Property Standards Committee

2:06Hi Ross, how are you? Hi Member Meir, we can hear you. Okay, thank you. Good afternoon,

7:31Guelph. I'd like to call to order the January 29th, 2026 Guelph Property Standards Committee meeting.

7:38The agenda for this hearing has been posted online at guelph.ca forward slash cofa. I will

7:45remind all committee members and staff participating in the hearing to please mute your microphones

7:51when not in use. This is an orientation and educational workshop therefore there will be no

7:58public delegations. At this point, excuse me, pardon me, at this point I will now provide our

8:11Indigenous Territory acknowledgement and for those that are able, if you would stand please.

8:22As we gather let us take a moment to reflect on our privilege to live and work in Guelph,

8:28a city built over rich Indigenous histories. We are guests here and we should reflect upon

8:34the responsibility to care for this land, the people who live here today, and the generations to come.

8:40If our actions today can move us towards reconciliation, we should take pause and make those

8:46decisions with intention and gratitude. This place we call Guelph has served as traditional lands

8:53and a place of refuge for many peoples over time, but more specifically the Atawandarank

8:59and the Honoshone. This land is held as the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the

9:05Credit First Nation. Guelph lies directly adjacent to the Haldeman track and is part of a long

9:11established traditional hunting ground for the six nations of the Grand River. Many First Nations,

9:17Inuit, Métis people who have come from across Turtle Island call Guelph home today. Thank you.

9:30At this point, committee members, do I have any disclosures of pecuniary interest? Seeing none.

9:40And okay, so sorry our format's a little different today. I'm going to, as we, do we have minutes,

9:52Secretary Treasurer? Yes, Chair. I can confirm we have the March 25, 2025 property standards

10:03minutes to confirm. Thank you. At this point then I'm going to ask for a motion to

10:10member Goodfellow is moving acceptance of those minutes and do we have a seconder?

10:16Member Membrano, all those in favor? I believe that's carried, Secretary Treasurer.

10:25At this point, we're going to go on to the orientation and education session

10:29that will be led by Mr. Shane Turner of the Ontario Association of Property Standards Officers.

10:36And I'll ask, oh he's already at the podium, so welcome and the floor is yours.

10:46Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee and staff. First of all, I want to say thank you

10:52for inviting myself to attend today and on behalf of the Property Standards Association.

11:01I'm going to make sure that I use this properly. First of all,

11:08and just to just simply introduce myself, I've have approximately 40 years, 36 years as an officer

11:18and manager and director in property standards in bylaw enforcement and then for the last four

11:25years I've been since retiring, have spent time with the association, again doing some training and

11:34doing some consulting work and that sort of stuff in the field of bylaw enforcement and I continue

11:40to instruct. So that's my affiliation with the Property Standards Association.

11:45What I would like to just give a very quick overview of the association itself, our association

11:57just completed its 50th year last year, sorry two years ago, 2024. We were founded in 1974

12:06and our focus is on training and advocacy for property standards and bylaw enforcement across

12:16Ontario. We've received accreditation through the province to certify our property standards

12:22officers and several staff. A couple of my colleagues here that I've known for, we're not going to say

12:29how many years, Steven and Jason, we go back a long way, they've gone through the program and

12:38Steven is a member of our board on the association right now. So our main focus as indicated was

12:49to educate our members and advocacy efforts across the province with regards to legislative change

12:58and educating non-enforcement staff such as where I am today with the Property Standards Committee.

13:09So as I go forward, what I would like to say is that we really like to make this

13:16quite an informal process. I've got a bit of a, I've got to remember that there's a bit of a

13:26there we go. My understanding is there's just a little bit of a delay on the slide so I'll just

13:34have to play with that. But we've got a bit of an overview of what we're going to be talking about

13:41today, the enforcement process itself and discussing what property standards is and

13:46the types of bylaws that come into play, the enforcement process and then talk about the

13:53legislative process which results in orders coming before the committee when they're issued and

14:06residents choose to appeal. The legislation itself is somewhat prescriptive in terms of

14:17requiring an appeal process and requiring that every municipality have a committee. However,

14:23it's also very discretionary in terms of how each municipality chooses to run their

14:32committees. So we're going to be talking about the legislative process but we're also going to be

14:37talking about the informal process and the ways that municipalities can develop their hearing

14:47process to fit their needs. Some municipalities have quite a few hearings throughout a year

14:55and I found that some municipalities have maybe one or two. So the process is quite well defined in

15:03some municipalities in Ontario and not as well-defined and less informal in other municipalities. So

15:11I may be mentioning a broad range of discretionary processes but the first part of our process

15:17or first part of the presentation will be focusing on the legislative process itself.

15:29So it's my understanding that this committee, certain members of this committee have also

15:35served or continue to serve as members of the committee of adjustment and based on my history

15:44my experience, I know that the committee of adjustment has tended to be more formal

15:51and more prescribed through the planning act than perhaps the property standards committees

15:59have in the past. So there will be a, you might find that there's a little bit of a distinction

16:07between the committee of adjustment processes and what we're going to talk about here today with

16:14regards to property standards orders. So as we go through the legislation which we'll be getting

16:22to in a moment, we'll see that the legislation speaks to certain requirements. However, it also

16:32is very clear in saying that municipalities have the ability to set their own rules of,

16:40or I should say processes and procedures and rules of procedure and I encourage most municipalities

16:46to do that. I believe Guelph has a, and I may look to Hannah from time to time for, or the other staff

16:54members to help me with what Guelph has in place in terms of say terms of reference or committee

17:02procedures. Each municipality has the ability to set their own and I would encourage each

17:09municipality to do that and I don't know whether that's, I assume that's something that's in place

17:15now. Yeah, so here we go. So what I want to point out first of all is that the property

17:28standards committee just like the committee of adjustment is a quasi-judicial committee

17:33in the sense that it has legally binding or the authority to make legally binding decisions.

17:43It's very similar to the court process in terms of formality and, or I should say the preparation

17:54and the formality of the hearing. But the committee itself has the ability to, and I'm going to be

18:08careful how I choose my words here, but to be somewhat informal in terms of how they hear

18:17evidence and how they debate back and forth between the, between the members of the committee and,

18:26of course, the municipality and the representatives that may be on the other side if I can say that,

18:33representing the owner. So it is very much similar to a court, but it does not have to be quite as

18:39formal as a court proceeding. So we'll start with it with just a fundamental overview of the

18:52property standards process. As my fellow officers will, will attest to, and I'm sure many staff

19:00will attest to that bylaw enforcement and property standards can be quite complex. So this slide is

19:08not meant to, to oversimplify, but the property standards process, what are the property standards

19:16legislation itself is designed to, to provide municipalities with the tools to protect the

19:25built environment within municipalities. The relationship between property standards and the

19:31building code enforcement is one of saying that building inspections, they are, they are designed

19:41to, the building permit process and the building inspection process is designed to ensure that

19:47buildings and structures are built in Ontario to a certain code. Once the buildings are built

19:55and permits are signed off, then property standards processes can come into play in terms of ensuring

20:01that that built environment is, is maintained. So again, I, at the risk of making it sound simple,

20:13when we talk about property standards in terms of saying that if something's broke, it's got to be

20:17fixed or it has to be replaced or if it's no longer required, you can remove it. Those are three very

20:24simple statements. It's a lot more complex than that, but it really does focus on ensuring that

20:31the built environment is maintained to a standard that is somewhat equivalent to the way it was

20:38built in the first place, which is of course the Building Code Act and the Building Inspector's

20:43responsibilities. The other thing to note with, you know, in terms of the relationship between

20:55the Building Code Act for property standards and for, for building inspections is that the,

21:02the building code itself is, is a standard document that applies the same standards across Ontario.

21:10So if you were building a single family dwelling in Kingston or Ottawa or Guelph, the standards

21:18remain the same. Property standards is, varies from that in terms of being, each municipality

21:28being able to tailor their property standards by-law to the, to the nature of their community.

21:33So with Guelph, of course we have what I will call a, you know, a mid-size city compared to say

21:42Mississauga or Ottawa or Toronto, but we also have some clients that, and just earlier this week, I

21:51was talking to the staff at the municipality of Red Lake. Their standards are somewhat different

21:58than what would be needed in Guelph and somewhat different than what would be needed in, in the

22:04city of Toronto. So what the province has done is recognized that each municipality has the ability

22:10or should have the ability to ensure that, that their by-law reflects the, the nature of the

22:17municipality. So in terms of classes of buildings, also in terms of areas of the municipality where

22:26it may be impacted, I'll use Guelph again as an example in that there's not a lot of rural land

22:37in Guelph, like there might be and say some of the northern municipalities that we deal with where

22:41you, you may have 20, you may enter the town limits, but it's 20 kilometres more before you get to

22:48the, to the main street of the town. So municipalities can, can tell you their, their by-laws to be

22:55geographic in nature and they can, as I mentioned earlier, they can also focus on certain types of

23:05buildings, whether it be non-residential, residential, the exteriors of buildings and not to get into

23:13the interior buildings. So again, each municipality has that flex, the flexibility to, to meet the,

23:21the needs and, sorry, excuse me, and also to, to be able to tailor their enforcement program based

23:28on their, their resources. The main focus of property standards maintenance relates to the

23:40structural integrity and those systems within the buildings and structures that, that are integral to,

23:47to the, to the function of the building, such as electrical, structural integrity, electrical, plumbing,

23:54heating, water sources and such. So that's just a bit of a background on the, on the, the nature of

24:07the type of work and the type of standards that can be put in place at the municipal level.

24:16I'm going to switch now to some of the, some of the processes that are defined in the Building Code Act

24:24relating specifically to property standards enforcement, not to the building inspectors,

24:29but also to talk about the, the enforcement process, which is dictated by the

24:37Building Code Act. So what we have really is when we talk about the relationship between the two

24:43is that the municipality can set the standards, but the Building Code Act itself

24:52describes what, how those standards will be enforced. So for example, you know, the, the types of

24:59orders that are issued and the powers and the authority of officers and then the appeal process

25:05and the powers of the committee as we'll, as we'll get to it. So

25:10the, the Building Code Act defines or has several definitions that are consistent across the province

25:17and they're up there on the board, committee, occupant, owners. One of the things that the

25:25committee may want to take note of is the, the Building Code Act does define owner as

25:33typical person we would know as owning a property, the person registered on title, but can also include

25:39agents of that, of that owner, such as the property managers for apartment buildings or, I mean,

25:47I, you know, I worked in Waterloo for many years and so I know what it's like to have,

25:54to work in a, in a university town when you've got a lot of housing that might be owned by

26:00corporations and you've got property designated property managers that, that manage those properties.

26:07So the committee may from time to time be faced with an appeal that is where the owner is represented

26:17by someone who is not the registered owner, but it's an agent or the manager for that property.

