, is this really where progress ends for the city of Kitner. Is this bylaw truly too much for you to handle? Are you unwilling to give the strongest lifeline you can to renters who are just trying to keep their heads above water? If it is a matter of finance, what will this truly cost this residents of Kitchener yearly? One or two extra dollars. The majority of us who are renting or inevitably know somebody who rents. This is something we wouldn't mind paying for. We pay a lot of money for a lot of other things that are irrelevant to us or that we don't care about. The residents of Kitner deserve nothing less than a strong renovation bylaw. After all that we've had to go through to get to this place tonight, I strongly urge council to pass this bylaw and pass the amendment to include compensations. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Um Mr. Draenhill, there don't appear to be Draen Mill. Sorry. Um Draen Miller. Drunken Mill. Drunken Mill. Drunken Mill. Sorry. Thank you, sir. Um, and thank you for coming in. There don't appear to be uh Meg Walker is our next delegation. And Meg's no longer here. Okay. Uh, we'll now go to Sid McDonald then, please. Welcome, Sid. Thanks for the time to speak with you all today. My name is Sid. I'm delegating as an individual and a resident of Kitchener. Um, I was here last year to delegate on the renovation bylaw and I wanted to come back to voice my support again. I think all of you work super hard to make Kitchener a really great place to live and I'm really empathetic especially tonight of all the opinions that you hear on a variety of matters. I feel that passing a rent eviction bylaw is not only important to protect affordable housing in Kitchener, but it's also important to maintaining a healthy community for everybody who lives here and especially for folks who are living on fixed income. There are a lot of published academic studies on the physical and mental health toll that evictions cause, but like some folks discussed at the last meetings, there have been a lot of people coming up here and talking to you personally about their experience. And I feel super lucky that I've never had that experience because it is almost like a game of chance to get a good landlord in the city. Considering that a renovation bylaw would not overstep provincial legislation and would prevent our community members from experienced renovictions and going through the stress of either giving up their affordable you unit trying to find housing in a housing crisis or deciding to go through the arduous process at the LTB. I think it's important that we support a renovation bylaw. Thank you. Thank you very much for uh coming in and there don't appear to be any questions on you. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Our next delegation is Paul Maranni. Paul Morgani. Welcome Paul. Hello. Thanks for having me speak here today. Uh city of Kitchener City Council. And I'm just speaking because uh out of you know concern about uh I've seen how some bad acting uh tenants can be when they damage property, don't care about the property on both sides of pendium. I see some good tenants as well to be good and respect the property, right? Because every everything has a two sides to everything. Just like landlords, right? There's some there's a lot of good landlords that are just trying to, you know, build wealth, make in for their families, but also bad landlords that also abuse it. And I find it's more going towards one side only where it seems like the lambs are always picked as a big bad wolf and the big bad villain only with with the every land the same brush and I don't understand it because the rules in place that help protect landlords like some of my colleagues were saying right in place by the LTB that the LTB isn't apparently doing properly. So they've been compromised and not doing their job thoroughly. So instead of attacking landlords for everything as a big bad villains, right? We should go after the serious problem which is the system itself is broken. It needs to be fixed. LTB needs to be fixed. If we fix the LTB and start util start utilizing tools they already have in place properly. Then we won't be have to fight each other. They won't have to fight each other all the time, right? Over who's right, who's wrong. And that's the thing. And when you got like, you know, bad activists that get inside people's ears, say, "Yeah, get those landlords. Stick it to them." Good. They're the big bad guys, that's not solving any problems. That's causing more problems, more friction. And when you got governments at the federal and provincial level adding to say, "Yeah, go after those landlords. They're bad. They're evil." That's feeding more of the negative connization to keep on going after the landlords. So then become like a four on one on one side only and everybody gets painted with the same brush, right? So fix the real problem which is LTB, municipal and provincial levels. Fix what's broken and get things in place because at least that way they can make a proper playing field because the bad actors scream, "Oh, I'm getting screwed by landlords. They're taking food off my table, taking, you know, money out of my family's pocket." Okay, some do. some bad actors in every situation. But what about the landlords that are good landlords? They actually treat their tenants with respect. They're good to their tenants. They do upgrades for them because they want to give them a nice place to live. Why are they getting paid with the same bad brush like the bad ones, right? They also got a family to feed. They got to pay their mortgages. They got to pay their rent. They got kids to feed as well. So, it should be working together, not fighting each other. And I've seen some good acting, some good dramatics, you know, playing the victim card, crying wolf. But if we keep on doing that, we're not going to resolve any issues by just keep on fighting each other. That's why we don't need something like more red tape like like they made good points. The more red tape you put on landlords and investors, they're going to leave. And who's going to suffer? The province is going to suffer. That's going to cause housing issues automatically, which does nothing to do the landlord. That's on a provincial and federal level, right? So, if we get rid of so much red tape and actually work together, we can actually progress and fix the housing crisis on a proper level, a proper way of things. So, this is why it's concerning because you really want to lose people investing when we keep on saying invest in Canada, you know, support local, like the signs say, connect local. So if we fix what needs to be fixed, we can actually do better for those situation or they're going to keep on getting hurt and getting hindrance to. So this is why I'm concerned because it doesn't help anybody. And I'm here talking, you know, as just a person that's concerned that if you want to get in this area that you're just gonna get more people red tape to have opportunities and you're hurting uh and I know some really good landlords, really good investors and entrepreneurs that are great and they shouldn't be paint with the same brush as the bad ones. And I've seen firsthands from both sides from people disrespecting properties. And then who's got to fit the cost when something gets damaged? Not the tenant. they get away with it. It's not their problem. It's the landlord that has to pay for put extra money in their pocket to fix those damage. If something gets stolen, they don't have to worry about it. So, every side has two everything has two sides to it. But I'm hearing more just more or less one side is more the conveying message I'm getting. And this is why we're not going to progress forward and we're not going to have any sort of working together and we're just going to keep on fighting each other. So, I just speak the truth. I say it how it is. I see both sides and I see that there's one side gets more sway than the other and we got to come with some common ground to protect, you know, everybody and thinking of my colleagues and people and just everybody in general. I want all of us to prosper. So, let's work together and stop fighting and go to the real problem. Fix this system that's broken at LTB to get things in place and do things properly and I think that can solve a lot of issues. Okay. Thank you very much, Paul, for coming in. There don't appear to be any questions. Appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. Our next delegation is virtual and it's Jordan Morelli. Welcome, Jordan. Hi. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Wonderful. Thank you. I'm here to speak against the proposed rental renovation licensing bylaw. It unnecessarily duplicates provincial legislation. It will unnecessarily increase cost to the taxpayer and it will have a number of unintended negative consequences that overall make the housing situation worse not better. When spending taxpayer money and creating regulations the solutions must be enforcable and proportional to the scale of the problem. This bylaw is neither of these. This bylaw is a gross overreaction to what is in fact a very small problem. In Ontario it is estimated that roughly onethird of all residents are tenants 5.3 million people. In Kitchener, this figure is around 85,000 people, tenants. In the 5year period from 2017 through 2021, there were 136 N13 applications filed in Kitchener. In a slightly longer 6 and a half year period through to mid 2023, there were a total of 162 N13 applications filed. Less than a few dozen per year. And only a very, very tiny fraction of these, if any, are done in bad fa None of them are in bad. The reality is that all or nearly all of these applications are to facilitate the completion of legitimate capital improvements. The rental housing stock in Ontario is old. Much of it requires significant maintenance and upgrades. Is your goal to deter maintenance or is it an unintended consequence? Across the province since the pandemic, there has been an increase to roughly 110 or so thousand applications at the LTB per year. Over 60% of these are for rent and around 25% are for tenant behaviors such as harassment, violence, illegal activities, destruction of property. In fact, only about 2% of all LPB applications provincewide are N13 based applications for carrying out substantial renovations. These ratios are also true for Kitchener. Where then are the bylaw proposals to remedy the 66,000 rear applications? Where are the bylaws to remedy the 27,000 or so applications for tenant behaviors. Why are you allocating resources to what at most amounts to less than 100 of a percent of all eviction applications in in Ontario in Kitchener? That's fewer than the number of fingers on one of your hands. Certainly, there are more effective ways to the housing situation in Kitchener. Finally, the statistics do indicate that N13 based applications are increasing. Proponents of this bylaw express this increase in percent. This is a very misleading thing to do. If there are only a very tiny number of things, a 100% increase in that thing is still a very small number. For example, 100% increase of one is two. Does it justify spending over $200,000 in taxpayer money a year to maybe or might more likely not fix something, especially when there is no actual evidence it is even happening? I want to be clear an N3 application is not equal to an eviction. It is the beginning only the beginning of a very lengthy process all of which during the time of it happening the tenant remains housed. Tenant advocates will um tell you otherwise. For example, they point to statistics uh such as the recent data from Hamilton where there are fewer N13 applications that have come out since the uh bylaw there has gone into place. But that could simply be due to another explanation such as the fact that maybe fewer landlords are actually feeling that it's worthwhile to go through that extra bureaucracy uh and red tape and expense to do the the maintenance and they'll just defer it further in the hopes that the tenant uh will eventually move out. And that's an important point because most of the repairs happen during turnovers. It's not landlords being greedy and targeting long-term tenants. They just happen to stay there longer than the life of many building components and therefore the major renovations need to happen while they're still living there. Tenant advocates often claim it's just the cost of doing business and compare it to restaurants. However, restaurant tours can change the cost of the menu. Landlords cannot. We have rent controls through which landlords are providing a public good and through rent controls are subsidizing the cost of housing particularly for longer term tenants. And then the final question I have is uh in terms of your amendment, are you going to consider exempting not forprofits and municipally owned properties when it comes to charging and paying the enhanced compensation including moving costs or is that a hypocritical move that you're going to take as well in this bylaw that will do nothing but make the situation worse? Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Uh Jordan, uh we do have a question for you, Councelor Chapman. Yeah. Um, Jordan, do you live in Kitchener? Uh, no ma'am, I don't. I I live closer to Kingston, Ontario. Thank you. Where I'm working to build affordable housing for veterans. Thank you. Thank you. Those are all the questions we have. Uh, Mr. Morelli, thank you for coming in this evening. Thank you, sir. Our next delegation is Mo Hansrod. Mo Hansrod. Is Mo Hansrod here? Oh, that's you. Okay. Thank you, sir. Welcome, Mo. How you doing? Can you hear me? Okay. Um, I'm with uh KW Property Management. So, I've been a landlord for about uh 30 years now. And um I mean I can tell you you know firsthand how um you know we're obviously opposed to this by law but um you know we're seeing the direct impact of you know the LTB and how they govern themselves and how they govern this whole situation um you know in our business because we were at one point we had about 3,000 doors under management and um due to you you know, uh, the LTB and how, you know, lengthy the process is. We've gone down to about 2,000. So, we've had to let employees go. Uh, we're losing clients. The main thing I'm hearing from clients is, um, you know, it's just too hard to do business. I can, you know, I don't have headaches. I can put my uh if I put my money elsewhere in the stock market and mutual funds uh or invest in the states where uh you know the the laws aren't so in name. Um that being said a lot of the um a lot of the you know delegates here the ones opposed to the uh the bylaw have uh reiterated and said exactly what I was going to say. But I'll go over some of the talking points. Um the even the Waterlue mayor has um openly criticized this um their uh bylaw, you know, um the similar bylaw that you guys are trying to push through um saying it's provincial downloading. So, um, you know, the redundancy with the what the LTB doing in their N13 process is more than enough. Um, it's just going to, like I said, it's going to deter landlords from staying in the game, uh, let alone ever investing, uh, again, because they're going to hear from other landlords that, uh, it's impossible to do any upgrades on your home or, um, you know, even if you need to cash out because of a divorce or job loss, um, it's going to make it, you know, these things we're finding as far as um uh delays at the LTB it's about six to eight months. I know the question from one of the counselors he was saying you know how long does this stuff take but on average you know between an N4 N13 um that's how long it takes and then the tenants don't have to pay that uh their rent half the time and um you know then chasing them uh afterwards is even uh tougher. So, um uh every and every dollar that we're going to you guys are going to spend um hiring bylaw uh like renovation inspectors could be spent um uh on actual uh transit parks, affordable housing. Uh, and the thing with uh, you know, the main thing with our, uh, you know, clients and, uh, landlords like ourselves is everybody thinks we're wealthy. I mean, we're we've actually worked hard. we've invested in these properties, but um you know, I mean, there's macro uh you know, um there's macro issues at play right now as well, but a lot of the majority of landlords I'm speaking to now are barely making ends meet as far as like, you know, running a business. They're mostly of most of them are either um getting by or underwater. So, this isn't like um you know, they're basically, you know, living off the avails. And um the one thing else I wanted to touch on is um sustainability. Um a lot of the federal and provincial uh zero uh carbon zero targets uh require some of these units to be vacated to do all this work. And it's just not possible to keep tenants in there if you're doing extensive renovations. So that's it. Okay. Thank you very much. We do have some questions for you. Councelor Initis. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Hansrod, for uh for coming in. Um I'm just curious, do you know what cap rates are? Yes. Do you know what the cap rates are currently for for the area of KW? I mean, on average, what I'm seeing, uh probably three three and a half% and you know other jurisdictions especially the states where a lot of our clients are moving they're seeing six to seven and they're deciding to re allocate their money there and um you know it's the common question I get is you know who's a good accountant you know and I know why they're asking me who who a good accountant is because they want to set up a corporation and you know plow their money down there and the numbers just wait make sense so okay I heard Another delegate say something about GIC's and GIC's. Yeah, they're roughly about the same long term. I don't know. I mean, what's a GIC pay these days? Two or 3%. About three and a half, 4% depending. So, yeah, most of the people we're we're dealing with are savvy investors. They're looking for, you know, uh better returns. So, they'll probably, you know, uh stay away from and go, you know, play the S&P or something. But if you weren't a savvy investor, if you're just the average individual who wants to enhance their income or build, you know, something for their for ch their children and they're looking at a cap rate of three to to 4% and then and then you see a GIC where it's the same without any work. or would where where would you invest? You you would invest where there's no work, where there's no headache. Um, as Kayla was saying, I mean, we have some clients. Majority of the clients actually we're taking on now aren't investors. They're um landlords that have got themselves into trouble and they're looking for help managing the tenant, uh, finding a good parallegal and dealing with the situation. And I had uh one uh landlord come to us uh a few years ago and he got to a point where the tenant kept delaying everything and it was at about five years till he got him out after not paying rent and he ended up having a heart attack just from the stress. So I mean that's you know anecdote but um the the laws are already geared towards attendance and um I think this is just going to make things worse and you know everybody keeps saying it consequences. So um the government never steps up to to build this affordable housing they're saying Trudeau said it the you know Carney says it and nothing ever happens. Um you know but the the landlords that are, you know, the big taxpayers and um the contributors to, you know, the majority of housing that the tenants live in are the ones, you know, um being targeted. So, I got one more question because you did bring up for landlords, what is their single biggest expense? Single big mortgage. Mortgage. What's their second biggest? Property tax. Okay. Thank you. So, property tax, uh you know, insurance, uh like I that I mean if the mo if you talk to most landlords they'll be happy just to break even to cover their costs and these you know obviously you know they're going to make money if they hold the property for years but you know to get by or to say you know someone's cash flowing you know exorbitantly you know every month it's just not happening in this area. Okay thank you. Okay thank you. Our next uh counselor is councelor Johnson. Oh no sir come back there's three more people to ask a few questions. Sorry, I thought No, thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you so much for coming in tonight. I appreciate um hearing from you. Um I'm sorry I didn't write down your comments from earlier, but one of the comments that you said was that um you know, it's expensive to and and challenging to repair and you know, what is your ROI on that? And I'm wondering because you said that um you know the the price of owning your property is your is your mortgages and your taxes, but isn't that an an investment in your business as is fixing your property? Um of course, but I mean um you know, we have enough challenges already with how things are run in this province and you have landlords leaving. You're you're trying to handicap the landlords even more. That's the basic argument of anybody that's opposing this uh by law. So, you're trying to make, you know, if I was running a restaurant and you're going to impose more sanctions or more oversight into my restaurant and, you know, I can't raise the price on food or whatever to compensate for all this extra work, you're going to probably end up closing shop. And like I said, we're seeing it directly like this is the business I'm in. These are the people I'm dealing with. And the the the the common theme is I can't wait till my, you know, mortgage uh comes up for renewal or the tenant gives notice because I'm out of here. So, do you think that that's happening a lot? That's something that I asked Mr. Quan when he was in here. It it is happening at, like I said, an exponential rate where we've had to lay off people. Um we have um you know, twothirds of what we had during as far as like uh doors. So, from 3,000 to 2,000. So, that should tell you right there. And the these people aren't coming back. I'm just I'm just trying to figure out the business case though from from the other perspective that if this is your business and you're investing in in properties, you're you're investing in this. This usually isn't somebody's core business, if that's what you're getting at. These are people that are working. they're saving for retirement and they thought maybe they'll, you know, put some money in mutual funds, some in their pensions, some in real estate. Uh the majority of clients we deal with have one to three properties and they're banking on that to, you know, retire in the future. So, it's not a core business. And when these houses are sold, you know, um Black Rockck or these bigger corporations from the states are going to come in and buy this housing stock and it's going to go to REITs and uh you know, a lot of these landlords will be pushed out and you know, they have um these REITs have big legal teams and uh you know, I think it's going to be a whole other problem dealing with them. Thank you. Thanks, Councelor Johnson. Next up, I have councelor Deno. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And uh thank you, Mo, for coming in. If you're a good landlord, you take care of your property and you you maintain it. Would this bylaw apply to you? Um, this bylaw will make it. I I mean, I'll give you what what I've done. I've I have a property uh in Cambridge where um uh you know, just because uh the numbers don't make sense. But I took my tenant, he's a great tenant. I told him the situation, losing money uh and placed him elsewhere and do my best to help people. I also we also work with the immigration department and a lot of people on disability and um uh ow and we try to help displaced people. So the goal isn't to just screw over tenants. No. And and I understand that there and I think we've we've we've established there are bad landlords, there are bad tenants, there are good on both sides. But if you're a good landlord and you you look after your property and you maintain it like like if you own your house, you're supposed to do will this by wh this bylaw affect you? Um nothing's going to stop a house from aging. That's the issue. So when it comes down to it and say you want to retrofit the house or do something else extensive, it's going to hinder the landlord into getting, you know, the the unit vacant to do what he needs to do. Yes. So what would be extensive enough to require somebody to vacate the building? Um say, you know, it was an older century home that had radiant heating. uh it was on a boiler system and you wanted to convert it to furnace or um you know uh if it was like an old Victoria home that was decaying and uh it's rotting and you need to do some structural changes, you need you know you need to get into that property and you know we've dealt with um the actual city of Kitchener coming into some of these properties saying you know you you're you guys need to do these repairs you need to hire engineers etc and nobody can live here while this is going on. So this is like coming down from you guys and then you're gonna put a stop there, you know, against exactly what you're telling us to do. It doesn't make sense. Would you not agree? Would you agree that protecting tenants rights are important? I I do believe, you know, uh there, you know, we have lots of good tenants and like I said, way over 95% of our tenants are law-abiding citizens. They pay their rent and they're good people. And um but you know, same on the other hand, right? There's good landlords. Um you know, we have some landlords that we've uh taken on and they don't want to do any work. They don't want to put up smoke detectors. We for liability reasons, obviously, we have to let them go. So, I see both sides of the the coin. Okay. And my last question, you know, if if if these landlords are losing money and then some have said that they're losing money or they're they're breaking even, why are they getting into or staying in in the business? So, um they could be running like it doesn't make sense to maybe sell at that point in time, right? They may be underwater where a lot of, you know, new investors are. Um the the penalties for breaking a mortgage. uh there could be lots of you know financial reasons in the background that uh we're unaware of but um you know it's overall the sales market is bad too right a lot of landlords do want to stay in the market and they're trying to like with any conversions the one thing I'll give the city credit for is I live in Cambridge but most of our business is here in Kitchener and they've been great with densification um so I mean you know uh I do push a lot of the business even though I live in Cambridge push it here. That's easier to deal with, you know, uh any sort of uh work you may want to do on your property. But I think this is going to take you guys a step back. It's always nice to hear that we're good to work with. Last last last question is is housing, it's a commodity. Is it a long-term investment? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I tell people minimum five years if you're going to get into it, right? But it's very hard to lose money on a housing investment over the course of time. I mean, you know, over the course of time. Yeah. I mean, if you hold it, like I mean, if you got in at that peak of COVID, I'm telling people they have to hold for at least 10 years now to maybe break even because things have gotten that bad. So, okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Deno. Councelor Chapman. Yeah, thank you. I just wanted um clarification on the you mentioned that the Waterlue mayor criticized the bylaw um but I understand that that motion passed. Everybody else supported the the renovation bylaw with the compensation. Is that not correct? Yes. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that was clearly stated. Thank you. Okay. Captain, you said where did it pass? Everybody else with the exception of Mayor McCabe in Waterlue. He mentioned that Mayor McCabe criticized the bylaw. I just wanted to be clear that everybody else supported it. No, that that is correct. Yeah, that was back in 2012, I believe. No, it was actually earlier this year. Councelor Misho, thank you and thank you, Mo, for your presentation. Um, I I I agree that being a landlord isn't a isn't a a you know, the best, most glamorous profession, but it's the profession you've chose. It's the path you've chose. What do what do you tell a family who has lived in a home for 15 years and cared for that home and were great tenants and then their landlord just knocked on the door and said, "I have to renovate this and you're going to have to leave for eight, nine months." What what do what do you tell somebody that? Um we you know it's a tough conversation especially if they're good tenants and you know um as property managers like you know we're the ones that are going to take the brunt of that and that's why a lot of landlords hire us right but um you know it's a business decision like anything else. um you know, they knew uh when they when they went in the property that there was a chance that it was going to be, you know, maybe sold somewhere down the line or something like this may come up. Um you know, unless you own the home outright, you know, nothing's going to be guaranteed forever, especially a rental property. So, I mean, um, we're pretty clear with tenants when they move in that, uh, you know, after their lease expires, the landlord's free to sell their property and, you know, don't shoot the messenger. Yeah, it's a pretty scary way to live, not knowing where you're going to be from, you know, one year to the next. Thanks. Okay, thank you very much. Uh, those are all the questions we have, Mr. Hansrod. Okay, our next delegation is Diane Digen Dominico. Diane Deian Dominico my close with a name like Urbanovic. It it happens. Urbanovic is easier. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Um I've been a property manager locally for about 25 years. I'm also a single mother and a caregiver to my mom uh for most of life. I made Kitchener my home. I loved it when I came out here and I wanted to get out of Toronto. Um, and I've lived here for 25 years. I was a tenant for 28 years. I bought my first home which was my dream home. Uh, nothing fancy here. And I've since invested in Kitchener as a landlord as well. I am also a licensed parallegal because I have um a little bit of ADHD and I kind of want to learn everything about everything and get overwhelmed very often. Um, but I I had a prepared speech but most of what I wanted to say is going to be said and I think renovation by like I would add an extra layer of pressure on a lot of landlords. Not all landlords would feel that pressure, but the ones that would, it wouldn't be fair to. And the tenants would have the trickle down effect of not having their properties properly maintained. Um, and I think that's the thing. They would do the bare minimum to keep it. To be honest with you, I've invested in Kitchener and I've rented rooms to support my son's education, uh, help support my family. Um, a pension is not enough to support a senior. The rent rates don't match what a senior can afford right now either. If my mother had to rent space and was not living with me, she couldn't afford a comfortable living today. Uh that being said, an extra layer of cost and an extra layer of pressure on landlords isn't really going to help that. I think advocating for more inclusive decisions, working with tenant agencies, seeing what the tenants need, seeing what the landlords need, and coming up with solutions would be better than just enacting bylaw to create more pressure. Um, most of what I was going to say has already been said, so I don't think I need to elaborate on that. But I've seen landlords. I I used to manage about 1,200 doors, student housing, all kinds of properties in the region, and I've cut back due to family health issues and being a caregiver at home. Um, currently I was renovating my house into a duplex, and I just am in the middle of finishing it, but the costs were extraordinary. Um, I had tenants um, previously. I rented rooms and then I Um, I I never had privacy. I never had that. I did the cost of doing business. Uh, with interest rates today, it's different. I can't carry the place. I'm moving into my basement apartment that I prepared for my mother and due to health issues. She's living with my son in Toronto who I also support due to health issues. And it's hard for small landlords to get ahead. It is. And it was a great investment for me moving to Kitchener. I love Kitchener as a home. I like the local businesses. I like supporting everything that has to do with Kitchener. But it's getting harder and more taxing to have all this pressure on you. Legal fees for landlords are fairly high um where tenants get free advice at the landlord tenant court. I have people calling me asking for advice. There's an ethical duty I have to tell them the truth. Whether that's right or wrong, I have to tell them and sometimes the costs of legal representation are so high that the landlords choose to sell because it's already a pressure and then if you co added a pressure there as well where people weren't board was backlogged. I've had some evictions take four to five years. I still see a six-month backlog on just simple nonpayment of rent applications due to insurance. Um so I'm just kind of thinking, you know, an added layer for landlords is not really good for the pressure that people have. Um they have the opportunity to appeal and their decision. The stays happen. I've had four stays issued on one order um because there were numerous tenants in the property and each tenant has a right to stay if they felt they didn't have the opportunity to participate. So it's not really fair to landlords to suffer through four stays at an application or an appeal and then have the ability to go to divisional court which can take some time because it only sits four times a year. And I I think you know um we should work together rather than pitting people against each other and saying you know let's into these houses, make sure everybody's doing the right thing. Maybe there should be grants for people that provide affordable housing to cover some of the damage costs or some of that. And maybe social agencies should come come up with some sort of repair costs that go in there as well if there is damage. Like I said, there's 2% of the people I've placed tenants over the years. There's 2% of the people that have destroyed houses on on landlords. And that becomes costly when you have a $40,000 repair bill because wells are taken out. I've had wiring taken out of houses. I've seen the worst of the worst. That's 2% of the people. 