26:30So as I indicated earlier, the province has given the municipal, municipal governments the ability

26:37to enforce property standards bylaws. It's not a mandatory requirement for municipalities to,

26:46to adopt bylaws, but I can tell you the vast majority of, of inhabited municipalities, there's a

26:54lot of smaller areas in, particularly in Northern Ontario that they really don't, are not faced

27:00with property standards because of the nature of their community, but the vast majority of

27:07municipalities in Ontario that are populated or with larger populations have property standards

27:13bylaws and the legislation requires that if a municipality chooses to adopt a property

27:19standards bylaw, they must have a committee trying to get used to that, that little bit of a delay

27:31there. So as we'll see in a moment, the, it is a mandatory requirement for the committee and we'll

27:39talk about the structure of the committee as we get to the, the process of issuing orders, but the

27:47first thing I want to talk about is the, the authorities of the officers themselves, so the

27:54tools that officers are given to, to enforce property standards bylaws. And this is something that,

28:04that comes into play. It can sometimes be contentious, but property standards officers

28:10have the ability to go onto properties without the owner's consent to, to verify whether or not

28:17a property conforms to the, to the standards in the bylaw or whether if they've already done the

28:26inspection and issued an order, has that property owner conformed with the,

28:30with the requirements of the order. And this is, it's important to note this because in a few

28:40minutes I'm also going to talk about the authority of the committee in terms of being able to go

28:48onto property. So I'm going to just park that idea for a moment, but mentioned first of all,

28:54obviously officers need the, the tools to do their job. And so the province has,

29:01has authorized officers to be able to go onto a property without consent and without a warrant

29:07to do an inspection. It changed, the authority changes a little bit when we talk about getting

29:13inside of a dwelling unit. So really when we talk about the powers and the authorities of an officer,

29:19we're talking about a two-step process, being able to enter onto a property

29:23and then being able to enter into a dwelling unit. And so as I mentioned earlier, the, the

29:37officers have the ability to, to enter onto a property or a building that isn't a dwelling unit

29:43without permission. However, when they, when they get to the door of a,

29:48of a residential unit, it's important that they exercise the, or I should say they exercise the

29:59requirement to get consent of the occupier of the unit and letting the occupier know that they

30:07don't have the, they're not legally mandated to let them in. They have the right of refusal.

30:14That doesn't come into play very often because most of the time when a property standards

30:18officer is going to a dwelling unit, it's usually tenant occupied. And that,

30:26that is typically based on the, on the fact that the tenant has called the, the officer to,

30:32to attend based on a complaint. So I mentioned this again, and I'll just repeat myself and

30:38saying that I mentioned this authority because it extends to the committee as well and we'll get to

30:43that in a couple of moments, but just understand that, that officers have the ability to put

30:49themselves in situations where they're walking onto a property where they may not be welcome.

30:56Let me say that. And it's important for officers obviously to, to ensure that they exercise their

31:02authority in a, in a reasonable fashion. So when the officer, when an officer does an inspection,

31:14typically the, the officer is, is attending at an inspection based on a complaint.

31:22Most of the time there might be, there might be certain situations where municipalities will have

31:27proactive enforcement, but I can tell you just based, and again, I'm just sort of based on my

31:32experience. The majority of property standards issues that arise across Ontario are as a result

31:39of a complaint. It could be a resident that's living in a building who feels that the standards are

31:46below the standards required in the, in the bylaw or it could be a neighbor that, that is

31:51concerned about a property that doesn't meet the standards in their, in their neighborhood.

31:57So if an officer does an inspection, if they determine that there is a,

32:01a violation of the municipal bylaw, they have a couple of options available to them. This is the

32:10officer discretion piece that comes into play. Depending on the seriousness of the issue or

32:15whether it's a repeat offender, an officer has the ability to, to start a, to initiate a contact

32:23with the owner through a process like a, you know, it could be a phone call, it could be an email,

32:29it could be something very simple as saying, you know, we've got a problem on a, on a property,

32:34we've got a call after the, I did an inspection, yeah, there's a problem. Here's what it is.

32:41You think you can take care of it in the next couple of weeks.

32:45That's the informal process and that, that is a discretionary

32:52set of actions that each municipality or each officer can,

32:56can exercise based on, based on the history. Depending on the seriousness or whether or

33:03not this person happens to be a repeat offender as, as we call them. So the officer does have

33:10the ability to, to choose the approach that they take. However, once they decide that the, the

33:19issue, whether it's right at the start or a little later on in the process when they've, they've,

33:25they've tried the, the, the soft sell, if I, if I could say that, use that word. Once they decide that

33:32they, they need to proceed through the, the more formal and process, formal process, they have to

33:39issue a property standards order. And the contents of the order are dictated in the building code act

33:46as on the screen for fundamental requirements. The, and it's, I mentioned these because it's

33:57important that the committee understand that every order has to fulfill all four of these

34:02requirements or it's an order, it's a type of order that the committee could have to quash.

34:07But the municipal address or the legal description of the property has to be indicated on the order.

34:14Most municipalities such as Guelph will have a municipal address, but some municipalities have

34:19larger, more rural areas that might not have a municipal address, but they would at least have

34:24a legal address, like a, or legal description, like a part lot 14 type of a, type of a description.

34:35So the address of the property, reasonable particulars of the repairs is what the legislation

34:42says, but in, in, in layman's terms, it means that the officer needs to include in the order,

34:48sorry, excuse me, essentially a description of what the problem is and what needs to be done about it.

34:58Not to be so prescriptive to say that you have to use this thickness of drywall or this

35:05thickness of, or this rating of, of insulation, but to say we've got a problem, here's where the

35:11problem is and something needs to be replaced or it needs to be repaired, depending on,

35:19depending on what that particular item is. They have to provide a time for compliance

35:25and they have to provide a, an indication that the order can be appealed, which is of course what

35:33brings us to, you know, to the function of the committee. So the order itself

35:41has to be served on the property owner, but the officers also have the discretion to,

35:48to provide copies of the order to any other person that they deem appropriate.

35:56And an example of that would be if an officer understands that a property has a mortgage on it,

36:02they have the ability to send a copy of that order to the mortgage company.

36:07It can happen. It's very seldom does it happen, but I've seen a couple of situations where the,

36:13the mortgage company will attend if an order is, is appealed. We've, we've had representatives of

36:19the mortgage company attend at the hearing to ensure that they understand what the implications are,

36:27because as most people will know that the conditions on a mortgage, on a property,

36:35beyond many things, or in addition I should say to, to many things, the requirements of a mortgage

36:43indicate that the municipality or the, sorry, the property owner must comply with all applicable

36:48legislation. And so the order itself, the order itself has to be served on the owner.

36:59It's typically served by registered mail or personal service. The order can now be emailed

37:09to a property owner. The challenge of course is that with email service, there's certain

37:16requirements that come into play in order for the officer to ensure that he has, he or she has

37:21some proof that the email has been, has been received. The most common practice for, for officers

37:29is to send it by registered mail or when they know that they can actually find the owner or,

37:35or have contact with the owner through personal service. And so the, sorry, excuse me one second.

37:51So once that order has been, has been served in whatever means the officer sees fit,

37:59the, the ball is in the owner's court so to speak to determine whether or not they want to appeal

38:06the order. They've got 14 days from the date of the appeal or the date of service to appeal the order.

38:17Some municipalities exercise a little bit of flexibility. The legislation clearly says,

38:22because it has to give a timeframe, it says 14 days. The challenge that we will see from time to

38:28time, and I think it's, I might be jumping ahead to a slide, but I'll mention it now, is that from

38:34time to time, appeals might come in a few days late. And what we as an association recommend is

38:45when that happens is that regardless of the fact that it might be past the 14 day deadline,

38:52we recommend that the municipalities hear the appeal and allow for the committee to make their

38:58decision as opposed to it being sort of a staff decision at a, at a front encounter. So many

39:03walked in and said, I want to appeal this order. Well, sorry, it's, it's day 17. And we're not

39:08going to, we're not going to process it. Our recommendation is to process it and let the

39:13community decide whether they want to proceed or not based on the timeframe. A few days here or there,

39:19really, you know, in the interest of fundamental justice, a few days here or there,

39:25probably isn't a big deal, but I've seen situations where it's been three and four months later that

39:30a property owner has tried to appeal an order. We've processed the appeal. We've held a hearing,

39:40but then we tell the, the committee at the time of the hearing that this appeal was heard or this

39:46appeal was received X amount of days, weeks or months after the appeal date, and we'll leave it

39:51in the hands of the committee to determine whether or not they want to hear the appeal.

39:56By doing that, what happens is that the property owner has the right to,

40:06has the right to appeal that decision. So therefore they're, they're, they're given,

40:11you know, due process as opposed to putting a burden on a staff member at a front counter

40:17somewhere that might say, well, sorry, it's been, it's been three weeks since your appeal date

40:22passed. We're not going to accept it. Our recommendation is, and again, this is a municipal

40:27decision. So this is one of these things where we, you know, where the approach can vary from one

40:34municipality to the next, but we highly recommend that municipalities say, well, we'll, we'll put it

40:39before the committee, let the committee decide. And, okay, here we go. I got ahead of myself.

40:53You want to ensure that the owner is given due process. And I always say, from a, from a bylaw

41:01enforcement perspective, regardless of what type of bylaw that you're enforcing with the property

41:05standards, noise, barking dogs, whatever it might be, the municipality and the municipal inspectors

41:12and officers always want to win the reasonableness argument. They always want to be seen as being

41:18the most reasonable. So our recommendation is to ensure that people have access to that,

41:26you know, to the fundamental justice piece that, of course, is ingrained in our,

41:31in our charter of rights. So the legislation beyond the first part, which is if, if you have a bylaw,

41:46you have to have a committee. It also talks about the, the, the structure of the committee

41:53in terms of the membership. However, that is a couple of slides later because of the, the numbering

42:03in the, in the legislation. So I'm just going from one section to the other. But the powers of the

42:08committee, so the powers that, that you're provided are, are one of four things that you can do on an

42:16order. You can confirm the order as is. So if an order has been issued with three items and the

42:23compliance date is where we're in January. So the compliance date is February 20th. If you confirm

42:32the order, then the order stands as is, or you can rescind the order. If you feel that the order

42:38itself or whatever reason makes sense to the committee after your debate, you can rescind the

42:45order in its entirety. You can modify the order, which essentially means that you can change some

42:53of the conditions on the order. We're going to talk about what modification means in a moment

42:58in terms of adding or, or subtracting items on the order, or you can extend the time

43:05for compliance. Again, I'm going to speak from a, from a personal standpoint in my 30-some years

43:13of experience. The vast majority of orders that are issued that I've, or orders that are appealed

43:19that I've seen is for an extension of time. And so the committee has to, has to debate if it comes

43:27to that particular type of, type of an argument, the committee would have to debate as to whether or

43:33not the, the person is asking for and is, is, or should be allowed a reasonable amount of time to

43:41affect the repair. And of course, the repair, the impact of the repairs and the extended repairs

43:46is going to dictate the time levels that, or the time frames that might be required. So the, the,

43:59the legislation itself is quite clear that the, the committee has four powers to confirm, rescind,

44:06modify or extend the time on the order. The committee does not have the power to critique

44:13the bylaw in terms of, at least in the formal process, in terms of saying, well, we don't believe

44:21that that particular section of the bylaw is valid. But the bylaw that's presented, the bylaw that

44:28exists in the city of Guelph, for example, is the set of standards that have been passed by council.

44:35The committee cannot change those standards or say that, that those particular standards do not apply.

44:42They might say that the order doesn't need to be, or the, the condition of a particular property

44:51doesn't dictate what is required on the order, but there, there, the, the committee doesn't

44:56have the power to quash the bylaw. Whereas courts do have the, like the superior court, for example,

45:03does have the, the ability to, to quash bylaws or sections of bylaws. And on a side note, we just saw

45:11city of Mississauga, a portion of, on a city of Mississauga's bylaws, which is quashed by the superior

45:17court a few weeks ago with regard to the issues of long grass and weeds, which I think is starting to

45:26send a few municipalities into a little bit of a, a little bit of a turmoil as, as we get towards

45:31spring, if spring ever does come. The, the other thing that the committee cannot do in formal

45:40process is direct staff to do certain things. It doesn't happen often, but I have seen situations

45:47where the committee has said, well, officer, we believe before we make a decision, you need to

45:52go back and you need to inspect this property again, or you need to, the owner has said that,

45:59that his property might need some repairs, but the property across the road needs some repairs. So,

46:05we're directing you to, to go to that property and do an inspection as well. So those formal directions

46:13and those formal decisions on bylaws are not within the committee's purview. However, if a committee,

46:22or if a, if a member of a committee or the committee itself sees over time that there's a

46:28particular trend in a certain type of issue that's coming before the committee, there,

46:35there's nothing that says that the committee can't strike up a conversation, but I'm going to say

46:41this behind the scenes type of thing, you know, the, the chair or members, maybe through the chair

46:47could approach the clerk's office or the bylaw enforcement office to say, you know, we're,

46:52we're noticing maybe there's, you know, a trend and again, and speaking from experience, maybe

47:00there's a trend where the officers are not giving as much time as they should for people to comply,

47:05and that's resulting in a lot of appeals coming. So there is the ability to make recommendations,

47:11but those recommendations typically would be something that, that should happen, I think, on a,

47:19sort of behind the scenes. So if this, if the committee has concerns with a certain trend,

47:27having a discussion with, with staff at a later date, but not within the,

47:34not within the context of the hearing itself, because the committee is restricted to simply

47:39those four actions and cannot, cannot quash the bylaw and cannot direct staff directly

47:46or compel staff to do something directly. The other thing the committee can do when,

47:57and again, I'll repeat myself in saying that, that a lot of times the, the committee

48:03is called on to, to look at extensions of time. What the committee has the ability to do is

48:11separate items on an order. If they feel that there, if there's certain items on an order that,

48:20or if there's a list of items on an order that, that some are short-term in nature and some might

48:24require a building permit, and it's going to take, you know, weeks or months to, to get an

48:30engineer's report and a building permit and such, the committee does have the ability to say, look,

48:34you know, we're going to separate out this order to say that, that certain items need to be done

48:42within a short time period, either because they're minor or they're more of a safety issue that

48:48should be done right away. However, certain other items may require a longer period of time because

48:58they either need a building permit or there's a concern around the availability of construction

49:03material. You don't do a lot of painting and paving in January. So, you know, there, there could be

49:11times where the committee may say, well, you know what, we're going to say that, that's a certain

49:15amount of work has to be done by, within the next two weeks, but we're going to give two months for,

49:21for the remainder of the work. So there is some discretion that the municipality, or that the

49:25committee can exercise. So I mentioned a couple of moments ago that when it comes to the ability

49:37to modify an order, it comes in, there's two pieces that come into play. The committee has to look at

49:46and focus on the order as it is written. So the committee can decide that they're going to remove

49:53an item from an order. If they feel, let's say there's seven items on, on, or seven items of

49:59repair on an order, the committee may say, well, you know, we just don't believe in our best interest,

50:07or in, in the best interest of everybody that item number seven needs to be done. So you can,

50:15as a committee, you can remove items from an order if you don't feel that they're, they need to be

50:19done. They might have already been completed or they're just not justified, but the committee

50:25cannot add items to an order. So those, if there's a situation where something comes to light,

50:37and there's a problem with the prop, on a property that's under appeal, and that particular situation

50:44is not, or that particular circumstance is not included in the, in the order that's at hand,

50:51the committee cannot direct staff to add that to the order. It has to be, it would have to,

50:59would require a new order to, to be issued. So the order at face value is what the committee has to,

51:09has to deal with. Sorry, excuse me. So as we, as we move through the sections in the, in the Building

51:29Code Act, we've talked very briefly about the, about the ability to, for the owner to appeal

51:37what the powers of the committee are. But we also want to point out that the committee's decision

51:44is subject to a second level of appeal. If, if the property owner or the municipality, so chooses,

51:53they can appeal the committee's decision. And that appeal would go to the superior court.

51:59And would be, that hearing would take place in, in front of a judge. This does not happen very often.

52:09I, you know, even with my four or five years of, of retirement and consulting, and that sort of stuff

52:18on top of my 30 some years. So in 40 years, I know of about maybe five appeals of community

52:25decisions that have gone to the superior court. It doesn't happen very often at all, but it can happen.

52:31And just a note to staff. One of the reasons why I like to stress this is that if a community decision

52:42does get appealed to the superior court, then of course the courts are going to have to take notice

52:48and want to take notice of a transcript of the minutes or, or the proceedings that took place

52:54at the, at the committee level. So of course it's important for staff to ensure that,

53:01that all proceedings are well documented in that respect. And it doesn't happen often, but it can

53:07happen. And again, the 14 day appeal period comes into play as well. So once the committee makes the

53:14decision, then the secretary of the property standards committee, their requirement is to

53:20issue that, that decision in writing, even if it's given verbally at the time of the hearing,

53:26it still has to be given in writing. And then once the decision is given to the property owner

53:33in writing, then the property owner has, has two weeks to decide whether or not they're going

53:39to appeal it to the superior court. So when all, sorry, excuse me, when all said and done,

53:52the, the final outcome of, for the, for the officer itself, himself or herself is that

54:01they have to carry through on the decisions of the committee. So if an order isn't appealed,

54:05the committee is not obviously not part of the process and, and the owner has to comply within

54:11a certain timeframe and the property standards officer and the owner will focus on, on what needs

54:17to be done. If the committee gives, or if there is an appeal and the committee decides to extend the

54:24time, then once that decision is made, then it's back to the officer to determine their next course,

54:32which typically would be to wait until there's a, until the time for compliance has passed and then

54:38determine if there's been compliance or not. If there hasn't been compliance, the municipality or

54:44the officer has, has two options. When all the appeals are said and done and all the time frames

54:52have, have been expired and they're still not compliance, the property standards officer has

54:57the ability to initiate legal action, which would be a prosecution like a provincial offenses

55:04charge for failing to comply with an order or the officer can exercise his or her authority

55:11to have the municipality through either their own municipal staff or contracted to enter under the

55:17property and exercise the repairs or undertake the work that needs to be done and if they do that,

55:23then the all costs involved in that action to, to bring the property into compliance,

55:31all those costs are, are applied to the taxes. Whether the municipality decides to do one or the

55:38other really is a discretionary option based on the policies of the municipality, the seriousness

55:48of the offense, you know, the judgment of the officer, those are the, those are, those involve a

55:57variety of factors that, that will come into play. Part of the challenge in Ontario right now

56:05is that we're seeing that there is a fair backlog in, you know, at the provincial offenses and at

56:14the superior court levels. So, so municipalities have, have, have decided to exercise their authority

56:23to, to do the work that's necessary when an order doesn't comply and, and apply the cost to the

56:29taxes. So, again, there's no really magic or silver bullet as to how you get compliance. It's up to

56:40the, the policies of the municipality and the discretion of the officer and of course the

56:47circumstances, depending on, on the scope of the work. Some of the minor work is usually done fairly

56:52quickly and with the, the cost added to taxes but, or it actually may come into play. So, I've talked

57:07a little bit about the authority to, of the officer and the authority to, to issue orders

57:15before, and the powers of the committee before I got to the sections because we're later on in the

57:19legislation about the, the committee itself. But the legislation is very clear that if a municipality

57:26chooses to enact a property standards bylaw, they must have a committee. And the committee must be

57:33at minimum, no fewer than three members. And the, the committee itself is, is designated by council.

57:47Now, each municipality has, you know, they're probably somewhat similar in terms of their

57:52recruitment processes but the committee can, or I should say the staff and typically through the

58:01clerk's office most of the time, as it has been my experience, they are the coordinators of the

58:07committees of council and so they will undertake a recruitment for a variety of committees.

58:14And then if, if the municipality decides that they want more than three members on a committee,

58:23they can do so. I'm not, I know that there's, there's more than three members of this committee.

58:28Is it, there's seven committee members? So then that makes your quorum, makes it a lot easier

58:37to get a quorum when you've got more than, more than three members. Obviously a quorum of, of

58:43three is two and if, so if you've got two people off sick around vacation, it can become a challenge.

58:48So certainly seven, seven helps. So the other, sorry, I'll just not to back up to that slide,

58:58but I'll go back to it and just in my mind for a second is that the city council

59:06can establish the term of the committee as well. And so my, again, just based on my experience,

59:13what I typically see is terms of committees of council typically being say two years or four years.

59:21Four years is, again, it's just, it's sort of been historical that committees get reconstituted

59:31after an election year. And so once the new council is sworn in, then the committee recruitment takes

59:36place. And so some municipalities designate that their committee is going to have a term of office

59:46of four years to follow the four years of, of council where other, other municipal council have

59:54decided well, our term is just going to be two years because four years is a lot of time.

1:00:00Council terms used to be three years, it was extended to four. So that's a four years, a lot

1:00:04of time. So we're going to cut the committees into two year stints. So again, it's up to the,

1:00:09to each municipality as to how they want to number one, how they want to build their committee

1:00:17of three or more. And the terms of, of offices, they see fit. Oh, sorry, I'm going to, all right.

1:00:29So one of the things that's important for staff and for the committee to understand is that once

1:00:34the committee has been established, excuse me, even if in this particular instance, if we use

1:00:45Guelph, for example, if you've got a committee made up of seven members, if there's a vacancy,

1:00:51then the legislation requires that that vacancy be filled. So

1:00:59to the letter of the law, so to speak, if you want to use that terminology,

1:01:05even though you'll really only need three members, if you have seven and somebody resigns or, or

1:01:12for whatever reason decides to step down midterm and you have six, that's still more than three.

1:01:19But the legislation indicates that that vacancy should be filled so that it's back up to seven. So

1:01:24it's basically following what the council has designated. And compensation for the committee

1:01:31as well. The legislation speaks to that as being anything that the council sees fit for, you know,

1:01:37based on their policies for committees of council. Once the, once the committee has been designated,

1:01:49then it's up to the committee itself to choose their chair. The election of the chair or the

1:01:56appointment of a chair of a property standards committee cannot be staff based and it cannot be

1:02:01council based. It's the election of the chair is from the members themselves. And what the

1:02:07committee, what committees will sometimes do is appoint a vice chair and a vice chair,

1:02:17you know, in situations where the chair may be off on leave, vacation, illness or whatever,

1:02:26then the vice chair can step in. If there is no vice chair appointed as a, as a position,

1:02:35then often what will happen is if there's a committee hearing and the chair is not available,

1:02:40then the members will just appoint an acting chair, but it is a committee decision. It's not a,

1:02:47it's not a decision made by staff or, or by council. And just following through on what most

1:03:00most forum sort of procedures are, it's typically 50% plus one. So, you know, here in Guelph then

1:03:09we're talking about four members available out of seven would constitute a core. And the committee,

1:03:17the legislation also says that the committee must provide for, and the committee in this case really

1:03:22is, is the municipality must provide, sorry, excuse me, provide for a secretary of the committee.

1:03:30And that secretary has a distinct set of functions that they must perform

1:03:37based on the legislation, which I believe is probably the next slide. And hopefully it is.

1:03:42Yep. There we go. The secretary has to keep all records of all proceedings, all decisions,

1:03:52all minutes, transcripts, applications, and such of the hearings. The committee,

1:04:03the committee secretary typically is a function of the clerk's office. I believe that's the case here

1:04:10in Guelph. It doesn't have to be, but it typically is because that's where, you know, that's how most

1:04:21committees of council are structured and how they function, you know, throughout their two, four

1:04:33years of term. Also, the legislation does not speak to the matter of having hearings recorded.