98% of the tenants are absolutely fantastic people that don't deserve bad landlords. And 98% of the landlords, I think, are great as well, but don't have the deep pockets to support more red tape. Okay. Thank you very much uh for coming in this evening. And there don't appear to be any questions. Thank you. Uh our next delegation is Peggy Nichols. Welcome, Miss Nichols. Thank you for having me tonight. Um, respected mayor and counselors, I'm here to speak in support of the rental renovation licensing bylaw and to ask that you also approve councelor Chapman's amendment as presented at the March 30th finance and corporate services committee meeting. I'd like to start by thanking staff and council for all their work on this bylaw. I first appeared um to speak in support of it about a year ago and here I am again. I'm proud that our city has been at the forefront of the push to address renovation in Ontario since at least 2021 along with Toronto, Hamilton, London, and more recently Waterlue and now Missaga. I'm not unaware of the legitimate needs of some landlords to renovate their properties. However, I'm also acutely aware of the rapid disappearance of existing affordable housing units due to the financialization of housing, the demolition of smaller affordable units to develop larger buildings, many of which are unaffordable for low to middle inome residents, and the illegitimate strategies such as renovation used by some landlords to displace lowincome tenants in order to dramatically increase rents. That is why I believe it is so important that this bylaw measures up to the gold standard set by Hamilton and Toronto. In addition to a per unit license for any renovation that necessitates vacant possession of a a vacant possession of a rental unit, I urge the city to one, include tenant compensation, specifically requiring the landlord to cover moving costs and rent gap payments to the tenant for the complete duration of the renovation period. and two, implement the bylaw as of June 1st, 2026 as recommended by the Optimus consultation report or at the very latest by fall 2026. So, this current council ensures the bylaw is in in place before October municipal elections take place. Kitchener is fortunate to be able to draw on the experience of other municipalities that have already implemented a similar bylaw. In Hamilton, data received by the landlord and tenant board shows that N13 and evict renov sorry N13 eviction notices have been reduced significantly since the inception of this bylaw. They postulate that because the bylaw imposes tenant protections over and above what is required in the residential tenencies act, these added measures create an environment in which bad faith renovictions become less attractive to landlords or operators. We cannot build our way out of the affordable housing crisis at least not in the short term especially in Waterl region where the water supply among other issues are casting a paw on new development. Leading housing policy expert, Professor Steve Pomemeroyy's research backs this up, demonstrating that Kitner is losing significantly more affordable units than it is producing. Our region has favored a regional approach to many issues, including housing. It makes sense that Kitcheners should adopt a bylaw similar to the one approved last month by Waterlue which includes tenant compensate compensation in the form of rent gap payments, moving costs, and an effective date of July 2026. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of the bylaw as well as councelor Chapman's amendment. Thank you very much, Miss Nichols. And there don't appear to be any questions. Thank you for coming in. Our next delegation uh virtually is Corey McKinnon. Welcome, Corey. Oh, you're muted, sir. Thank you for having me and thank you for listening. I'm a landlord of over 20 years and a former res. I'm here to speak on behalf of properties and the reason why I'm speaking tonight even though I'm not reservo actors unfortunately more of them So you know I have also seen where licensing has come into place in other cities for other measures for example in London Ontario where they've had rental licensing just in general and I've seen the system managed and again if it was in place for bad actors everybody's getting the same costers a lot of So, um I guess I'm here to also ask council, you know, how to make sure that this actually that the budget is going to be enough to support this bylaw and what would happen if um if there were shortfalls because something like this needs to be regulated at a high level and there might be other ways to spend that tax money. I won't repeat a lot of what's been said during the meeting here, but I do have other industry for so long. We do need more affordable units and landlords would love to have more affordable units. Unfortunately, the map needs to work out and yes, we are in the process or this is our profession that could be open to regulation. However, it is a big hit when regulation comes in very fast without the proper studies without the right information to cast a broad brush across the entire province. So, understand that tenants do need to be protected. Myself was a tenant for a long time and uh and blessed to be a property owner myself. So, um some of the ideas that I would like to propose if that's okay is making sure that there's renovation incentives for the city of Kitchener. Cities like St. do have big incentives for landlords to add additional units onto the rental. Other areas have also had um just renovation incentives in general to make sure that your aging rental units are renovated. We've had a small budget for that before and I wish the budget would be bigger municipalities as well. Um we could also have free legal advice for tenants if they feel like they don't have enough options even though there are options out there. I the city should invest in free legal aid for tenants as well and um also to make sure that the city's budget allows for more affordable housing because as a as inflation which is really the big um sleeper in the room here. It's the it's kind of like the elephant that people aren't talking about. Inflation has been absolutely massive over the past five years. And you can compare your rents to what they were 10 years ago to what they are now. You can also compare the cost of groceries to what they were 10 years ago and what they are now. It's inflation is hitting everything across the board and I work with hundreds of landlords across Canada and I coach and advise them on you know what cities to invest in and what cities not to invest in and we heavily advise against people investing in cities that have a lot of bylaws and a lot of legislation to be able to actually be a good player in those cities when it's very hard to do. I would recommend putting in smaller measures before broad bylaw like this that hasn't been tested that doesn't have any track record or background um you know before it's implemented very fast and very very quickly. So those are my recommendations. there's other options out there that the city could implement and um yeah just like Airbnb bylaws um people just won't go and have options in cities where there is a lot of regulation so okay thank you very much uh Mr. McKinn for your delegation. There don't appear to be any questions. Our next uh delegating council, it is now uh 10:00. We have six more delegations. Um at the end of the delegations, I will take uh a short bio break. Uh we will also at that point need to vote to continue past 11. Um so our next delegation is Lori Lanford. Not here. Okay. Uh, we'll then move on to Kyla Shaw, please. Welcome, Mich. Hi. I should have had this repaired. Good evening, mayor and members of council. There is a lot on my speech that I have written that repeating a lot, so I won't repeat some of that again. But my name is Kyle Shaw and I own a duplex in Cambridge and I'm also in the process of um looking at purchasing another unit. Sorry. Um I'm also looking at purchasing another unit as well. I was looking at short-term rentals. I was looking at long-term rentals. Um there's many options that I was looking at. And again, as many people have said, when you're looking at properties to invest in, one of the things you're looking at is legislation, um, and you know, licensing and all the things, you know, what is going to take, um, away from your profit. There's when I was looking at it, um, Kitchener is one of the things that they were thinking of bringing it in and so I may not look at that anymore. And I've heard that from a lot of mortgage brokers and a lot of real estate agents saying the same thing when there's lots of legislation. Um their new bylaws, people are saying let's go to the states, let's invested in somewhere else. So that's definitely a consideration and you will see as they said um a thousand people have left. Um there's many investors that have left now. And if you consider it said there was only 47 and 13 filings in 2023. Does the cost of this really is is it going to change anything? Is it going to help? Is it going to um increase the units or is it going to take away the units? So you really have to look at the cost of this and if it's going to benefit. And it says 70% of survey respondents believe renovations are a problem. And I believe it says this reflects perception not necessary scale or frequency. Like has been said 98 there were only 98 n and 13 filings between 2017 and 2021. I think there has been a lot of things in the news recently and I believe the media is also um contributing to that that people believe there is more than what there actually is. And again Does the cost of this um for only those very few N13s, is that going to be beneficial or not? Or should that money be put towards other things such as the LTB, which is, as we all know, is broken and that if some of the things in the LTB were working a little bit better, we wouldn't have the issues that we have today. And some of the data you've heard as well says 66% of landlords are either losing money or breaking even. That's very accurate. According to many people that I know, I network a lot with a lot of people. Um, I'm in a lot of groups. I hear that often that people are only breaking even. And I have a hundred-year-old duplex. I've had to upgrade the electrical. I've had to upgrade the plumbing. I've had roofing issues. So, all of those things are extra costs, which no, I would never go to the LTB to ask for um an above um increase for rent because I know those are just things that you have to do with older houses as many of the houses in this area are older houses. You're going to run into things and that comes out of, you know, lines of credits or loans and you're not going to get that money back by increasing the rent. I don't want to repeat all the other things that a lot of people have said tonight because we're already very very late in here already. So that's all I have to say. Okay. Thank you very much uh Kyla. And uh there are no questions for you. So thank you for coming in this evening and sharing your perspectives. Our next delegation is Michael Richter. Michael Richtor. Welcome, Michael. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. My name is Michael, and I am one of the small mom and pop investors. My wife and I have been investing for almost 13 years. Uh, we got into this business with our two young daughters that we have now to secure a financial future that I never had growing up. I do work full-time. I'm not wealthy. I work in the Hackback industry. I work almost every day to try to provide for my family. I won't get a pension. I get very little benefits in what I do. And this is a means to one day to have something for the future and have something if I do hurt myself, I do injure myself and I can't produce for my family. Maybe one day in the future when the mortgages get paid down, I'll have some sort of a passive income. As of right now, I don't. I'm barely breaking even in my portfolio. some nights, some some some months we lose money as we go to refinance the mortgages. We are going to be underwater on some of the properties that we have and it's it's a serious issue. A while back we did have tenants that did take advantage of us. They were bad players in the game. They got free legal counsel. We did not. They extorted rent for us from us for almost eight months. And when it came time to go into the tribunal, we we did get a judgment against them and Fast forward a couple of years, we've gotten very very little money from uh from the charge that was put against them against them in the tribunal. So, it's been a very very frustrating and emotional process for the bad players that we've had. We've had a handful a handful of bad tenants over the years. And I'm emotional up here right now because it's put an enormous amount of stress on my marriage, on my family when those tenants didn't pay us. And that was just one example. But there have been other tenants that took advantage of us. They smashed our units. Uh they did what they had to because they were protected and it was extremely difficult to get them out as well. And they literally took money I mean they're taking money away from my I'm going to work and I'm paying for people that are destroying our properties getting through the systems and I have to I have I I have to deal with that as as as the bread winner for my family. Okay. So, it is it is bad. But overall, I will say I work with amazing tenants. In the 13 years I've done this, yes, we've had a handful of bad tenants, but I've worked with some amazing tenants. And one of the properties that we the last property that we did, and we haven't boughten any since then because of what's happened with the market, the regulations, the Ontario Tribunal, everything. I'm not going to reiterate what was here, all the things that are coming down on the level of the municipalities. there's really no incentive for us to continue investing here and expanding and working with partners that also want to provide for their families and create a financial secure future. So, we bought a couple years back, three or four, no it was four years ago, we bought a triplex and it took a long time to do construction on this, but our whole intentions were to put a fourth unit in that triplex to add more income and to create more housing as housing providers. When we purchased the property, when we in negotiations. Two of the tenants were not were not paying. And the third tenant was a hoarder. There was cockroaches in throughout the whole unit. There was bed bugs. There was no air conditioning. There was there was an old boiler in there. There's knob and tube wiring that was duct taped off to new wiring. It was a mess. It was a disaster. The only way we could take that property on is if is if we got vacant occupancy. And it was it was difficult conversations to have. I mean, there's two people already not paying. There's a tenant in there who's hoarding. It's causing all kinds of issues. It's still an issue. I know we're still dealing with people at the end of the day. It's hard because they have to go somewhere and find another place to live. And we did we did find another place with one of the the people we did work hand in hand. I used my own pickup truck to move one of the tenants to stuff into storage, move him with a family member. But we had to take this property, bring it down to the studs. We put hundreds of thousands of dollars into here. Like I put my family's entire like we put everything at risk. We refinance. We pulled equity out from our own property and I almost went bankrupt doing this because the construction costs were so high. It took so long to go and get some minor variances passed. I mean the holding costs were just immense. But the point I'm trying to make is that we're taking on tremendous financial risk as as landlords. Okay? And when I hear about these laws that say, you know what, you have to take the tenants are that that are not paying that were paying way under market value. That that's scary to me. and because of the situation I went through. I survived it, but I don't want to invest again in Ontario. I certainly don't want to invest when I hear what's going on tonight. So, what I ask you as counselors is ask yourselves from all the information you've heard, you've heard from both sides, is putting in another layer of complexity that really doesn't necessarily help. Is that the best decision to make for what you are voting on tonight? Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh, Mr. Richter, there don't appear to be any questions. Thank you for coming in. Our next uh delegation is Courtney Payne Short. Welcome, Courtney. Um good evening, counselors and mayor. Um I'm a homeowner in Kitchener um with rental property in Kitchener. I support this bylaw protecting tenants from renovations even It costs small landlords like me more to perform major renovations. These renovations increase the value of our properties. The value of my property in Kitchener has increased substantially since I bought it in 2009. I am not entitled to even greater increases in my wealth on the backs of renters and neither are other property owners. This bylaw would restore some balance in the relationship between landlords and tenants. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. And there don't appear to be any uh any questions. Thank you for coming in. Our next delegation is Danielle Shison. Welcome, Danielle. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members, and city staff, I apologize for my part in keeping you here so late. Uh although I want to thank you for your openness to hearing and considering all the delegations in this issue, including my own, and I hope to highlight a landlord's perspective for you. My name is Danielle Chesan, and I am representing myself as a small landlord in Ontario. I actively defend this province as a great place to invest. Though it is increasingly becoming a difficult argument to make with other small landlords that I know who are opting to leave the province with regulations like this coming into effect. So, first I want to acknowledge the good faith of this new rental renovation bylaw that you guys have on the table. I acknowledge that there are bad landlords who abuse their right to issue an N13 requiring tenants to vacate for the purpose of renovations. And I applaud the city of Kiter and the other municipalities for seeing this happen to great tenants and working together with the community to find a suitable way to prevent this from continuing to happen. What I'd like to bring to your attention tonight are a few unintended consequences that have a strong likelihood of occurring due to the proposed rental renovation bylaw. that disproportionately impacts small landlords, not small operators. So, first of all, let's talk about the myth of small landlords that has been on the on the floor tonight. Small landlords are not developers. Typically, there may be a small landlord who is a developer who owns a few smaller rental units and maybe part of a larger portfolio. But when we talk about small landlords, we're talking about landlords who own one, two, three, four, five properties who are single operators who have worked very hard to save and made smart decisions with their money and chose to invest it into a retirement plan so that they are not subjected to having to live on CPP and other social services. small landlords. For small landlords, delays and added costs due to a regulation like this will not come out of profit. This will come out of the ability to maintain the property. Another point of an intended unintended consequence that I'd like to mention is that this will discourage small landlords from improving older units. If improving a unit becomes too complex or risky, some landlords will choose not to renovate at all, which ultimately harms housing quality. Too much friction, too much cost, too much risk of delays. And this is evident in the Hamilton statistics that Mr. Jord Jordan Morelli presented tonight with reduced N13 applications at the LTV. Another point I'd like to make is that the rental renovation bylaw cost will ultimately push rent up rents up or reduce supply. So every additional layer of cost or delay doesn't disappear. It either increases rent or discourages landlords from reinvesting in their properties. And since the market dictates that rent the rent and the landlord cannot simply ask for more rent to consider the additional costs, they will leave or they will not renovate. Essentially, if they leave, this is going to reduce supply and reduction in supply will ultimately push rents up. If they choose to not renovate, this is going to cause properties to decay and you're going to end up with slumlords. And these deteriorating properties will eventually hit the market. And what happens when they hit the market? They're going to hit the market at a reduced purchase price in order for it to move, which actually impacts the entire community. It impacts the city because the city revenue with property taxes has a lot to do with the value of the properties. And so the harm there is a tremendous ripple effect that comes with this. Again, simple unintended consequences that maybe we didn't think about. This renovation bylaw duplicates protections that already exist under the Residential Tenencies Act. And I apologize for the, you know, duplications. I know you guys have heard this before. Um, but I just cannot stress how there are already protections in place for tenants. They can challenge the LTB. They can seek penalties for bad faith. And there's already a legal framework in place to deal with bad faith renovations. This bylaw duplicates that process at the municipal level and I don't think that it's necessary and I'm out of time. So, thank you for yours. Thank you very much, Miss Sha for uh sharing your reflections with us. Uh and there don't appear to be any questions. Thank you. And our last delegation this evening is uh Mr. Peter Eglund. Welcome, Mr. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and counselors. As those of you around the horseshoe know very well, and maybe some in the audience as well. I am the husband of councelor Debbie Chapman. And in an effort not to compromise her position by speaking tonight, I will not directly to the specifics of the bylaw but to a general question that I think underlies the whole discussion. Um, I've been a sociologist all my academic all my working life. Um, I taught and carried out research at WLU for 40 years, but I've been thinking and about thinking sociologically for about 57 years. Um, and I've got a sort of interesting I hope you'll find it interesting uh conclusion of all that thinking and inquiry. So you might say that a sociologist is a specialized practitioner of an academic discipline requiring you know many years of training and and continued study. The conclusion of my 57 years of thinking about this is that any person as a member of society is necessarily a sociologist. So welcome to sociology everybody. Um the sociological question that animates this place however is uh I believe obvious conclusion a political one. is a political institution. I very much like Mr. Denmiller's presentation. He likened city administration to a service industry. And for sure, there are many aspects of the cities that are like a service industry. But that doesn't quite reach the point of why we're here. um whether it's federal, provincial or municipal the question the fundamental question that we must address here is a political one and what is the fundamental political question I suggest to you that it is who says what goes in the case of the landlord tenant relationship I haven't forgotten anything um the question might be put this way who says what goes in the landlord tenant relationship. Is it the person who owns their own home and another home that they at least one other home that they rent or the person who owns no home and hopes to obtain a home from somebody's investment? Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Elgen. Sorry, Eglund. I think it's spelled wrong on the screen. Um the uh apologies for that and thank you for coming in this evening. There aren't any questions. Okay, I will take a motion now to go past uh 11 and then we will take a 10-minute bio break. Moved by councelor, seconded by councelor Johnson. All those in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Thank you. Okay. Uh we'll come back in 9 minutes at 10:30. Okay, if I can ask everyone to take their seats, please. Thank you everybody. Um, and I will now open the floor for questions of staff. Sorry. Any questions of staff? Councelor Deno. Thank you, uh, Mr. Mayor. Um, okay. So if if a landlord has to replace a sink, a toilet, a tub, do they have to apply for a permit? It depends what kind of work that they would be doing. If you complete a completed building permit application, they would be required to issue a building permit. But that's where the qualified person uh piece comes into play that you would have to prove that that renovation you're doing requires a building permit and requires vacant possession. Right? So they they wouldn't have to apply for a permit if they're just changing a toilet. If it's something that doesn't require a building permit or it's cosmetic in nature, then no. Right. And as long as the tenants allowed to stay by changing a toilet or a tub. Correct. Right. Okay. And um this might be for legal, like is there any legislation that says a municipality cannot um impose our our own bylaws or licenses um with financial um compensation? Who wants to answer that? Go ahead, Mr. Andel. through the chair. Staff are still recommending the bylaws originally proposed in the staff report. Uh just given that the compensation uh provisions are outside of what the residential tenencies act provides and the bylaws enacted by other municipalities haven't been uh enforced in effect for a long enough period of time to be uh challenged for us to know what the um implications of that could be. But there is no legislation that says a m a municipality can't do this. Correct. Right. Okay. Um that's all I have. Thank you, Councelor Schneider. Thank you, Mayor. Um question. Uh should we adopt this and we make a decision here and a landlord goes to the the LTB? Um, can they overrule what we have done? To be clear, this process of us issuing a license is to complete the renovation work. The city is not authorized to evict any tenant. So, that decision is solely with the landlord tenant board. So, if a tenant challenges an eviction and the landlord tenant board um agrees with that and does not issue an eviction order, then their decision trumps our municipal bylaw. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Davey. Yes, thank you. I don't recall. I don't believe it was in the original staff report, but uh we did receive an email indicating that um the costs that we allocated to budget um could potentially because we're not really sure what the workload's going to be that the costs related to this item could in fact um be be double what they are. So I look for staff to to verify that. Mr. Lenbach. So through the chair, uh that's correct in that what's being recommended by staff in terms of staffing resources um is what's recommended at this time and there could be a need for additional resources depending on the experience of the program. So in terms of the doubling of the cost, I believe it was a 0.1% tax increase as a result of or tax impact as a result of implementing this program. If it was double that, it would be in the 0.24 to four% range in terms of a tax levy impact. So that's probably somewhere around half million dollars. Uh it would be in the 400,000 range. Okay. Thank you. Uh staff originally and I just again want to backtrack a little bit, but staff originally recommended against uh renovation bylaw citing jurisdiction and other factors. I just want to be clear that like have staff changed their opinion or is this recommendation only before us because council uh indeed did direct staff to bring this back against their professional advice? Miss Rosandis through the chair. Um staff's initial recommendation in June of 2025 focused on um educational resources for landlords and tenants and considered further provincial um advocacy. Uh council directed staff to come back with a bylaw and so staff returned to council on March 30th and as Miss Vandervelt indicated staff support the bylaw in its current recommended state. Yeah, but to clarify then staff are recommending because council told them to bring back a renovation a renovation bylaw. Uh I'm asking if staffs change their opinion on whether uh they think that um this is within the sphere of our jurisdiction still because that wasn't the case originally. I think there is still concerns related to um the bylaw like the jurisdictional issues. Okay. No, that's that's good. Thank you. Um, and because I guess I was hoping that we could defer this to budget so we could be looking at a full picture. So, I am going to need to ask a couple questions, check my time if I could related to that. Um, but because we can't wait to that time, I know it's tricky to answer, but I also know the 2027 budget process uh begins shortly after the 2026 approval. So, asking staff to use all the information that they have to date, what is the likelihood of staff green with all the challenges that we've been hearing about with DCS, etc., What is the likelihood of staff bringing an inflationary budget increase for 2027 assuming no more new service level ads? Mr. Lenbach. So through the mayor, uh it is early in terms of developing budget. So it is a bit hard to predict kind of where we'll be uh when we bring forward the 2027 budget. Um but certainly we we do use a two-year average in terms of CPI and right now that has been trending around 2%. Um considering you know the global econ economic uncertainty and things happening locally particularly around the water capacity issue as one example um you know fuel prices increasing uh that will increase inflation and transportation costs all those things will put pressure in terms of what we'll experience in terms of the upcoming budget. Um, one of the things that, you know, uh, we will see is that we'll probably drive up our operational costs, which will make it challenging. And so, to answer your question, I do think it will be, um, a challenge to bring in an inflationary budget that would have room to add significantly more uh, within uh, the 2027 budget. Right now, we are seeing that our assessment growth is lower than the previous year. And so, that's something that that is also a factor is that that usually provides us with that room to add additional service enhancements. Okay. So there's a possibility breaking that trend. And this final question, uh, Mr. Mayor, but so with that in mind, um, over like recent months alone, this council's indicated a preference for items like, uh, enhanced snow clearing after the issues we had uh, in the winter, uh, better better and quicker pothole repair, fixing of uneven sidewalks, replacing of aging playground equipment for our children, paving of trails so children can walk to school. Um, all of which are squarely in our jurisdiction. And I would like to ask finally uh staff if I could within the comments that you just made are any of these items uh included in currently included within that envelope of the 2027 budget. Mr. Lenbach. So through the mayor um in terms of any recent discussions around uh snow clearing, you know, given the winter that we've had or um additional enhancements to pothole repairs or those kind of things, none of that right now has been considered in terms of the 2027 budget. That is something that obviously we would look at um if we had room. Uh as I mentioned, uh we believe there will be a challenging budget year that we're moving towards and we may not have the similar room that we've experienced in previous years. Okay. Thank you very much. I'll have comment, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Chapman. Yeah, thank you. Um I think at the last um meeting at the finance committee meeting, we I talked about um or asked staff if you could look at are there any reserve funds that we could use to um cover the cost of the hiring of two FTEEs and I wondered if you had found that source of money, Mr. Lenbot. So through the mayor, um, as indicated in the report, the costs for 2026 in terms of implementation would be unbudgeted. And so it would be the tax stabilization reserve at the end of the year that would cover off any variance that would happen overall within the 2026 results. In terms of adding permanent staff, we wouldn't fund those from a reserve. We would have have to build that into the operating budget. So, as the report indicates, it would be a 0.11% tax levy impact that uh you're approving if you move forward. That would actually then be built into the 2027 budget. So, it could be done and you know, we're not at the 2027 budget yet. So, things could be, you know, moved here and moved there in order to accommodate these needs and other needs as we move along. So, uh, through the mayor, there isn't a scenario that we would recommend that would be funding permanent positions from a reserve fund. The reserve would be used to offset any costs in 2026 if we find ourselves in a deficit position overall at the end of the year. Um, any permanent resources that are added are a tax levy hit if it's a if it's tax operations, it's that would be a 0.1% tax levy impact for 2027. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Deno. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Lbach, what would a 0.11 tax levy increase um on an average uh home work out to Mr. Lenbach? So, through the mayor, a 0.1% uh increase would be a few dollars in terms of an impact. um you know really as we look at impacts in terms of the budget we we look at the full impact and so until we know what that looks like that's what we would report on in terms of what that impact would be moving forward right yeah and the only reason I'm asking is you know when we when we present a tax levy we say you know on this is going to be an extra $50 a year on average on the average home and so I'm just trying to get a perspective of 0.1 what that would be in the overall picture of of an increase uh to a tax levy per on an average So, uh, through the chair, 1% would be around the $15 mark in terms of what we're looking at as an impact in terms of 1% increase. Okay. Thank you. So, just to that pass that on, that would be about $150 then buck 60, buck 70. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions of staff? Counseloritis. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor Banwick. I guess I I don't I don't have access to my computer because my computer's acting up, but I'm just wondering what in the past year what were the statistics with regards to N13s. Miss Vanderel, in 2024, there were 60 N13s uh filed at the landlord tenant board. We only have the data from January 1st to March 31st of 2025 which was 16. We have requested the remainder of the year data but the province has not provided that to us at this time. Okay. What was the 2023 57 57 Okay. Thank you, Councelor Chapman. Yeah, it's not a question. It's just um an amendment, I guess. Okay. Um but whenever it's Yeah, I will. Um are there any further questions of staff first of all by anybody? If not, um so this is deferred from from finance last time. Um, I guess councelor Davey, are you going to move the recommendation? Yes. It was moved by myself and seconded by councelor Anders, but I will also I don't want people to be able to make their comments, but I will also give advanced notice that I do intend to move uh deferral to budget again. Okay. I will um I will come um Okay. Um, councelor Davey. Yeah, thank you. I just need clarification from the clerk. So, just so uh the folks that are here are aware, I believe the clerks indicated that we voted on that last week, which we did, um which would typically require a notice to reconsider, but my understanding was always that um these all of these motions were always subject to final ratification of council, including deferrals. I don't remember this happening in my 15 years. Um it's up to the chair's discretion if you believe that the the motion has been voted on and it hasn't been considered and ratified, then it would up to be up to the chair as to whether or not he wished to take the motion again. Technically, procedurally, you have voted on it and it could technically require a motion to reconsider. Okay. So, and it ask for the chair's discretion, but I again in past practice, you want to make that a new rule, that's fine. Um, but I believe that new rule should there should have been some advanced notice of that because that is not has not been the past practice of this council for as long as I've been here. So, I will hold your your deferral motion in advance for now. I will give councelor Chapman the floor because she indicated she had an amendment she wanted to bring forward. Um, so I will let her speak to that. Yeah, my amendment has to do with the um initial the initiation of the of the um bylaw itself. I'd like to um change the date from January 1st, 2027 to September 1st, 2026. Okay. Um is there a seconder for that amendment? Okay. There doesn't appear to be a seconder for that amendment. Um councelor to know. Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also uh excuse me, had an amendment as well uh submitted to the clerk. So through the chair, just for some clarity, there was a motion included on the council agenda. When councelor Chapman brought forward the motion at finance and corporate services, it just wasn't clear about what sections of the bylaw that needed to be amended. So for clarity's sake, the amendment included in the council agenda includes all the sections of the bylaw that need to be amended so that if the the bylaw needs amendment this evening, it can also be passed and approved. So the amend the amendment that was brought forward at finance and corporate services has been expanded to clarify which sections of the bylaw need to be approved. Councelor Jason Deno is bringing forward a motion to change uh 5.2 I think is the number. I apologize it's super small. related to uh uh tenant compensation. So which one would you prefer on the screen at this moment? So you see my screen keeps turning on and off. So So you'll just see councelor Deno's motion right now, which is 5.3. So, councelor Chapman has brought forward an amendment saying council uh tenant compensation at $1,000 where councelor Deno is requesting that the amount be amended to 250 for a rental onebedroom unit or 500 for anything above a bachelor onebedroom unit. So, that's the one on the screen. So, so to be clear, um I would need to have someone move and second councelor Chapman's amendment first and then Councelor Denol can amend Councelor Chapman's amendment. Correct. That is correct. Yeah. Okay. So, Councelor Chapman, um, do you want to move your amendments first? Your other amendments. There you go. Um, yeah. No, I'm it's in front of us right now. That's the amendment that I've um brought forward for the um for your consideration. You are moving that. Is there a second for councelor Chapman's amendment? Councelor Misho. Okay. Thank you. I'll now go to councelor Deno. Um and you want to move your amendment? Can someone activate councilor deno because I can't. I'm here. Okay, go ahead, council. Um, and so in trying to balance um what some municipalities have done and what what uh others have done um instead of $1,000, I'm uh trying wanting wanting to amend uh bachelor or one-bedroom apartments, it's $250 for a onetime moving cost or up to two bed, sorry, two bedrooms or more. It's a $500 moving cost um to be paid to the tenant. And is there a seconder for your amendment? Seconded by councelor Misho as well. Okay. Um so I will now councelor Johnson. Go ahead. Yes. Uh thank you. It says um I believe it says in councelor Denos that it's referring to 5.1 on councelor. I know but I can't I can't see what 5.1 is on my screen. Sorry. No, I know. I know his is 5.3, but it says it's saying under section 5.1. So, I need to be able to read that, too. So, I guess I'm saying give give us a minute to to be able to read it. Okay, I can't activate any mics again. So, there's nobody in the speaker list. I can't see it. So, I think we got some work to do on this. So, just for clarity, if you pull out councelor Chapman's motion, it's on the council agenda, you would be able to read 5.1 in concurrent with 5.3 if that would help for size. Is everyone clear on that? So on page nine of the council agenda is councelor Chapman's amendment and red is councelor Deno's amendment to councelor Chapman's amendment. Okay, we can turn that off now so I can see the list of speakers again. Okay. Um, so folks, what I'm going to do, um, because obviously a motion of deferral will take precedent, um, but I'm going to allow there for folks to express their, um, their views on this issue and then I will deal with a motion for deferral. Um I I do believe it is consistent with our past practice and so I'll handle it that way. If the motion does not get deferred um then we will deal with councelor Deno's amendment then we'll deal with councelor Chapman's amendment and then we'll deal with the main motion. So um who would like to speak to this to any any part of it? We're going to do it all at once. Councelor Schneider. Well, I would like to speak to the deferral because I I really think we're coming into some unpredictable times in our next budget for the next council that are sitting in these seats. We've heard that we've got lower assessment growth. We're unclear about how development charge changes are going to affect us. Will the tax base taxpayer have to pick up on those? We are about to start the engagement on our next strategic plan and that is what will guide the next term of council to know resident priorities and to set a plan, a work plan. And we've been able in the past to get great results from our strategic plan engagement and we've been able to make progress on those and complete them the priorities and show that we are always asked to find efficiencies and reduce duplication. So this is something that's going to be considered. I really feel that we should consider it along with everything else because we have been able to have budgets in this city at or below the rate of inflation for a long long time. You know, I heard some of the comments, well, Wateroo did it. Well, the last four budgets, Wateroo is a total of 24.3% tax increases. Kitchener, it's 12.1. So, I would really, if we're going to consider this, like to have it when we've got everything else and all the other information in front of us. It may turn out that okay, it's doable. It's great. But I really think especially with the development charge changes and the tax base possibly having to make that up, the lower assessment gross growth, it's going to be a challenge to keep our tax increase at or below the rate of inflation. Thank you, Councelor. Councelor Deno. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We're good. Y um and so you know we've heard that this 0.11 tax levy would equal to $150 per household on average. Um and so in the grand scheme of things $150 is not a lot of money to ensure that um some of our most vulnerable are looked after in our community. Um you know right now we have 2.4 four million baby boomer boomers and a lot of those baby boomers rely heavily on CPP and old age security as a significant portion um of their of their wages per month. Um you most of them and and a lot of them are women because they they outlive us men. Um and and for those women who are on those two pensions, um you know, any extra pension that they would have would be significantly reduced, uh due to some work stoppages, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago. Um and and the you know our our our seniors who we know are are are coming in droves. Uh we need to protect the spaces that they have currently um by ensuring that they have a place to go to from A to B while there is a renovation uh p taking taking a part in their existing unit. And one of the only ways I believe to protect them is to actually have a financial uh compensation for them. And if if they're paying $900 and they're rented and they're now forced to pay $15,600, where are they going to go? They're not they're not finding anything for $15,600. And if they are, that's that's all of their pension. Um and if they can't find anything, well, they're going to end up in our shelters. Like we note that there's an increase in seniors in our shelters. you know, we spend $100,000 uh annually in uh in Canada on homelessness. And so a $150 compared to $100,000 is a significantly little bit less um to ensure that we have people who are housed and who are taken care of. And you know, obviously there's been opinions that this is not our this is not our jurisdiction. Um we need to stay in our own lane. But under the municipal act, municipalities may license and regulate activities. And it was it was talked about earlier to promote the health, safety, and well-being of persons. That's housing. Housing is a human right. If we can't if we can't facilitate that, what what what else can we do? We have to look after people. You know, Missaga, when they implemented their bylaw, they they indicated the bylaw is designed to be complimentary to the RTA process and be responsive to the unproclaimed statutory changes. We know the province hasn't enacted what they should have enacted otherwise we wouldn't be here. None of us want to be here this long um to to discuss this three years later. None of us do. I get it. And I feel bad for the good landlords. But the good landlords in my opinion they none of these are going to apply for you. If you look after your property, if you maintain your property, you don't let it become decrepit. You don't have to apply for a run u a rent eviction. um license because your property is taken care of. You don't have to ask uh the 85year-old senior who's living in your apartment for the last 20 years to vacate because you you you haven't allow Sorry, you you you've kept up with with the plumbing and and the heating. Um and yes, sometimes there are roofing challenges, but as a as a business owner, you build that into your cost. you don't just unless unless you don't build that into your cost and that's not on the tenant, that's on yourself. And so, um I'm hoping that we pass this tonight, it's it's far long overdue. Uh three years is is enough. Um and and I I appreciate all the work the staff have done and I appreciate the opinions of everybody else around this horseshoe. I really do. And we're able to have differences of opinions and that's the great thing about a democracy. And if it doesn't pass, it doesn't pass. Um, but I'm I'm I'm sure hopeful it passes tonight. And and just to speak on my amendment uh quickly. Again, I I I tried to take what some municipalities are offering as far as compensation and other municipalities are not kind of work along in the middle and and see where we can come out. you know, quickly I I see this, you know, again, they're talking about, well, we have certain rules in place when the collective bargaining agreement when you collective uh bargaining a a contract, there is ESA, there is health and safety, but you can always go over and above what is offered by by the government. And this is this is to me is no different. We can go over and above. There's nothing in legislation that says we can't. So, let's do it. And let's try to, you know, have the government come and say we can't do this. wouldn't surprise me because you know they like to take over other things. Um so anyways that's all I got to say. Thank you. Thank you councelor Chapman. Yeah thank you. Um so as we know Hamilton, Waterlue, London, Toronto and now Missaga have all passed similar bylaws. Um, and you know, we're talking about people's lives here. And so to to think that, um, you know, it's about property taxes or it's about, you know, what budgets or whatever, I think we have to think beyond that and appreciate the value of what we're doing here. Um, we've been considering this since 2021. It's not something we started to look at a year ago or even