1:04:49That typically is something that falls within the policies of the municipality. So, I'm going to look

1:04:54to staff here to tell me, to help me because it's a specific municipal. Okay. So, the hearings

1:05:06will be recorded. The only comment that I would make on that is just to ensure probably through the

1:05:16package that gets sent out to the committee members and to the appellant prior to the hearing

1:05:24that they understand that the hearings will be recorded. So, once an appeal is received,

1:05:44it typically will fall on the clerk's office or the secretary. Let me say that. To take the ball

1:05:53and run with it if I can use that terminology, they'll notify staff to say that, you know,

1:06:00the particular officer, we've got an appeal for 123 Main Street and Guelph, and I'm going to need

1:06:08all of the information in your file that's relevant to this, to this hearing so we can prepare the

1:06:14package. Committee members, or I should say, sorry, staff and the committee members will often

1:06:25collaborate at the start of a term to determine whether or not hearing dates will be preset

1:06:34or whether they'll be scheduled as needed. So, the example that I would give is that

1:06:42if the history in a municipality is that there's not a lot of hearings,

1:06:47then they may say, well listen, you know, we'll schedule a hearing when we receive an appeal.

1:06:52So, other municipalities have taken the approach that they will designate one day a month, and let's

1:07:00say it's the third Thursday of every month in the late afternoon or evening or whatever.

1:07:10That will be the time frame set aside. That will be the date. So, we have 12 of them

1:07:16that are preset throughout the year, and if an appeal comes in, we will schedule that appeal

1:07:20for that particular, for the date that makes most sense. And if an appeal is not received,

1:07:27say within three weeks of that date, they simply cancel a date. So, that, again, this is where we

1:07:32get into this area where municipalities can function based on the needs of their municipality

1:07:40and the volume of the appeals that they might hear. So, it's scheduled as needed, or it's,

1:07:46there are preset dates that get canceled if they're not necessary. But what must happen is once the

1:07:52appeal is registered, that's when the secretary has to start gathering all the information

1:08:02and then set a date if it's not preset and give notice to the committee and to the appellant

1:08:08and to the officer that a date's been set for a, for a particular time for the appeal to be set.

1:08:20And we'll speak in a moment as well about what that, what that information package will entail.

1:08:31So, this is the piece that I've referred to a couple of times. In Section 15.6 of the Building

1:08:37Code Act, specifically states that each municipality, it talks about the committee, but we're really

1:08:43talking about the municipality itself being the driving force, each municipality can adopt their

1:08:51own rules of procedure. And as I said earlier on, it's advisable that each municipality set up a

1:09:01terms of reference for the various committees that they have. The rules of procedure can be,

1:09:11you know, reasonably set by the municipality beyond what the legislation specifically says. And the

1:09:19legislation, quite frankly, is, is relatively, I'm going to say short-sighted, that's not the

1:09:26right word, but it's relatively short in terms of its list of requirements. You have to have a

1:09:33committee, it has to be three members, you've got 14 days to appeal, and they have to elect their own,

1:09:40their own chairman and fill vacancies. Other than that, how the committee is run or how the hearings

1:09:46are run, how decisions are rendered outside of the powers of the committee itself, how the decisions

1:09:54are rendered in terms of verbal written and such are all things that the municipality can adopt

1:10:01through their terms of reference. So there is a piece of legislation that the clerk's office will

1:10:12be very familiar with, the Statutory Powers and Procedures Act, that helps. It's a piece of

1:10:18legislation that was enacted by the province many years ago with amendments throughout the years.

1:10:24And its function is to help with, as a guiding document for the various types of committees

1:10:33that are appointed by council in municipalities across Ontario.

1:10:39And most municipalities will rely on it as a guideline to help determine the

1:10:47rules of procedure that each committee at the municipal level will, or how they will

1:10:53function in terms of things like disclosure and adjournments, open hearings.

1:11:03You know, whether a committee is entitled to have an open hearing or closed hearings,

1:11:08legislation speaks to that, which we'll have, which we'll talk about in a moment. So there's

1:11:13a variety of different pieces of, or pieces, practices I should say, that come into play

1:11:23with a hearing that if municipality is not sure how they should proceed or what they should,

1:11:33or how they should set up their terms of reference, they can look to the Statutory Powers and Procedures

1:11:38Act for guidance. So committee members typically are citizen volunteers.

1:11:51The application process, or the recruitment process, is based on, as you've already gone through,

1:11:59is based on the wishes of the municipality. Some municipalities will say that you have to be,

1:12:09and I'll just use this as an example. This probably says that you have to be a resident

1:12:15for a property owner within the municipal jurisdiction in order to be able to sit on a

1:12:20committee. I myself, I worked for the City of Waterloo when I retired. They asked me to sit as a

1:12:27member of the property standards committee, even though after I retired, I moved out of Waterloo.

1:12:33So their requirement is not jurisdictional based. And I think at that time it was based on the fact

1:12:38that they were just somewhat challenged in getting enough volunteers and that sort of stuff. So

1:12:44they picked me. I guess they'd probably pick anybody. So they didn't care whether or not I was

1:12:50in the municipality or not. So again, that's the requirements, the terms, compensation,

1:12:57that sort of stuff is within limits set by the municipality. And as we know today,

1:13:09some municipalities use a variety of committees to serve or one will use one committee to

1:13:15serve several functions. This committee serves two functions as the committee of adjustment,

1:13:21which is not on our table today, but also serves as the property standards appeal committee. Other

1:13:27types of appeals and tribunals that come into play in terms of bylaw enforcement, a committee of

1:13:33adjustments, obviously the zoning bylaw issue. But there's other types of appeals that can come

1:13:39into play. If municipalities have dog designation bylaws for designating dangerous dogs and muzzle

1:13:45orders and that sort of stuff, that can be a function that the committee may also serve.

1:13:52And also business licensing tribunals if a license is being suspended or revoked. So depending on

1:13:58the municipality, you may find that there's one or more functions as we know is the case here in

1:14:04Groff. I'm going to mention this just because this is something that has come up before.

1:14:16We've been asked whether or not council members can sit on committees. There's no nothing in

1:14:25legislation that says a council member. I know it's on an issue here in Groff, but the councilors

1:14:30if nothing says the council members can't sit on an appeal committee, but we highly recommend that

1:14:37they don't. It really speaks to issues, not to suggest any sort of challenges, just the perception

1:14:49of conflict of interest and impartiality can come into play. So we absolutely recommend that

1:14:56municipalities do their utmost to focus on volunteers and citizens of the municipality.

1:15:11It's not very common anymore, but I can tell you that I've worked for

1:15:15of the three municipalities that I've worked for, two just down the road here,

1:15:20and one in the city of Mississauga. Two of those committees at one time or another did have

1:15:25councilors sitting on the committee and it caused some challenges at times. Let me just say that.

1:15:38So typically what we also recommend is at the start of a term that the secretary's office,

1:15:46at the clerk's office, or whoever is administering the committee, will prepare a package of information

1:15:52that is provided to all the committee members. It typically includes the legislation that

1:16:00governs their actions, so the Building Code Act, a copy of your property standards bylaw,

1:16:06and then whatever rules of procedure or terms of reference or whatever that committee guidelines,

1:16:11whatever that document might be, those three fundamental documents should be given to each

1:16:16committee member at the start of their term. Sorry, my apologies. This slide probably,

1:16:29it's probably a bit of a duplicate, but I'll just mention again the whole

1:16:36issue of appeals coming after, received after a time limit is something that is a,

1:16:44it's a municipal discretion, but we highly recommend that regardless of the time frame,

1:16:49that it be given to the committee to make a decision so that person can not argue that they

1:16:55weren't given their rights to do process. Apologize, I might have forgot to replace that slide.

1:17:06So again, as I say, it should not be a staff decision on that one, so I'm going to skip

1:17:11through that again because we've already discussed that and I apologize for that,

1:17:16for my oversight on that one. The property standard or the legislation in the Building Code Act

1:17:23doesn't specifically say or prescribe that an appeal has to be heard within a certain time period

1:17:32of it being received. It does say very clearly that the hearing must take place,

1:17:39but it doesn't prescribe a timeline. So obviously what we're going to do is, you know,

1:17:47as an association, we recommend obviously to be held in a timely fashion,

1:17:54if possible, within 30 days would be recommended, but that's not always,

1:18:04that's not always reasonable, depending on the time of the year. It could be vacation time,

1:18:12it could be winter, when it's winter vacation time. The availability of members and of course,

1:18:20the work that the committee secretary has to do in terms of putting the package together and getting

1:18:24it out to the members as well and the appellants. So we just recommend that there be some thought

1:18:35given to the timeframe and one of the reasons for that, there's a couple. One is the timeframe

1:18:43needs to be reasonable enough for everybody to prepare, but the other part of it is that once

1:18:50once an order has been appealed, any action on that order is suspended.

1:18:55So the officer really cannot do anything with that order or take any action on

1:19:01the discrepancies that are issued in that order once it's under appeal. So in simple terms,

1:19:08the longer it takes for an appeal to be heard and the decision to be made, the longer those

1:19:12discrepancies or those deficiencies in that building may exist. So we want to make sure that

1:19:24that procedures play themselves out in a timely fashion so that again, on one hand,

1:19:31there's due preparation, but at the same time, we're not arbitrarily dismissing the importance

1:19:39of the repairs that might need to be done. So now I want to enter into the hearing process itself

1:19:54and preparing for the hearing. And again, this is where we're going to get into more of the

1:20:00discretionary approaches that municipalities can take. And so what I've seen is that there

1:20:10can be some variance between the amount of information that is given by the committee

1:20:19or through the secretary by the committee to the appellant and to the officer prior to the hearing.

1:20:28I've seen situations where the secretary will receive a

1:20:42copy of the order from the officer and then send a copy of the order and the notice and the letter

1:20:51of appeal that the owner has submitted and a copy of the agenda, the date, the time, the hearing,

1:20:57all that sort of stuff. And that's all that's sent out. And then all the evidence is entered.

1:21:05The officers know it's photographs and arguments and that sort of stuff are all entered at the time

1:21:11of the hearing. That's one approach. The other approach is to prepare all of the information

1:21:17and send it all out in a package that goes to all the committee members and the appellant and the

1:21:26officer prior to the hearing. So two to three weeks prior, whatever time frame. So that really is

1:21:36a municipal decision. And I guess we could open it up just for a bit of a conversation around

1:21:43what the package typically looks like here in Guelph.

1:21:48That's what ours typically consists of three items that we include unless there's any other

1:21:53documents such as photos or like any kind of things they did with the like they had any work

1:22:01done already or someone come and look at whatever it needs to be fixed and that would be submitted

1:22:05sometimes with the package as well. So any so that it is possible for the committee members to

1:22:11receive photos and other documentation besides the order itself prior? We have in the past we've

1:22:19asked if the appellant has anything they want to submit to the committee prior to the hearing and

1:22:25that what that and then what that looks like varies but we do give them the opportunity to give them

1:22:30something prior to the prior to the hearing. So all the information that's relevant to the

1:22:37to the hearing will either be sent out beforehand or will be a combination of being sent out beforehand

1:22:43or will be presented during the hearing. So photographs it could be a combination of things

1:22:51it could be officer photographs it could be a report from a contractor it could be a quote from a

1:22:56contractor that you know where the owner has said listen I've I've got a quote here and I've got a

1:23:02contractor all lined up I just need more time so there's different pieces of of information that

1:23:08can be submitted either beforehand or would be presented at the time for the committee's consent.

1:23:14I think that's similar to what we experienced at committee of adjustment is the the delegation has

1:23:23uh often brings additional information the the day of of the hearing so that that's very similar

1:23:31to what we experience at C of A. Yeah and I mean the important part is you just you want to have a

1:23:38conversation you want to make sure that whatever decision is made is an informed decision and

1:23:45that's why we you know we talk about these hearings in terms of being quasi-judicial.

1:23:50If you go to court and you try to enter in a piece of information at the last minute

1:23:56often the courts will say well we don't have prior notice of it and you know there's rules of procedure

1:24:02and rules of evidence that have to be followed. Committees even though the you know the committee

1:24:07members here have the ability or have the authority to make a a legally binding decision it doesn't mean

1:24:16that they can't be open to receiving information at the last minute if it's necessary. Okay again

1:24:22and the important thing is to ensure that whatever decisions they're made are informed decisions.