a few months ago. Um, we've got all lots of information. Um, property taxes in fact are paid by the tenants. They're not paid by the landlord. It it's all covered by by tenants themselves, right? Um, and Hamilton Hamilton came to the decision to implementment a compensation package to tenants based on empirical empirical data. We love empirical data, right? And we love collecting it and we love to make our decisions based on evidence. Well, here we have data and that's key here to what we're doing because we're not we didn't pass this a year ago because we didn't have that data. We now have that data and um the numbers we're using and what we're talking about are not things that are just being pulled out of the sky. It's based on data. Um so I I think um to come up it's based on the need to come up with a balanced approach because we know as was mentioned by one of the the um the delegations that the landlord tenant relationship is inherently unbalanced. Um so yeah we can there are good tenants bad tenants good landlords bad landlords but that doesn't um erase the um inherent inequalities between the two the owners the landlords and the tenants. Landlords are there to run a business whereas tenants are simply looking for stability in their housing in their housing arrangement and to pay their bills. Property maintenance is part of being a property owner. We all, those of us who have homes, we have, you know, renovations we have to do. We have maintenance we have to do. That's an expected part of home ownership. So, those that choose to buy properties to rent it out to tenants, they they know very well that that's part of part and par parcel of of what they're getting into. For me, what this bylaw with the compensation package will ensure or will bring are fewer renovations. And a lot of this is based on the data that we can draw from the the Hamilton um case. It will it will shorten renovation periods because landlords aren't going to want to drag out renovations because now they know they have to pay maybe a month's rent rather than six months rent. Um, it will take away some of the stress and uncertainty for tenants. It will reduce the irregularity in the rental housing industry. It will ensure continuity within the region. So, we've got Waterlue and Kitchener drawing on the same um bylaw. It will bring us in line with Missaga, Toronto, and Hamilton. It will reduce the loss of affordable units. And it will above all, and I think this is mentioned several times throughout the evening, it will dissuade bad faith landlords. And I just want to say I've rented, and I'm sure probably everybody around this table, if not in this room, has rented at some point time in their lives. And I can't imagine being handed an N13 with very little compensation and having my world turned upside down at no fault of my own as a tenant. Even worse, a senior on a fixed income or a single parent with one or two or more children in tow. This would be devastating, especially in an overpriced housing market such as what we are living in today. So, we've de delayed long enough. Council has been delaying um has been de dealing with this since 2021 as I mentioned earlier. Um, I I would encourage council to carry on with the thousand dollar compensation for the move because those that's a big expense, right, to have to move um when it's not it's not a choice, right? They're not choosing to move out. So, the more we can ensure that um life is um compensated for for tenants in those situations, um I think the better. So, thank you. Thank you, Councelor Chapman. Uh, councelor Misho, thank you. Um, want to thank councelor Chapman for all her work on the on the submission and I want to thank uh, councelor Deno for his amendment. Um, I do appreciate everything that you wrote in yours, but I I do think that we have to find a balance um, for this for the landlords and the tenants and I think that councilor Jeno is coming at it in a different a little bit of a different way where it's not such a harsh um or more expensive uh, uh, amount of money that the the landlord would have to put in. Um I want to thank everyone here who's come here for to your point councelor um Chapman I think 2021 people have been coming here and asking us to do this and and it is long overdue. Um I think there's a lot of uh uncertainty among seniors and young families and I I know this personally in my own ward. I I watched a family as I said earlier who lived in a town home for 15 years. They were great tenants. They did everything right and their whole world was turned upside down and they had to move up north and all their kid their kids lost friendships. Like it's just it's heartbreaking when you see this kind of stuff. So, I'm hoping that this um this will start to, you know, move the needle in a way where landlords are are um respectful to tenants and tenants are respectful to landlords. So, I'm hoping that this this some really good things come of this and I think we made the I think we're making the right decision as this goes tonight. Thanks. Thank you, Councelor Misho. Councelor Davey. Yeah, thank you. Um yeah, at the risk of repeating myself, I I'm not going to sit here and say that the LTB does things with the um tenants rights in mind. There needs to be certain there certainly needs to be changes. Like if I was, you know, dictator of the province, I would like the first thing that doesn't make sense to me is why is it one or three days, for example? Like obviously you should get rental replacement for however long it takes the renovation to occur um right off the hop. And what I would really like to see is these bad faith landlords that go to the LTB have the book thrown at them uh with heavy fines. And frankly, those fines should go or at least partially go back to the uh to the tenants that had to go through the process. So, I want to be clear on that. I'm not going to sit here and say that the system the system is working well because it definitely needs revision. My problem is like the core big picture of what a municipality is supposed to do, a province is supposed to do, a federal government is supposed to do. And when you start blurring those lines, then you people stop calling out the province for what they should be doing. they forget. People in Toronto and Hamilton and London, they're going to think that, oh, this this problem's been largely solved, the province is doing a good job. No. What's happening is you're taking money away from our ability to fix our parks and our our playgrounds and our potholes and and clear our snow because that that is our responsibility. We're supposed to advocate to the province to fix these problems. As Councelor Schneider indicated, we are facing some fairly unprecedented financial challenges coming up in the future. And all I'm asking if members of committee uh sorry of council now are so convinced that we should wade outside of our jurisdiction to fix a problem of the province at least take it within the context of every other challenge that actually is within our jurisdiction at budget time. That is how we're supposed to deal with things. This is an improper process. And yes, it may only be, you know, half a million dollars potentially, maybe as low as $200,000 a year here. But what also bothers me from the full governmental level is it's not just us that's paying this now. It's Waterlue, it's Hamilton, it's Toronto. How many millions of dollars that could be going to things like affordable housing are being wasted in what I see as a as a bylaw that is the very picture of duplication and governmental inefficiency. So when you're asking why I'm not supporting this, it's not because I don't think you're right and that the system needs to be changed. It's that you're talking to the wrong people. And we will advocate for you, but you need to advocate to the right people. Thank you, councelor Davyy. Councelor Anitis. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor Banick. I will support the deferral. I think Councelor Davey and Councelor Schneider pretty well said it summed it up pretty uh pretty good. One of the things though around this horseshoe that we've been concerned about as you know the effects of of businesses and small businesses. And if we're considering this as a business, then what are we actually doing? The way I see it is what does municipal governments do or provincial governments do? They set fines for speeding. This is what I feel like we're doing. We're setting fines to We want to stop speeding. Well, I think these are fines that are going to stop people doing renovations. It's going to penalize them. And I and I don't buy the argument of landlords are wealthy. Yes, I I believe there is some that are wealthy and I believe majority of them are some of the some of the delegations who are just trying to make a better existence for their families. And I don't feel any of these are going to anything that we put in there is going to help change anything. The real change is the province. And if we don't defer this to budget, I'm just looking at the regional level. How many how much has the province downloaded to the region over the years and they said yes, yes, we'll take it in. And well, where are they now financially? So it's it's it's definitely something that we need to to think more than just uh at this moment like it is a challenge to wanting to support I I have no doubt I the LTB is in my opinion is broken. It should it should represent everyone and not just one one demographic renters or landlords. It should be a win for everybody. and uh it's a duplication in my mind and it's not efficient and we have other other taxpayers that that are we have to be accountable to and quite frankly I hear every day I can't afford this I can't afford that I can't afford I can't afford much and even if it's a 0.11% if we take it out of the context Is it is it the core service of what we do operate? No. I think every single one of us came on this council was we are going to be committed to affordability and we're going to be committed to, you know, working on having better roads, better parks, better everything else. I don't think anyone came on this council to say, "Hey, we're going to go take on the the province's responsibility as well." If that was the case, we should have ran proincially. If you feel that if that's the major thing that you need to to solve, you're in the wrong wrong role. But again, I don't think any I don't think we're in a win-win situation for anyone right here because we do have people hurting and they come to us hoping to solve their problems. But the end if we keep trying to solve everyone's problems better, we're going to then we're going to have a problem. So I think I think the best thing for us to do is, you know, we need to stick up for for the presidents and we have to fight for them to at the provincial level where where it lays. That's where it lays. And stop bailing out the province. Why are we bailing out the province? Okay, that's all I have to say. Thank you, Council Hitis. Council Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And excuse me. This has been something that we have been talking about for quite some time. We are passionate around this table uh around the horseshoe, excuse me, because we all care. um we might come at it from different perspectives which we do but at the end of the day I know each and every person here cares about um cares about what happens to uh to renters. Um you know what they also want landlords to be able to make a living too and I think that that both makes sense. Um we uh councelor Davey you are absolutely right. We are not going to fix the landlord tenant board. Um there's lots of things to be fixed there. And you're absolutely right too that this is a provincial issue. And here comes the butt. But the province, we we send all kinds of motions to the province all the time and say, "Hey, we you know, we disagree with you on this. We disagree with you on that. can you please take a look into this? We don't hear back. We never hear back. They they we're not we're not we're not listened to. And I totally agree. I don't I don't want to be I don't want to have to pick up this either. None of us do around this table because it is not our responsibility. But because they're not taking responsibility for it, somebody else does have to. And and I do think that that is us. If we can at least be providing some support to people who are vulnerable, who are at the mercy uh sometimes of some really bad situations where they're forced into making well, you know what, they're not even able to make a decision because it's being forced onto them. They don't have a choice. And if we can be helping them, if we can be providing some support, then I do think that it is it is up to us. It's also up to us to continue to uh talk to the province and advocate, but I don't think that we have have an ear that's that's listening and we are we are an ear that's listening. Um so I I think that we need to move forward and and help. I totally agree about the budget piece too. That's another thing that they're not listening to us on about about the development charges either. So, it just keeps pointing to the fact that we can we can advocate for things, but we're not we're not getting um uh we're not getting changes made there, but here we can make a change. Thank you. Okay. I don't see anyone else in the queue. I'll I'll speak to it uh briefly as well. And and I want to begin by thanking everyone on both sides of the issue who have participated in the process either tonight in previous meetings um through some of the the work that was done uh by staff with uh with with folks uh involved in this issue uh in between meetings and and so on. And I say that with with all sincerity because um unfortunately this is an this is a a difficult issue um that is in in many ways recognizing the problems and not focusing on all of the the good people on both sides of the equation. both the good landlords and the the good tenants in the vast majority and many of you have have spoken to that today um who are on on on both sides of the issue. Um but it's it it's you know what we're having to deal with in particular is is the problem landlords who are a small portion of it but a small portion that ends up having a big impact on the lives of u of people who are struggling about the most fundamental uh human need. If you think about Maslo's hierarchy of uh of needs and so on, housing is one of those u one of those fundamental needs. You know, as as a as local government, there are variety of areas that we spend money on in terms of um looking at uh enforcement, property standards, snow removal, fireworks, noise, retail and retail restaurants and and so on. I'd like I'd prefer to be in a world where we don't need to spend money on any of that. But the reality is we know that there are a vast majority of good people and there are some folks who quite frankly um work the system and it's becomes the role of uh of government to to address those situations um when they exist. There's no question that um as a number of folks around the horseshoe have said, there's work that needs to be done with the LTB. Um and there's no question that this should be as um municipalities across Ontario, as AMO, as the Ontario big city mayor's caucus and others have been advocating to the province, this should be work that uh is being done better by them. But that's not where we are. And so just like in those other areas, um there is a need for us to to step up and make sure that the vulnerable uh are are being looked after. And we've seen some horror stories in terms of how some landlords and again I will say not the not the vast majority by any stretch but how some landlords take advantage terrible advantage of uh of of vulnerable people whether it's by virtue of their age whether it's by virtue of their socioeconomics at a time when quite frankly the world is is challenging ing. Um, you know, we know that in the the region of Wateroo, the region has a waiting list of over 11,000 names looking for affordable housing. Um, I believe that we need to deal with this and we need to deal with this now. Uh, I can't support a a deferral. I didn't support it at at committee. Um I think that sadly because of some of the economic pressures um globally, geopolitically and so on, we're going to continue to see some some pressure on on individuals. Um, and so we need to do everything we can because quite frankly the costs at the end of the day there's only one taxpayer whether it's municipal, regional, provincial, federal, there's only one taxpayer and quite frankly if this isn't being dealt with it simply means that we're going to put significant more pressure on the social services system on the affordable housing system and so on. And hence um why I think we need to take this step uh tonight and uh and as I did it committee will be will be supporting moving forward with this. So um councelor Davyy I said I would come to your deferral motion first. Um I need a seconder for it. Councelor Schneider. Thank you. Um so I will deal with um I will deal with that first. So, all those recorded vote. Okay. Oh, sorry. Hold on. Uh, councelor Odun, are you looking to speak? Since it's a recorded vote, I'll I'll go ahead and do it now. Okay. So, I'll ask the clerk to turn on. So, if you're in favor of the deferral, you vote plus. And if you're against it, you vote the negative. No. Okay. So, if if you're voting in in favor of the deferral, you vote plus. If you're voting against the deferral, you vote red or the or the the minus. And if you have a conflict, you vote with the zero. And the two people with a conflict are not in the room. So yes for deferral, green or plus, no for the deferral, minus or red. I know it's late. Councelor, please. Okay. So the the deferral does not carry. So we will now deal with um councelor Deno's amendment here. Can you put it on the screen please? The amendment. Okay. So, it's the amendment is in red. The amendment to the amendment. Thank you. So, if I can ask the clerk to turn on voting, please. No, sorry. Okay. Turn off voting. Go ahead. Um, can somebody turn on councelor Chapman, please? Because I can't. Go ahead, councelor Chapman. Yeah. So, if this um passes, then we don't vote on my amendment. Is that correct? Uh, no. We would vote on your the rest of your amendment, but with that change. No, I I'm sorry. Sorry. So, if we We we're voting now on my amendment with the the proposed change. He's mo he's he is he's vote counselor Deno has moved an amendment to your motion. Right. So we're dealing with his amendment. Just the amendment. That's correct. And then once if it passes then we'll vote on your amendment as amended. um with the change and if it doesn't pass then we'll go to your original motion. Are you clear? Okay, I guess. Yes. So, we're just voting on his amendment. We're just voting on his amendment now. Thank you. Okay. Recorded vote. Please vote. So, please vote. And the amendment carries. We'll now vote on councelor Chapman's amended amendment as amended. Right. is everyone clear on what you're doing? Okay. So, the amendment does not carry. So we'll now deal with the original motion which is to put a bylaw in place but without any compensation components to it. Sorry, only one person has voted. Councelor Adoney, have you voted? Okay, everyone has voted now. So, the bylaw carries. No, it's 54. Yes. So the bylaw carries, but there's no comp no compensation uh piece that has carried. So it's the bylaw as originally proposed by staff. Okay. Thank you. Uh thank you everyone for uh your participation this evening. You're free to stay for the rest of the evening if you like because we still have some work to do. But, uh, we'll we'll pause for two minutes, um, to allow, uh, to allow folks to step with the uh the rest of the agenda. I will uh Okay, the next uh delegation we have is Matt Parker on the development charges debt reallocation. Welcome, Mr. Parker. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh good afternoon, council. I'd like to start by thanking all of you for taking the time tonight to hear from very quite a few delegations about some very critical issues that we're all facing. Um I'd like to touch on another hot button issue that some of you have already mentioned tonight. Um and that will be uh for all of the taxpayers and rateayers in Kitchener and that's namely the long-term financial planning goals that the city of Kitchener is going to pursue. Uh so before you tonight are a couple of motions. Uh 7.2E 2E deals with uh a transfer of funds between two development charge reserve funds. One from wastewater services into recreation services into a recreation complex that has now been seven years in the making. Uh following last week's staff presentation to finance and corporate services. Uh council was made aware that because of provincial legislation, development charges are going to be delayed or greatly reduced um to the point where probably you will be operating about 20%. In terms of capital forecasting, um these this capital forecasting is obviously essential to every citizen as it covers essential services that we need for both both growth but also affordability. Uh the transfer of funds to manage this debt service for a gymnasium does not necessarily echo most of the values that Ker Kitchener residents uh find themselves agreeing with. While we all need to enjoy the recreational time we have in the city we call home, being able to flush our toilets and have our sewage effectively managed should trump what we do in our free time. Uh these motions seem to indicate that council is at an added inflection point where leadership to manage our most critical life sustaining uh systems has fallen short of our expectations. We need council to be prioritizing projects for growth and affordability. We need our counselors to consider regional water constraints, future strategic planning goals, and wraparound services that we all need to maintain a basic quality of life. We need a commitment from this council to act responsibly in the management of our finances. While the funds discussed tonight uh uh that have have largely already been spent in pursuit of construction of the Kalan Recreation Center, there is an opportunity for council to commit to comment on the direction forward in face of uh looming deficits in the DC Reserve Fund despite previous commitments to other projects. We need to be reassured that we won't experience reductions in services, exponential growth in both property taxes and usage rates, and the regressive use of licensing fees to fill budgetary constraints. You have an opportunity to demonstrate the leadership that we will need in the future in an election year by seeking a clear mandate from the voters living that living in Kitchener won't be precarious and unaffordable into the future. If voters can't expect that commitment tonight, I'd like a clear answer as to when council plans on addressing this new crisis of confidence. So, thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Parker. Uh, councelor Anitis, you have a question of the delegation. I just questions of the delegation now. A question. I'm I'm curious as far as your position goes with uh are you here delegating on a certain topic or sorry I don't have my I don't have my computer on 6.3 development charges debt reallocation and this is the reallocation that was approved at committee of 19 million that was previously debt issued for upper hidden valley sewage pumping station. Um, and that debt room is being used for Cowan because it is, you'll recall from committee, it's dollars that we already have received um through um through going out to to to get the money earlier this year and instead of it just sitting there um it's being used for for this purpose. Okay. I guess I don't I don't have much of a question because Okay. Thank you, councelor Inetis. I recognize it's late. Councelor Singh, Mr. Parker, no question. Everything you've laid out is a serious concern to this council. I think it's a serious concern to this community as well, but it is the problem of not our making at the same time. Uh that doesn't mean that um you know, we can avoid a responsibility, but tough decisions will have to be made unfortunately. Um and I'm hopeful that the province will give better guidance and uh not only guidance but at the same time allow avenues through the DC bylaw act uh to ensure that as you said that it doesn't go to the tax base it doesn't go to user fees to make ourselves whole. Uh so question to you are you representing yourself as a just as a private citizen as an organization private citizen member of community member of W 9. So just just just concerned about the issues. So I appreciate your comments. Do you have any I mean part of what we've talked about is and I think uh many of us made these comments. We got to work with our staff towards lobbying or advocating the province. uh do you see any uh you know any particular way that this council should approach with the provincial government related to this in terms of lobbying the government for particular funds for particular projects I don't think I have a strategy at this point but I would describe hope as not a strategy so a asking the province just simply to cover shortfalls that may occur in the budget in the future just simply asking for a check on particular items or services or or different developments I don't think is a prudent financial planning strategy No, it's not. And that's why you were going both ways and and I started off with really acknowledging that I agree with you that this is a problem. But at the same time, I refer back to my initial point is this is a problem of of not of our making. The province has legislated that we can't collect DCS for rental on occupancy has to be deferred to a six-year period and we can't collect interest on that either. Okay. Correct. Councelor Singh, that's not what we're talking about now. What we're talking about is the reallocation which is related to the deficit. No, it's it's it's it's related to the fact that we have borrowed money through our debentures that we don't need this year because a project has been deferred and so we're transferring that money over for this year to the cow project. So it's not sitting in a bank account hypothetically earning 1% interest and we're paying 3% interest. So I understand that and I was trying to ensure that the delegate understands this because the points made by the delegate is that this council is not making prudent financial decisions and we are in this situation where he sees it that way and I wanted to ensure that there's a better correction to the delegates uh opinion of what this council is doing and I that's where his points were made is related to the deficit and again I wanted to point out that def deficit is not necessarily initiated by this council but it is with the provincial changes to the DC bylaw. But I've said what I wanted to say. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, councelor Singh. Councelor Deno. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, ju just uh for clarification, your last few lines of your of your statement, did it did you indicate incompetence? Is that what you is that? No. No. I I I indicated that we we would like to see a clear answer moving forward. So, if you're only dealing with this particular issue in an in a vacuum, okay. Yes. It's already been spoken to by the mayor. There are particular reasons. Yeah. No, no. I'm just I'm just seeking clarification. If if I if I heard correctly, you mentioned incompetence. Uh no, I I did not. I I mentioned getting a clear answer to a commitment as to when you will move forward with prudent financial planning towards your strategic plan that councelor Schneider has previously mentioned will be coming up for public input. Okay. I must have misheard. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Parker. Those are all the uh questions we have of you. Um so the recommendation on the development charges debt reallocation. Um I guess that's coming through you uh chair Davey if you care to move that please. Yeah. Moved by myself and seconded by councelor and I that's been approved. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? That's carried. We'll now move on to 6.4 four and we have three delegations. Lake Trefler. Now, we'll need to um council will have to pass a motion to add the delegations to uh the agenda. Uh but because these this is an item that's not on the agenda, uh we can listen to the delegations, but there won't be any questions. Somebody care to move that? Councelor Misho, second by councelor Deno. All those in favor opposed. That's carried. Uh, late, please proceed. Hello. Uh, okay. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm sorry for uh talking about something that wasn't on the agenda, but I think it's um important. Uh, I've learned that Lee Bryce is scheduled to perform at the Odd on April 25th, and I think it's important to call attention to this. believe Kitchener should not be hosting him in city own venue. I will explain why. For those who don't know, Lee Bryce is a country musician who recently performed the so-called All-American halftime show, which was an alternative to the Super Bowl halftime show uh that was created by Turning Point USA as they were apparently offended by the then upcoming performance by Bad Bunny, which they hadn't even seen yet for presumably being too woke for their tastes. Uh was considered to have been the most political performance of the show with his new song called Country Nowadays. The song is about cancel culture in which Bryce claims it ain't easy being country in this country nowadays complaining that quote I tell my own daughter that little boys ain't little girls I'll be up the creek in hot water in this cancel your ass of Kitchener if being country means being transphobic I would rather country somewhere else and definitely not at a venue owned and operated by the city of Kitchener. I hope this council would agree with me since Kitchener's we all belong here campaign claims to quote prioritize fostering caring and inclusive community and asserts the city's commitment to quote strengthening our practices addressing hate in all its forms and creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for all. If so, I ask council to cancel Bryce's upcoming performance at the odd, change their facility booking policies to comply with the values expressed in the we all belong here campaign in order to prevent platforming hate in the future. Of course, Lee Bryce would complain that this is merely another way in which cancel culture makes it hard to be country, but I have to disagree. There's lots of great country music doesn't involve transphobia. Some of those artists might even want to play the odd. And as we have seen, actually going to be silenced at all. There's no shortage of people tripping over themselves to give him a platform. Again, he recently played in competition with the Super Bowl. Despite the controversy, he's more popular than ever. Lee Bryce will never want for a platform, but it doesn't have to be here in Kitchener at a venue owned by a city that claims to value inclusivity. I am hopeful that the city of Kitchener cares enough its trans community members to hand someone else the microphone instead. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Lake. Our next delegation is Theo Zu. Welcome Theo. Good evening. I am also here to speak on the decision to host Lee Bryce at a CEO and venue and to the general facility booking policies of the city of Kitchener. I think a number of decisions made recently by the city in terms of what events to host or not host are reflective of a harmful pattern and seriously call into question the city's sincerity in endorsing the we all belong here campaign. Mama's Cookout and Music Festival is a grassroots event run by a team of volunteer community organizers in KW. And this year it was scheduled for July 11th at Carl's Air Square. In March, the organizers learned that their already secured date and location would clash with the hosting of a FIFA event. In talks with the city, it became clear to those organizers that the city would vastly prefer for Mama's Cookout to not happen in favor of making space for FIFA. And so the festival was functionally cancelled, postponed until next year. I think it is absolutely shameful that a local grassroots effort demonstrabably important to this community was pushed out for, of all things, FIFA, an organization with a documented history of costing cities more than they bring in after gutting the locations that host it and displacing the most vulnerable members of those communities to throw a party that could be held anywhere in the world. Content warning for racism, misogyny, and celebration of violence. In this next part, I have a couple difficult quotes to under underline my point. In March, comedian Ben Bankis was scheduled to perform at the Conrad Center, also a city-owned venue. In reference to Renee Good's murder by American Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Banka said, "Yeah, her last name was Good, which is what I said when they shot her in the face, and I wish they'd shoot more of these women." He also had a bit that went, "Canada doesn't really have Mexican people. They don't really have black people. I know it sounds like paradise, but instead they have these filthy Indians and Chinese people everywhere." One would think given such incredibly blatant hate speech, it would be an easy call to not platform this man at a city-owned venue. But as Conrad said, her date was only cancelled after significant public and internal push back. The cancellation of Mama's Cookout points to the insincerity of the city's purported commitment to fostering a caring and inclusive community. Lee Bryce's booking at the odd similarly belies the assertion that the city believes in strengthening our practices and addressing hate in all its forms. Lee Bryce exists on the spectrum of hate speech that leads us to Ben Bankus and worse. Canceling his date at the odd would not represent a denial of his fundamental human right to exist and express himself, but performing platforming him at a city-owned venue would represent an indifference on the part of Kitchener City Council towards the basic existence of its trans community members. If Mayor Verbanovic's statement of support for the we all belong here campaign is sincere, council should cancel Bryce's upcoming performance at the odd and change their facility booking policies to align with the values expressed therein. Thank you. Thank you, Theo. And our next delegation is Lily Fosard. Welcome, Lily. Council chair, my name is Lily Fosard. I use she her pronouns. I come before you today to voice opposition to the performance of Lee Bryce at the or on April 25th and to call upon the city to re-evaluate its venue booking procedures. Others have already shared background on this matter. In short, Bryce's song is an unapologetic lazy example of common far-righted conservative views, simultaneous extreme political statement and insistence of neutrality and apoliticalness. cynical nostalgia for a non-existent country way of life and a complete lack of personal responsibility for the consequences of their actions and politics. There always exists a line where speech stops being acceptable merely on political merit and becomes unacceptable due to hateful, exclusionary and harmful language. the recent cancellation uh of comedian Ben Bankers who was first scheduled to perform at a city venue and then was transferred to a private venue before completely abandoning the kit in a stop of his tour demonstrates this principle. Other cases uh uh other cases such as these are not as obvious. However, failure to address its cases lead to an escalation of rhetoric, harm uh to community and an abandonment of various city and regional objectives and campaigns such as we belong water region. The city in booking Bryce has not only given him a platform in our city to espouse hateful and exclusionary language, they have promoted him through Instagram and venue advertising indirectly co-signing and approving his music and message. A message which is offensive and inflammatory to many people that live in Kitsa and the Waterlue region. As a transwoman, the line boys ain't little girls is particularly hurtful. It activates a lifetime of passive and active social conditioning of shame, of hatred, of oppression. It makes me recall every moment of my youth spent longing for a different body. It makes me recall every moment of hopelessness, my inability to conceive of any future for myself. It makes me recall every moment of suicidal ideiation, every moment of self-hatred, every reminder that we live in a society that is not designed for us, that does not welcome us, that does not want us, that wishes to eliminate us. My peers face homelessness, familial abuse, workplace abuse, rape, murder, pay gaps, systemic transphobic, and misogynistic failure and abuse. The dehumanization is extreme. So often in these conversations, we are relegated to the sidelines, desperately screaming for our humanity to be recognized. I am often called strong and brave by well-meaning people. I am not strong out of choice, but out of survival. Those of us who are not strong become statistics. I am not uh brave out of choice. I face and fight fear every day. I wake up and draw another breath. I am full of fear when I go outside and protest for the continued existence of my queer siblings. I am full of fear addressing this council of being yet one more begging to be humanized to be seen to be heard by those in power. In reality, I am neither strong nor brave. I am lucky. My family embraced me. My family have the means to support me. Various sources state that the percentage of homeless youth identifying as queer is somewhere between 25 to 40%. It is frustrating to see the city fail us as they continue to fail us on other matters sundic. We should not have to come before you to beg to be sown dignity and respect. I am sure many will walk away from this council meeting with the impression that we are arguing over something small inconsequential that we are making a mountain out of a molehill. It is not small to us. It is a denial of our existence. It is a denial of the little girl I used to be alone and afraid denied the language to describe herself herself faced with a wall of societal hatred. Unable to claim who she was, I cannot communicate the full dynamids the denial of my existence has and continues to do to me. The song is a continuation of the harm and pain I experienced thrust upon another generation. We will not tolerate it. The lyrics are not made by accident. There are writers, producers, labels, publicists involved. The decision to perform at Turning Point USA so is deliberate. The city of Kitina deserves better entertainment than Lee Bryce. Let him go find a private venue to spread his hatred. The city must cancel Lee Bryce's performance and the council must review their booking policies and procedures. Thank you. Thank you uh Lily for coming in this evening and uh sharing your views with us. Thank you to all three of you again for uh for coming in and and addressing council. We'll now move on to uh reports of the committees and uh councelor Chapman if I can ask you to bring Oh, sorry. Actually, thank you. I need a motion. Um Okay, everyone just vote for it. Uh, so I need a motion to suspend the rules first. Moved by councelor Singh, second by councelor Johnson. All those in favor? Suspend the rules. The rules say that we have to end at midnight. But if we suspend the rules, it means that we can go beyond midnight. Well, no, we can consider a motion to go beyond midnight. Okay. So, suspend suspend the rules to go beyond midnight. All those in favor? Opposed? That's carried. And now we'll take a motion to go past midnight. Councelor Singh. Councelor Chapman, you have a question. Go ahead. Councelor Stretch. Yeah. So, we are just past halfway um itemwise on on our agenda and it's already midnight and so I I am concerned. I'm looking across. People look exhausted. Um, so I I We're way back beyond halfway. We've maybe got another 15 20 minutes of items on the agenda. Okay. I'm very hesitant. I think it's kind of it's just crazy. Uh, it's a lot to ask. Um, but if if I'm the only one, then I'm happy to. I will take uh I will take a motion. Uh sorry, councelor Oduna, are you looking to speak? Okay. So, all those in favor of the motion to go. So, did I have a mover and second? Hurry up. It's midnight. Yeah. Okay. All those in favor to go past midnight. Opposed? That's carried. Okay. Um, so I will now deal with uh Council Chapman and Heritage or Okay, go ahead. It's moved by myself and seconded by Councelor Micho that the balance of the Heritage Kitchener report dated April 7th, 2026 listed as item 7.1B to 7.1E on the agenda this date be adopted. Okay. Uh we do have some questions. Councelor Singh. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, going through items, uh 71B, C, D, and then a number of uh items um all the listed properties and my general question is maybe to staff or to councelor Chapman as you're on the committee. Uh did any of the property owners object to designation or listing? Councelor Chapman. No. Right. Yeah. No. as of I mean it's a process right? I mean first they get notification that there's going to be a process of intent to to designate and they have 30 days to either approve it or or or reject it. So um I can't say specifically for each property. Okay. Whether they've approved or not but there's a whole process that's in place. It doesn't just happen. Yeah. I wasn't sure about the register. There's a for item 71E. My understanding those those properties are going to the register. They're not being designated, but they will be listed under the design uh the register. Am I wrong on that or Well, maybe we can ask uh Mr. Reedman to respond to that, please. Please. Thank you. Mr. Reedman. Uh through the mayor. Uh so, no, there have been no opposition to those three reports. Um and we reach out formally before we recommend designation to council. Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay, councelor stretch. Yeah. So, my question was so um of the for 7.1E uh three of four of those addresses are in Ward 10. So, my questions were just around the process of how um how they are notified and if if those things have if staff could confirm that they have happened. Um, and then so that's 87 Margaret, 304 Louisa, 29 Shanley, and 285 Simeon. So the last 22 29 Shanley and 285 Simeon are houses and the um first two are buildings. And so I'm just curious what the difference in notification is for for that, Mr. Reedman. through the mayor. And so we are going through a long list of all the identified heritage properties in the city of Kitchener. And so the first step is to recommend reviewing them for designation. And so that's what this step is. Um we notify the property owners through the process. We have not brought forward any um designations that go against uh property owners wishes um at this point in time. And so we did have one show up at council through the process after we had gone through. that um um we do work with the property owner as we go through the designation process. Thank you. And if they you know start this process and they change their mind, is there um a point in there where they you know they can learn more and then decide I don't want to proceed with this through the chair or through the mayor. That did happen on one occasion over the last couple of years. Um but only on one occasion since we've started the process. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, it has been moved and seconded. All those in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Um, we'll now move finance and corporate services. Councelor Davyy. Yeah, it's been moved by myself and second. The system's not working well. Moved by myself and seconded by counceloritis that the remaining seven items from finance and corporate services committee be adopted. Okay. Thank you. Any questions, comments? If not, all those in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Thank you, council. We'll now move to unfinished business. Any new business? Uh so, mayoral update. I'll just read this quickly. Um like to just bring forward uh an update from the region of Waterlue regarding the Manheim service area water capac capacity constraint. Um on April 1st, uh the region advised area municipalities that new and expanded preschools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, daycare centers, and religious institutions in the Manheim service area can proceed through the normal development process because they do not result in new water demand in the system. This is a meaningful step in the right direction for Kitchener. This provides real certainty. We currently have three school additions, one new school and one school renovation under review along with two daycare proposals. These are essential proincially funded projects that support families and growing neighborhoods and this direction allows them to continue moving forward. This is what the city of Kitchener means when we say we're open for business. Even as broader water capacity solutions continue to be developed at the regional level, our city of Kitchener staff have kept applications moving in the background and because of that work, we are well positioned to move quickly as clarity and solutions emerge. Being well positioned also means being clear and transparent. That is why we want to highlight the work underway to strengthen communications on this issue. Kitchener communications staff are contributing their expertise to a new strategic communications working group led by the region's external communications consultant. This proactive approach is designed to ensure clear, more consistent communication with residents, the development community, and our partners in the weeks and months ahead. Beyond process and communication, what matters most is the impact on our community. The approach protects essential infrastructure like schools, child care, and places of worship. while longerterm investments in water supply and treatment continue to advance. I'd also like to note regional council's recent decision to permanently allocate 30 liters per second of new capacity to the Manheim service area by rescending the 1980 Wilmont policy. This is in alignment with regional staff's recommendations. While we recognize some concerns being raised by some Wilmont residents and the importance of respecting local communities and groundwater sustainability, regional council's decision was guided by evidence, long-term monitoring data, and responsible planning strategies that support growth across the region while protecting our shared water resources. We will continue to work uh as a city in collaboration with our uh regional and area municipal partners to ensure Kitchener's priorities remain at the forefront. Lastly, I'd like to uh I know some of you have been having uh requests from uh residents about what to do with their old green bins. Um there is a drop off on Sunday, April 19th uh at the Stanley Park Community Center uh between 1 and 4 p.m. during their Earth Day event. So any uh any residents that uh may want to get rid of their uh green bin, they can do that, but people are also being encouraged to keep it and use it for garden clippings and and things like that. Um but you know, it gives them an option. So that's uh that's that. I will now move on to 9.2. Uh councelor stretch your motion on localized traffic impacts at Victorian errands. Yes, thank you. I have um two motions 9.2 and 9.3. Um and chair, if you see fit, I um just ask for a deferral to special counsel. Um but also can proceed if you don't see that. Uh, no. If you want to move it, that's fine. So, we'll move them to special counsel, which I think is next next week. Um, do I have a seconder for the deferral? Second by councelor Davey. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Thank you for that. Any questions and answers? Any uh no items arising from in camera? Um, oh, one from in camera. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. Madam clerk. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Marilyn, if you can make it a little bit bigger. There is an item coming out of um in camera earlier the state related to a settlement matter that needs to be approved by council which is on the screen in front of me. Okay. Do I have a mover? done another item, not this item. Yes. Okay. They've already declared their conflicts on the items that that that they had earlier. This is another item. You're moving it. Thank you, councelor Stretch. Um, do I have a second or my screen's disappeared. Okay. Uh, it's back. Uh, sorry, who second it? Councelor Singh. Thank you. All those in favor? Any opposed? That's carried. Um, bylaws. Madame clerk. Are there any additional bylaws? Uh, three, Mr. Mayor. do have uh one late starter by law, two late starter bylaws, one related to the development charges on the financial and corporate services committee report as well as the rental renovation bylaw that was approved earlier this evening. Okay, so we'll have to deal with the rental bylaw separately. Um do I have a mover for the bylaws other than the rental bylaw? Councelor Schneider, seconded by councelor Johnson. Thank you. All those in favor of all the bylaws other than the rental one. Just one sec. Oops. Okay. All those in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Thank you. Now, can I have a uh mover and second for the rental one? Councelor Johnson, Councelor Deno. All those in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Thank you. Uh and motion to adjourn, Councelor Johnson and Councelor Snider. All those in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Thank you everybody and thank you for working through this.