1:24:32So now I want to backtrack to what I talked about earlier on in the presentation where we talked

1:24:38about the powers of entry for officers. The legislation says that committee members have

1:24:46the same powers as an officer so that would suggest that you anticipated one of my questions.

1:24:54Okay so I'll let me let me give you my spiel and then and Mr. Chair and then you can tell me

1:25:01whether I've answered it or not or we can dig a little deeper. So the legislation does say that

1:25:08the committee members have the same powers as an officer which would then suggest or indicate

1:25:15that committee members can inspect a property. So the slide here says I I don't own these slides.

1:25:28I highly recommend you know what changes should be made. The association itself suggests that

1:25:35the committee members should probably not inspect properties and let me let me play that

1:25:40it for a moment. So you do have the powers of an officer. Officers have the power to inspect

1:25:49properties without consent. I just think that in doing so if the committee decide any member of a

1:25:58committee decides that they want to take a look at a property beforehand because you're given the

1:26:02package you're given the information you know the address you might have some photos. Do you want

1:26:08to take a look at the property beforehand? There's nothing that says you can't. In fact the legislation

1:26:12says you know you could actually inspect the property. Our recommendation is at very least be

1:26:19careful and the reason why we say that is that um well actually let me say this first. An inspection

1:26:31and this is I'm going to use my plain language here. An inspection are you an inspection a little

1:26:37differently than viewing a property. So if you you know if a committee member decides I just want

1:26:44to familiarize myself with the property you know it's maybe it's an apartment building maybe it's

1:26:49out through the garage and maybe it's a you know um you know it's a small apartment building maybe

1:26:56it's a large apartment building. Doing a drive-by and taking a look at the property there's no

1:27:01there's no issues with that. That I see that viewing the property I see that little differently than

1:27:08inspecting a property. The word inspection from a legal standpoint or at least in terms of the powers

1:27:15of the committee would suggest that you have the ability to go under the property even if the owner

1:27:19doesn't want you to be there um and inspect the property. That can raise some issues so so we're

1:27:26talking about being careful here. The first part is safety. The officers will probably be privy to

1:27:35information about that property or that property owner that the the committee members may not.

1:27:40So for example are there you know is there an aggressive dog on the property?

1:27:46Does the owner of the property is the owner of the property open to strangers coming on to his or her

1:27:53property? Um you know we've by law enforcement officers I'm sure you you know can deal with

1:28:01situations that are sometimes not pleasant. So are there challenges? I don't want to go so far as to

1:28:09you know to put labels but there are safety challenges. We know that there's you know problems

1:28:14with with animals. We know there's problems with mental health challenges and such like that. So

1:28:19committee members really need to be careful when when viewing a property ahead of time to not put

1:28:27themselves in in some sort of a safety risk. So viewing versus inspecting and going through the

1:28:32entire property or I see them as two different things. So you know committee members may not

1:28:38be aware of the nuances of the of the background. I think that's that's really good advice. I know

1:28:43that with committee of adjustment um we I think all go and take a look at the property. Maybe we

1:28:52don't tramp around the whole property but we do let me put it this way we don't rely on street view.

1:28:59No for 100% of of what we do and just to sort of dig into this a little bit deeper um was was it not

1:29:10a property standards call in in Windsor or pardon me Welland that um that initiated the standoff with

1:29:20the police and guns and everything and thankfully the female officer was wearing a bulletproof vest

1:29:28or we'd be having a little different discussion but yeah that was a property standards call. It was

1:29:33actually a cleanup on a property that uh that they were undertaking when uh when that happened a very

1:29:39unfortunate uh sort of event. Fortunately the it ended without serious injuries and the officer

1:29:45was bruised but not uh not badly uh badly injured but yeah so you know so at a moment's notice

1:29:52the situation can change. The other part is that um from an independent standpoint we recommend

1:30:03that committee members should not view a property together because it's almost like you're having

1:30:09the committee hearing at the property without all being president or president I should say.

1:30:16So there's other things like you know uh you know you may form a uh a um or you may be prejudiced

1:30:25and I don't mean that in a in a bad sense but you know if you have a discussion with somebody and

1:30:30now now you committee members might form certain opinions based on a little bit of information

1:30:38versus the whole of the information that could be presented at the uh you know at the hearing itself.

1:30:43The other part is of course that the situation can change you know the officer issues the order in

1:30:50in November but it gets appealed and the hearings in January the situation on the property could

1:30:55have changed and so what the officer saw in November is not what the the uh the committee

1:31:00members see in January when they do an inspection so it's really just about being um um being cautious

1:31:08and um you know viewing the property but maybe not digging through the the hallways and the closets

1:31:16if I could say it like that. So again another point that gets um uh that varies from one municipality

1:31:30to the next and that is the um the the issue of who represents the municipality at the hearing

1:31:40or the enforcement branch. So the committee members will be at a hearing the committee secretary is here

1:31:47and this is the building or this is the room we're going to be in um and so each municipality then can

1:31:55determine how they want to um approach their their presentation. It's not a legal proceed well

1:32:04sorry it doesn't have to be a legal proceeding that involves legal counsel.

1:32:09Some municipalities do have um a lawyer or a paralegal on staff that comes with the the officer

1:32:17and they're probably going to sit on typically the prosecutions in it most proceedings sit on the right

1:32:22and the bad guy sit on the left um that's typically how it how it works but um um

1:32:31you know the the officer is really the officer that issued the order is the one person that

1:32:38needs to be present. If Gough decides that they're going to have somebody from their their legal staff

1:32:46come with the officer they can do that. My approach was in two of the three municipalities

1:32:55where I worked was I would attend as the manager or the director I would come with the officer.

1:33:01We didn't need to have a a lawyer on standby the lawyers get paid to do other things as well and

1:33:08we tried to keep this as as structured but as informal as we could so I would I would attend

1:33:14with the officer sort of as a facilitator I wouldn't give evidence but I would introduce the officer

1:33:19and such or the municipality can say well we want the the legal staff so the other

1:33:24minutes the last one I worked in which is Waterloo it was the legal staff that uh

1:33:28that attended with the officer so again that that can it's been everything from a lawyer

1:33:34and the officer to the officer and a supervisor or her supervisor or just the officer so it really

1:33:40depends on the approach and so I'd look to Gough I'd look to Hannah maybe to help me uh on that one

1:33:47as to what your we uh we'll have um

1:33:52officers have an option to to have uh cities legal staff attend with them it doesn't always happen

1:33:58but they do have that option depending on the on the case that they're presenting and we've also

1:34:03seen the appellant spring legal representation with them as well so but typically on just a

1:34:09regular basis we just see the officer representing the city as well as just the appellant representing

1:34:15themselves so it could be as simple as two people the owner and the officer or depending on on

1:34:25either the complexity or perhaps the owner in their letter of appeal has said I want to appeal it on

1:34:32this basis and then it gets you know it might be a legal matter and so the the officer might say

1:34:38you know what I want to have our our our legal staff represented so again it's um it's it's it's

1:34:45the approach that makes sense at the time for each municipality there we go so the municipal

1:34:57act comes into play in terms of the vast majority of committee meetings that are strike or committee

1:35:08uh council appointed committee uh meetings let me say it that way typically the and I'll I'll look to

1:35:17I'll look to staff to help me out with this one um you know I can't speak for the the city of Guelph but

1:35:24um typically across the province uh committee meetings are deemed to be open to the public

1:35:30unless there's a specific uh situation where um the meeting or a portion of the meeting

1:35:39has to go in camera but because of the uh you know due to transparency and accountability issues

1:35:49it's highly recommended that the committee's uh committee proceedings be held in public and

1:35:55except for that that small uh a small piece where there might be something some piece of

1:36:02information specifically at a committee hearing that uh that needs to be uh heard in private and if

1:36:08it when that happens the nature of the information will dictate who can uh who can go in camera

1:36:18and um typically it's the the appellate the officer the secretary and the uh and the committee members

1:36:27um my experience has been that if the city of Guelph was going to sell tickets to uh an appeal

1:36:34hearing you're probably not going to make a lot of money um there's you don't get a lot of uh a lot of

1:36:41people showing up in the studio audience to uh to see these hearings but they are open to the public

1:36:54so the the basic structure of an agenda um and again i'll look to uh to to Guelph staff but um

1:37:04when the hearing uh when the hearing takes place typically the agenda and i noticed it today when

1:37:10when the committee uh when the committee was adjourned um typically the agenda is provided

1:37:17there's introductions uh if there's any um uh disclosure opinion i i hate that word let's just

1:37:25say conflict of interest can we just say that uh conflict of interest um minutes of a previous

1:37:31hearing i saw that that was part of the the minutes so you have to clean up the business from from

1:37:36before and then the items of uh items for consideration it could be one two or three appeals

1:37:43and so that's the fundamental structure of a of an agenda can i ask a question about pecuniary interest

1:37:55before the committees were amalgamated i have called property standards in the past

1:38:02if i noticed something and decided to call property standards as a as a citizen yep um

1:38:10what's your advice should i declare conflict well we're actually going to jump right into that now

1:38:16the next couple of slides talk about conflict of interest so um conflict of interest and again i'll

1:38:23look to staff um to help me with this um because they're more well versed in in the rules of

1:38:30procedure for for committee hearings than i am but a conflict of interest typically rests on the person

1:38:39to to self-determine whether or not they feel that that they're going to be put

1:38:43putting themselves in in a conflict so um i mean there there's a variety of reasons as

1:38:49as indicated up on the screen is there a personal interest um are there situations where there might

1:38:57be some sort of gain in through you mr chair based on what that particular scenario if you're a member

1:39:06of the committee and you were the complainant i would recommend that you declare conflict of interest

1:39:14and so that could be that could happen the day of or you could say ahead of time to the committee

1:39:21i'm just not i'm not available right um if you're not present at the hearing you don't have to

1:39:30publicly say because i mean this is the other challenge that you get into of course is that

1:39:35municipalities under the freedom of information legislation should keep the names of complainants

1:39:41confidential so what i would recommend in that type of a situation mr chair is that um

1:39:49you don't attend the hearing as opposed to attending and saying i i i want to declare a conflict of

1:39:55interest because then that raises that question if you're if you declare that conflict of interest

1:40:00and say i'm not attending for whatever reason or i'm unable to attend i would recommend you do that

1:40:07ahead of the hearing and not at the hearing but yes the the fundamental part of being someone

1:40:14that reported the complaint and then being the decision maker would be in my mind a conflict of

1:40:20interest so typically what would happen again it's up to the committee members to self declare

1:40:30if they uh if there's three hearings or one you know maybe there's more than one hearing

1:40:34if there's two or three hearings on the agenda and you just have a conflict with the one you step

1:40:38out of the room and then you come back and you know that that conflict of interest declaration

1:40:43is only for that particular hearing not for you know not for them all unless of course there is a

1:40:50reason why you're you're impacted by them all and so just to to move on with the conflict of interest

1:41:00the the declaration of a conflict doesn't affect core unless the situation gets to the point where

1:41:12you'd have so many declarations or so many absences that you've got less than two people on your

1:41:17committee for that particular hearing you can't go below two so you can't have a single single

1:41:22decision maker but when you've got a committee of seven assuming that that most of the majority of

1:41:28them are available that shouldn't be an issue so the hearing process itself and again it can be

1:41:38flexible um so we're going to talk you know for the next few moments we're just going to talk about

1:41:43generically what what it looks like once the quorum is established and the chair will call the meeting

1:41:48to order just as we've seen here today the chair will typically introduce the members

1:41:55and then acknowledge uh acknowledge the staff as well as the appellant and ask them to uh to

1:42:02introduce themselves so then the chair sorry excuse me it's recommended that the chair just give a

1:42:15brief explanation of the process itself and that can often be from a script that is provided by

1:42:22staff to to the chair um I can tell you based on my experience the benefit of this is mostly for the

1:42:29appellant because the committee members will have served on committees before and they're

1:42:35familiar with the process staff are familiar with the process what often the appellant is walking

1:42:40into this room for the first time going out what it could be the you know they might have been at

1:42:47court for a traffic ticket or a parking ticket before but they're walking in here going okay well

1:42:52this isn't a court maybe we're just having an open discussion so there has to be some decorum

1:42:57so the the benefit of explaining the process to uh to everyone is mostly for the appellant so that

1:43:04the appellant understands what the procedure's going to look like um the the legislation does not

1:43:18specifically require the witnesses at a hearing or at least at a property standards hearing

1:43:24give an oath or an affirmation that is typically a municipal policy and so I'd look to Guelph to uh

1:43:34like though though it is done by the secretary it's difficult to other committees yeah so each

1:43:40so any person appellant or officer will uh will then be asked to to give an uh an affirmation

1:43:48again not necessary but it is very typical so my recommendation to staff to officers

1:43:59and through our training programs uh has always been to say that um you know even though the hearing

1:44:06itself is not a true or treat it like it is be prepared be professional um and you know again you

1:44:16can't you can't control what might be said by other parties but you can control how you prepare so be

1:44:23prepared um so hopefully when officers are attending before you they are organized they've read their

1:44:30files hopefully have you know probably inspected the property a few days or a couple of days before

1:44:36and so they know the current situation um you know if some work has been done the owner can say the

1:44:43property owner can say whatever they want to say the officer should have whatever information they can

1:44:49to either back up or refute that you know any comments that are that are made so again you know

1:44:55you know be prepared and be professional is what our recommendation to staff and hopefully that's

1:45:01what the committee will see so the municipality will present its information first not the appellant

1:45:12um if the officer is presenting information that has not documents or whatever that has

1:45:20that has not already been provided so copies of letters or copies of photographs or whatever

1:45:25it's important for the officer to uh come prepared with enough copies for the committee members

1:45:32and for the appellant the appellant is entitled to see every piece of information that's before

1:45:38them whether they get it in their package or whether they get it the day of and so those pictures could

1:45:43be you know it doesn't have to be hard copies it could be pictures that are digital so everybody

1:45:48can see it or whatever but you know photographs notes engineers reports contractors reports whatever

1:45:54documentation is necessary if it hasn't been provided beforehand needs to come to the committee

1:46:00during the hearing so once the officer has presented their information then the committee

1:46:08members can ask questions of staff and that that information or those questions should be based on

1:46:17the information that the officer presents the appellant is then provided an opportunity to

1:46:27to ask their questions and this again i'm speaking from experience this is the one point in the

1:46:34process where things could get a little twisted or get off the rails because again and no disrespect

1:46:40to the appellants but they're not familiar with the process so mr chair if you turn to the appellant

1:46:46say uh do you have any questions you know it's important to tell them that their questions need

1:46:52to be related to the information they'll have their their their opportunity in a minute but their

1:46:56their questions need to be uh uh directed specifically to the information that was presented

1:47:01to the officer so i mean in some cases i've seen appellants to just say well here's what happened

1:47:09that's not what we're talking about here now do you have questions of that information

1:47:13you'll have your opportunity so sometimes you just want to speak and if they're not familiar

1:47:19with the process like others might be they just start to spew information and that's no disrespect

1:47:24to them it's just not being familiar with the process i know um with committee of adjustment it's

1:47:31it's a lot more formal and our rules are are pretty cut and dry and um i i guess this brings me to a

1:47:41question from earlier on and that is um let me give any example with committee of adjustment

1:47:48sometimes um a delegate will want to have a conversation a back and forth and we don't allow

1:47:56that right it's address your comments through the chair and if it's staff or the applicant

1:48:03they can answer but it's not a back and forth it's not a discussion what's your what's your experience

1:48:11with property standards is there more leeway to something that's more akin to a discussion

1:48:18there can be um the challenge that you have is that um sometimes that can

1:48:28that can go off the rails and it becomes a conversation between this person and this person

1:48:33versus what should happen really so uh what i would recommend is that the the committee tried to

1:48:40keep that sort of structure so that the question is being asked of you know acknowledging the chair

1:48:46and then the chair gives an opportunity for this person to uh um you know to uh uh to hear and to

1:48:55answer when you get into this if i can use i you know if i if i can use my hand gestures when you

1:49:02get into this sometimes things can get a bit more personal now all of a sudden it says well no you

1:49:08told me this and blah blah you know that sort of thing whereas say mr chair i'd like to ask the question

1:49:13of this chairs then says officer can you answer that question so i would try to keep it somewhat

1:49:19structured it doesn't have to be so formal um you know if if there's an opportunity again some of this

1:49:27you have to sort of adjust on the fly you'll get some appellants that are very organized

1:49:33and say you know they're well prepared and others that just say hey i don't know what the hell is

1:49:38going on here and i just this guy pissed me off and now i i i want to go at him right so you know

1:49:46it's it's difficult to uh specifically say that that one format is better than the other but if

1:49:53you're going to default to something then i would recommend that it be that the chair allows the

1:49:58questions to happen that's awesome so then you know just as the officer is given the opportunity to

1:50:11state their case then the appellant is um is able to give their to make their arguments and they may

1:50:19have somebody with them uh they could have a and again it could be a contractor it could be a professional

1:50:29engineer it says hey i i've looked at this work and i don't think the amount of work that the officer

1:50:35is asking for is necessary yeah there's a problem but we don't need to replace this whole structure

1:50:40we can just repair it ever so so the the appellant can bring witnesses and expert testimony as well

1:50:47with them so once their case has been presented then again it's reciprocal in that the committee

1:50:53gets to ask questions and then the officer or municipal staff have the ability to ask questions

1:50:59as well or points of clarification so that uh you know again that that's structured we'd like

1:51:06to ask questions and go both ways so oh okay so i've already mentioned this um they have the ability

1:51:17to bring uh witnesses uh and documentation if they bring something well first of all staff are probably

1:51:26going to ask the the appellant as part of preparing for the hearing you know can you please provide us

1:51:32with whatever information you want to bring or that you want to present but that doesn't stop them

1:51:38from bringing something at the last minute because they say hey you know what i just yesterday i got a

1:51:42quote from a contractor but he can't start for three weeks i need more time um but whatever that person

1:51:49whatever the appellant brings needs to be presented to the committee so that um you know for example

1:51:57they hold up a document that document has to become part of that public record so they have to be

1:52:03prepared to enter that uh you know not officially as exhibit a or whatever but they do have to be able

1:52:10to uh provide a copy to the uh you know to the clerk staffer to the secretary so that it becomes a

1:52:19part of that record so they have to understand that whatever uh whatever information they uh

1:52:26they provide will be public information so if somebody provides a quote and doesn't black out the price

1:52:32of the quote that's public information that's just one example it's you know typically when uh when

1:52:40they're asking for more time they might simply say hey i just guys ready to go i've got the guy hired

1:52:47giving him a deposit but he can't start for a month i need more time so let's just you know again just

1:52:52one example so the um a standard practice again it's discretionary but standard practices once

1:53:07both parties have have provided their information to the uh to the committee the chair may ask for

1:53:14any sort of final submissions um and they would you know you know to the officer do you have anything

1:53:24else you would you know is there is there anything you'd like to summarize it's not typically meant to

1:53:30be um an opportunity to provide more evidence because that evidence should have been given but

1:53:36um you know just as an example um the officer might have heard some information that they didn't

1:53:43know of beforehand and say you know i we didn't realize that the um that there was an illness in

1:53:50the family that's caused the owner to be distracted and if he needs more time the municipality is

1:53:55willing it does not object to more time i mean that could be something that would help the

1:53:59committee make their decision so both parties can be given an opportunity to make sort of a final

1:54:05summer um summation if you want to call it that but it's not meant to be um an opportunity to present

1:54:13more evidence because that evidence should have already um been given actually i have a question

1:54:21as well um so it will uh city staff also be present so if i was looking through some of the

1:54:30property standards um bylaw and i see some of it could be quite technical storm water um you know

1:54:38building envelope design that kind of thing so will city staff also have an opportunity like the

1:54:45officer have an opportunity to bring technical city staff with them as part of their delegation or

1:54:51the the the discussion that they'll bring to us yes absolutely okay um yeah the the officer can

1:54:59can bring witnesses or bring reports from uh from other uh qualified individuals to help back up

1:55:08the contents of their order um and that doesn't that doesn't mean if the committee you know uh

1:55:17matter member if you happen if you're looking at this information um i don't think it's

1:55:23unreasonable to say you know what there's there's something about this we might the committee might

1:55:29be it might be beneficial for the committee to hear a bit more information about this particular

1:55:33item can the municipality sorry can municipal staff be prepared to speak to that at the hearing

1:55:41so you know the officer might say well i understand what that means but you know then they say well

1:55:47gosh there's going to be a question maybe i need to bring a building inspector or plumbing inspector

1:55:53electrical engineer whoever it might be so yes absolutely the officers as part of their

1:55:59inspection process because they're not experts in everything um as my wife constantly tells me

1:56:08so you know if they need the ability to uh to bring information or or seek expert opinions

1:56:18then the committee has the benefit of seeing that that expert opinion as well

1:56:25so when after after all the information is being presented then the committee

1:56:31is left with rendering a decision and sometimes the committee will ask for staff recommendations

1:56:40um and typically um like the staff recommendations you know they don't have to come prepared to say

1:56:53our recommendation is you do this or you just or this because the the committee is an independent

1:56:58body but that doesn't preclude the uh the committee members from asking staff you've heard the information

1:57:07um you know your your order expires at the end of march but they need till the end of

1:57:13april or the middle of may how do you feel about that like that's where you can start to get into

1:57:19a little bit more of the discussion versus what you would see in a court so i mean courts when

1:57:26you think of courts you think of guilty not guilty and you think of win-lose uh once the

1:57:30information is provided then there can be a little bit of a discussion all right you know if you so

1:57:37choose um to say you know what he's asking for six months but does he really need six months

1:57:44you know just as an example so that's where you can start to then get into a little bit of the

1:57:50uh of the back and forth um what i typically tell staff is that um if you've got if you've got an

1:58:02idea where you think you can resolve an issue beforehand or at least you know shorten the

1:58:08process um that might be something to consider so i'll give you an example of of a process that we

1:58:16used in in Kitchener and it's a few years ago the process may have changed but i was the uh

1:58:22i was fortunate to be the director in Kitchener so i was typically the person who would go with the

1:58:27officer and before a hearing there'd be times when so well we've got a hearing uh you know in two

1:58:33two weeks from now and i'd ask the officer what do you think what do you think the issue is well

1:58:37i think he needs more time it sounds like he's going to want more time so so there's been you

1:58:43know times when i said hey call him up and tell him to meet us 15 minutes before the hearing

1:58:48you meet outside we talk about it a little bit um and then the uh you know that you find out that

1:58:56he needs two months you look at the officer can you live with two months like based on your

1:59:03expert opinion do you think two months is reasonable yeah sure when you walk in and we

1:59:08i've seen situations we've had a hearing in five minutes because you simply say mr chair or madam

1:59:14chair depending on the situation um we've had a discussion and we've got a reasonable solution

1:59:21we would like to present the community doesn't have to accept it but it can happen so there

1:59:25is the approach that's taken there can be a wide variety of approaches that uh that are that are

1:59:32taken you will never fall you'll you'll never go wrong with falling with the built-in process which

1:59:40is presenting both sides presenting the evidence or their information and then having the negotiation

1:59:46after that now that again is predicated typically on not disputing the order but disputing the time

1:59:52frames so it depends on the on the nature of the uh the appeal itself so when the committee comes to

2:00:03rendering their decision uh there's a variety of ways that it can happen it doesn't have to be set

2:00:08out that it's going to be formalized each each time um i've seen situations where the committee

2:00:15says well you know we just we think we can resolve this in about 15 minutes but we just need to go

2:00:21in camera for 15 minutes and we want to excuse ourselves and i don't know if that were to happen

2:00:26in this room um would you then ask everybody about the committee and the secretary to leave

2:00:35or do they have a breakout room or what might happen through you chair um the committee would

2:00:41go into a separate room outside of chambers so all members in the gallery and staff could remain in

2:00:47council chambers great yeah so and again that's just based on the physical layout of of this

2:00:52building if you've got a breakout room the committee says we just need a few minutes to to discuss

2:00:58in private when that happens the only people that can go into that rooms would be the the

2:01:05secretary and the committee members all other staff and the appellants are not allowed to uh

2:01:13to be present in that particular hearing so they go in camera for a few minutes and then they

2:01:18and you might say listen we're only going to be a few minutes so just remain seated and and we'll

2:01:23be back you come back in you render your verbal decision and then the committee secretary will

2:01:29follow up with a written decision at a later date hopefully not too long after but but it's still the

2:01:34decision has to be in writing regardless of whether or not the uh the committee gives a verbal at that

2:01:40time now having said that um there's also been situations where they you know you you find out

2:01:47that after a little bit of back and forth everybody is fine with an extension of time of 30 days for

2:01:53example um and the chair could ask for a motion from committee members right here and now in open

2:02:00form and say you know does anybody want to pass the motion uh you know uh member Spears may say well

2:02:07I I would like to uh I hope I have that right do I yes I'm sorry I just want to make sure I was

2:02:12reading the right to my apologies sir um I'd like to uh pass the mo or I'd like to uh to submit a

2:02:20motion to extend the order for 30 days all in favor there you go that can happen in in council or it

2:02:27could happen in a breakout room or the third option that can happen is if it's a more of a complex

2:02:34situation and you have more questions the committee can say that we're going to um defer our decision

2:02:41and we're going to render it at a later date so we've heard all the information but we need to

2:02:46consider this a little bit more and then you know the so at that point the hearing ends

2:02:53and the committee can deliberate um at a later date or they can deliberate by email I've seen

2:03:02that happen as well I mean it's main you know again that's subject to the policies of the of the

2:03:08municipality but uh the hearing ends and the decision gets rendered two weeks later in writing

2:03:15so it depends on on the situation and I don't know whether Gough has a particular approach

2:03:21or would it be based on on the complexity of the hearing I yeah we do we do typically uh ask

2:03:36that the decisions are um like uh are prepared at least two days after the meeting and then they're

2:03:41sent out to all uh city staff and members as well as any um the appellant or lawyer that was at the

2:03:47meeting but we typically like to have those out within two days of the of the appeal they're usually

2:03:52made out there but yeah I mean most often the decision is yeah okay thank you Hannah um the

2:03:58decisions most often are made at the time of the uh of the time of the hearing but they don't have to

2:04:04be depending on the complexity so again that's that flexibility that's built into the built into

2:04:09process that's somewhat different than how we approach committee of adjustment yes it is in that

2:04:17we are bound that we can't further the agenda outside of a public meeting right yeah so the

2:04:25committee and again it's up to um or it should be something that it is written into the terms of

2:04:31reference of the uh of the municipality or of staff to provide to the to the committee so again I

2:04:39haven't seen it happen a lot but I have seen it happen um where it's just determined that we just

2:04:46you know I want to read through some more of the information and I want to take a look at the photographs

2:04:51again um the challenge you have Mr. Chair to your point is you want to make sure that you don't get

2:04:58into a situation where you're having another deliberation um it's really considering what you've

2:05:05heard as opposed to trying to trying to extrapolate new information but again the the preferred option

2:05:15would be to provide for a decision even if it takes you half an hour to render a decision in in in the

2:05:20breakout room render the decision at the time regardless it has to be followed up by uh staff

2:05:27in writing again um in committee of adjustment um if we defer a motion there is no debate on

2:05:35on a deferral right so it would it's deferred to another day and it and it becomes another hearing

2:05:43yes and so um again that could happen with an appeal as well right there could be um

2:05:51there could be a reason why the committee says you know what we need further information

2:05:57which is oh sorry which is different than we need to think about our decision so there have been

2:06:05times when um the committee members might say we need further information so we're not going to

2:06:12render a decision but we're going to adjourn the hearing to give staff or the appellant more time

2:06:17to come up with the information that we need maybe there's maybe it's a complicated structural issue

2:06:24where you just need more um more of a judgment by a professional engineer or something like that so

2:06:31adjournments of hearings can happen but once the once once you're you moved into the decision

2:06:37making process itself all submissions have been made again most of the time it's going to happen

2:06:42in person but it or at the time it doesn't have to i'd recommend if you can do it at that particular

2:06:49time because then it gets complicated well when are we going to get together for a phone call and

2:06:54you know that sort of stuff right so um again any discussions that happen cannot be about

2:07:01considering new information it's like well you know i think this another member might say well i

2:07:06think this and and so you have that deliberation it might take a little longer than say a few minutes

2:07:11behind closed doors and again just sort of reiterating the point that that the processes can

2:07:18vary from one municipality to the next and so once the decision is rendered the secretary

2:07:24has to provide that that decision um in writing and the decision will typically outline you know

2:07:36the the hearing took place on you know these were the members present there was information provided

2:07:40by this officer and this appellant the decision was made based on these grounds uh the committee

2:07:46often will give like a perhaps a it doesn't have to be a long drawn out decision but to say that you

2:07:52know based on on the information we believe that um the availability of contractors the weather conditions

2:08:00you know uh justify an extension of time of this amount and that's our decision the last piece of

2:08:09information that has to be in that written decision is the is a statement that indicates to the appellant

2:08:15that they have the right to appeal to the superior court and how they go about doing that and so

2:08:26i'll just repeat a comment for for particular for staff's benefit um that i made a little while ago

2:08:34in that because there is a a secondary appeal process it's important sorry excuse me again

2:08:44it's important for the secretary and staff to ensure that um that there's accurate minutes kept

2:08:53of the meeting because if it does go to an appeal at the superior court one of the first things

2:09:00that they're going to look at is well what happened at this level typically with the court and it

2:09:06doesn't always happen this way but typically what the judge should do and like i say i've seen you

2:09:10know in my 40 years i've seen five of them but typically what will happen is the judge will say

2:09:17okay well what happened at the committee level they don't go back to day one when the order was

2:09:22issued and start all over again because that's already been disputed that's already been arbitrated

2:09:27so what happened at the committee level that you're unhappy with so that's why you know that's

2:09:36why they have to rely on the information that's provided by uh by staff and that's why it's important

2:09:41to ensure that um that you know the uh what took place not word for word but at least what took

2:09:48place and the rationale for the decision um is clearly documented so it's also important to

2:10:01understand that um either side in a hearing can appeal the decision again like you know i've seen

2:10:11only a handful of them um but we had one when i was working with the city of mississauga where

2:10:18the committee made a decision that that we as a municipality had to appeal and their decision was

2:10:24and just you know just on the side their decision was that the repairs i'm going back quite a few

2:10:30years but they their decision was that the repairs had to start by august 15th that was their decision

2:10:40no end date they just said you got to start by august 15th and they didn't put an end date on it

2:10:45so we had to appeal that and get a proper end date so you know just you know i just say that sort of

2:10:51ingest but it actually happened but that was one of the few times where the municipality said uh this

2:10:57decision has to be appealed so we could get some clarity i can i just want to have a question around

2:11:02that i'm imagining that situation and in the in the discussion that's going around would there not

2:11:10be an opportunity for um the municipality to say at that point oh you're you're recommending a decision

2:11:16like you said well but it's not going to work because you need to put an end date on it right

2:11:21then and there and then would you know appeal like you never want to get to the appeal place for

2:11:25something silly like that no just you know cross the t's and dot the i's at that point

2:11:30there should have been but have we gone what i'm i guess my question is have we gone too far in the

2:11:36hearing then to make that change when the committee says well we think it should you know this should

2:11:42be the start date is that then too late or for the city to say whoa whoa whoa no i i i don't believe it

2:11:51is at that particular point i mean obviously we want to make sure that the process is fair

2:11:58and that it is efficient as well so if if that was the decision that

2:12:05i've heard once hopefully i won't hear it again i would think at that particular time that the

2:12:13that the city the city representatives could interject and say just for clarity i mean you

2:12:19have to do it diplomatically but i mean if i heard that and i was a person sitting in that

2:12:24chair i'd probably just say for clarity purposes mr chair can you just uh we know when it's going

2:12:29to start could you please just give us an end date and and we'd be done so so uh to you uh uh

2:12:36member spears no it's not too you haven't gone too far where you where it would be problematic

2:12:43is if the decision was rendered at a later date which i believe my if memory serves me it was

2:12:48rendered at a later date so we just got the decision in writing so we couldn't go back to

2:12:54them and say because the decision was already rendered but in that's why you know you want to

2:13:00have some decorum and some structure to committee hearing such as we're having today but if something

2:13:06were to be said there's nothing wrong with either side saying i just i just have a point of clarity

2:13:14so because i also i also imagine given the way we do things in general that we would come up with

2:13:20our recommendation where we think we think should go and we would say to both sides can

2:13:25you live with that and get feedback right on the spot and then move or not but now that's what i

2:13:31how imagine it would go yeah absolutely i mean you want to you know whenever possible you want to

2:13:38hear the evidence so you want to have that structured situation but there's nothing to say

2:13:43that if both sides are open to a negotiation you start that mediation process and say okay can we

2:13:48can we live with this compromise one party might say no and if they do then that's the you know that's

2:13:55the role of the committee to make their decision and and let it play out as it may but absolutely

2:14:01i mean no issues like this you don't want to be taken up months of time in superior court and i think

2:14:07the word you use is mediation and that's the one that's the that's the only word you really need to

2:14:11say yeah because that that takes care of it yeah thanks thank you but if it does get to the superior

2:14:18court level then we're talking about uh the the judge having the same powers as a committee to

2:14:24confirm or rescind the order extend the time or modify it by by making changes to what's on the

2:14:30order and then the judge's decision is final from there so i think we're getting close to the

2:14:36end yeah i guess we are getting close to the end so um i'd open it up for um for any questions but

2:14:46in just in in final closing i would just say that um you know we kind of live in an age now where

2:14:54litigation and and uh the court processed and drag on for for quite some time the issues that we're

2:15:04dealing with here are important but they're relatively minor in the grand scheme of other

2:15:11things that are happening you know in in in our province so whatever attempts we can make to resolve

2:15:17the issue uh and it might be mutually you know might be a mutual consent or it might just have to

2:15:23be a decision that uh that they you know either party has to live with because that's the decision

2:15:27of the of the chair however you get there um it's important just to ensure that uh that you

2:15:34elaborate and make an informed decision thank you shane um i'm gonna open it up to my colleagues

2:15:42who probably have some questions if if you're amenable oh certainly thank you uh sorry i didn't

2:15:56see you there member ross please go ahead thank you uh chair and also thank you shane for the

2:16:04presentation uh that was uh very informative and i think what you've done very effectively is uh

2:16:12shown me anyway the differences between the work of the committee of adjustment and the work of

2:16:18property standards um so that's very helpful so i have two two questions for you um so it it sounds

2:16:27like there's a degree of discretion uh by staff and committee members in dealing with property

2:16:35standard violations um and i'm wondering if that amount of discretion uh leads to a problem with

2:16:45enforcement consistency across uh different situations uh because you talked about a negotiated

2:16:55outcomes and that in itself suggests that they're sort of one-off uh decisions and the idea of

2:17:03precedent might not necessarily come into play so that's my first question the second one is that

2:17:10you mentioned that um violations are typically the result of uh they come to the committee through

2:17:18a complaints-based process and uh that in itself uh seems to be um or i'll ask the question do you

2:17:30see that as as problematic so those are my two questions the first about the amount of discretion

2:17:36and enforcement consistency and the second about the the complaints-based process thank you well

2:17:43thank you for the questions and through the chair to to member ross the first question around the uh

2:17:48uh around the um level of discretion really speaks to training and policies and procedures that are

2:17:58in place at the uh you know at the operational level um staff officers have to ensure that that

2:18:07they're being fair and equitable um through their enforcement process but it doesn't mean

2:18:13that every situation has to be treated the same so um there's a variety of factors that will come

2:18:19into play when an officer decides that they're going to uh take the soft approach and try to

2:18:26resolve an issue through word of mouth or maybe an informal letter that says hey we see a problem

2:18:32can you fix it in two weeks if not we're going to have to issue an order or the problem might be

2:18:36serious enough that you don't want to give that extra two weeks and you want to go straight to the

2:18:40order and get into the formal process so um the the issue of discretion officer discretion

2:18:49can be problematic it's all it's it's somewhat subjective so it can be a challenge but what it

2:18:56speaks to is um the level of training and the level of collaboration and consistency that staff have

2:19:05to be and i'm going to use the term equitable and i know some of these these phrases fair and

2:19:10equitable and and such might mean different things to different people but to me equitable means um

2:19:17treating the situation based on on the merits of that particular situation which may not be

2:19:23exactly the same as another situation because the other situation uh people may not be in financial

2:19:29need or they may not um have a family member that's that's ill or it could be the time of the year

2:19:37because of you know the factors into repairs and stuff so um member ross i'm i'm probably not giving

2:19:44you a specific yes or no but i acknowledge that it can be problematic um and if the committee were

2:19:51to see this as something that was a trend that members of the committee could and preferably

2:19:58through the chair uh saying perhaps we should talk to staff or or you know tell staff that we're seeing

2:20:06you know we're seeing some officers deal with situations this way and some officers not is that

2:20:12typical so um it's very subjective member ross and so that part i'm uh what i'm saying is is really

2:20:24to rely on staff and their expertise to make it judge good judgment calls that's it's it's not a

2:20:33clear cut answer and i apologize for that i could elaborate more if there's if you wanted me to

2:20:38which is anything else on that one that you wanted me to clarify on before we get to the next question

2:20:42no i think that you have um have had a good answer there um yeah i think it's it's in the nature

2:20:51of the violations themselves each situation is somewhat different and you've also talked about

2:20:57the importance of making sure that committee members and officers are well versed in how they're

2:21:04approaching this uh uh uh each of these the violations that come before them so thank you for that answer

2:21:12and so the the other question about being complaints based again is typically a policy

2:21:18or process that's dictated by the municipality um i can just tell you that that across to Ontario the

2:21:27vast majority of actions that are initiated by bylaw enforcement are as a result of complaints

2:21:36um and most of it is related to resources there are um most of the time the complaints are

2:21:46what's going to keep the the officers busy and they have they don't have a lot of time to uh

2:21:51to do the proactive enforcement unless there is a specific you know there might be a challenge

2:21:56with a a particular issue in a municipality where where staff say well you know what we're gonna

2:22:01make a dedicated effort to be proactive with this but uh it's just kind of the nature of the beast

2:22:07that uh that complaints based actions uh eat up most of the resources that are available to

2:22:16municipalities i don't know i again i apologize if i'm not hitting a point on on that but uh um

2:22:24no no i think i i mean i uh implicit in that is that there aren't enough resources to uh make it a

2:22:30different kind of process so this is this is um well this is just the reality i guess and uh better

2:22:39to have a complaint space process than none at all so um i guess it was just furthering my

2:22:46understanding about how complaints make their way through to the committee um and

2:22:53and that the whole the whole process really uh has got some um some pieces to it that are are

2:23:03as you say not clear cut yeah and uh kind of individualized uh and really you know uh dependent

2:23:12upon the officers who are managing the whole process to um to give good advice to to committee

2:23:19members so that they can make the right decisions yeah the only the final comment i would make about

2:23:24the complaints based process versus proactive is that uh if municipalities want to uh if they have

2:23:31the resources to uh to be proactive in a particular type of an issue um let's say that they've got a

2:23:39problem with an garbage dumping in a particular area of the municipality where people are you know

2:23:45it could be a construction an area where there's a new subdivision going in and so you're seeing uh

2:23:50you know construction material being dumped in uh you know inside you know on side streets in a

2:23:56construction area or whatever if they want to be proactive in that sense um then it just needs to be

2:24:02controlled and it needs to be systematic the other part of it is and this is just you know this is a

2:24:07more of a personal comment is that um you don't want to be dis disruptive in areas where you don't

2:24:15need to be so if somebody's taking the time to to logic complaint then that means that there's

2:24:21been some sort of community impact versus situations where there might be a level of tolerance somebody

2:24:29says well you know what that maybe the person shouldn't be parking there or maybe shouldn't be doing

2:24:33this or that but he's my neighbor and i'll go talk to him so you know the the part about like i

2:24:41certainly wouldn't encourage people to complain for the sake of complaining um

2:24:48but there's something to be said for also not going looking for problems where and disrupting a

2:24:53neighborhood if it doesn't need to be disrupted depending on the seriousness of the issue significant

2:24:58safety issues no question but some of the minor stuff if there's a level of tolerance maybe a

2:25:05way till you see some more community impact remember good fellow go ahead yes um i am curious

2:25:15because you've talked quite a bit about some of the examples that you've seen but um coming into

2:25:22this side of the committee as a not having done the property standard side before i am curious

2:25:29what we see in wealth like what kinds of um appeals come up to the committee you know i i

2:25:36understand that they're they haven't been meeting very often so it's like three or four meetings

2:25:41a year i just kind of a little bit more detail about what we're seeing here in in the city of

2:25:46gulf so i'm going to turn this one over to hannah or staff uh well uniquely in gulf we do not allow

2:25:54appeals for the yard maintenance bylaw so it's specific to the property standards bylaw so that's

2:25:58all um things buildings so interior and exterior um items um so that would include if

2:26:06like a railing was not installed or it was breaking off um we've um or if a house was at risk of

2:26:13falling it also does include um which does fall under the property standards bylaw even though

2:26:18it sounds like a yard maintenance thing is trees so we do see a lot of uh um complaints that come in

2:26:22about uh dead or decaying trees and uh if the inspector does confirm that then um we do often

2:26:30see the um appeals for wanting more time to cut those down or having a reason where uh like they

2:26:36don't they don't believe they should so those are the kind of things that often buildings and uh um

2:26:41both interior and exterior it doesn't not include any cleanliness of a property though

2:26:49thank you that's actually really helpful because they i didn't realize that it wasn't the exterior

2:26:54so the yard maintenance is excluded from what we're going to be uh hearing appeals about

2:27:00yep so we uh we do send notices out as a city we do take in those complaints but we don't uh that

2:27:07we don't allow for appeals to be um for those yard maintenance items okay that's helpful thank you

2:27:13and just to clarify if i if i may uh um member good fellow what Hannah's talking about is

2:27:20when she says that that the appeal isn't allowed it's because it's under a different bylaw it's you

2:27:26know if it's property standards it's appealable but there's a lot of other things like you know

2:27:31junk vehicles and garbage and and uh you know lot exterior lot maintenance issues which is

2:27:39basically cleaning clear type of stuff would be uh uh is a typical approach across Ontario where they

2:27:45they deal with it in a more fast and efficient method because you you don't need to have an

2:27:50appeal that takes three months to get to appeal because you've got a pile of garbage in your in

2:27:55your backyard i mean those things are relatively self-explanatory this is script yeah go ahead this

2:28:04is set to staff again to Hannah uh does this cost the app the appellant anything

2:28:11does it how appeals cost money fee is there a fee an appeal fee

2:28:17uh there is there is no fee to appeal you just have to appeal within those 14 days but there's

2:28:24there's no fee to um to doing that um it's it is just a due process of our

2:28:31of our bylaw i think that's i think if i um i i if my colleagues don't have anything else i have

2:28:41a couple of quick ones um with committed adjustment um when there's a hearing um

2:28:50there's a sign that goes up there's an an area that um the appeal is distributed to

2:28:58is if a property is being um is being appealed or the decision is being appealed um

2:29:08is that normally something that goes on uh uh no mr chair that that doesn't happen

2:29:15um because the community of adjustment is asking for an exemption to a law basically

2:29:21or a section of his of a uh of a zoning bylaw then people within a certain prescribed area i don't

2:29:30know 100 meters or something like that or 100 feet of the subject property have the opportunity

2:29:36to comment when it comes to property standards orders there's no such um um sign displayed now

2:29:45there will be a a public hearing notice on the city's website and so if if somebody wants to

2:29:53to attend they can um and the one group the one classification of people that that i've seen attend

2:30:01would be a tenants if it happens to be a rental situation they can they can attend and typically

2:30:07the officer would say look you know the we issued an order for those problems in your apartment

2:30:12it's under appeal it's going to be held at the end of february i can't do anything until then

2:30:17if the tenant says well can i come to the hearing they can't um but there's no public notice requirement

2:30:24so the follow-up to that is um members of the public may be aware of of the appeal

2:30:32yes can they delegate um at committee if they so choose they can they would have to contact the

2:30:41and again this is i'm going to caution because you know some municipalities deal with these types

2:30:46of delegations a little differently but because it's an open hearing um if somebody wishes to speak

2:30:53they can register to speak the committee then um will typically and again it doesn't happen often

2:31:01but it can the committee then it's up to the committee to decide how much weight they give

2:31:07to the submission that is is presented to them if they're just here to to listen to what's what's

2:31:15happening in their neighborhood that's one thing but if they want to make it some sort of an impact

2:31:20statement then again it's you know you give it its due weight i can just think of situations as

2:31:28you mentioned with an apartment building or something that's commercial um we've got a

2:31:33large university heritage properties those are the sorts of things that the committee might

2:31:40community might want to chime in on yep absolutely um i'm just looking at my colleagues on the screen

2:31:52anyone wish to uh i'm seeing shaking heads not nodding heads so um with that i'd like to

2:32:01sincerely thank you for your uh for your information and uh thank you and the following

2:32:08discussion and everything else shane it's been it's been very helpful especially speaking of

2:32:14one who hasn't been involved in property standards other to other than to complain

2:32:23i found it very helpful so thank you very much you're very welcome sir thank you okay

2:32:31so at this point i'm going to turn to our secretary treasurer to see if there are any

2:32:37staff announcements thank you chair yes i have one announcement um a notice of appeal has been

2:32:46received within 14 days of an order being served a hearing will be held once property standard staff

2:32:53have selected a date and that is all the announcements we have thank you well thank you and um with that

2:33:02i think that concludes our our business here do i have uh a motion to adjourn

2:33:07member spears i didn't raise my hand oh i it's just you looked at me i move we adjourn the meeting

2:33:15thank you and a seconder member good fellow oh too late all those in favor we stand adjourned

2:33:25thank you committee members and thank you again shane