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It’s only been in place since January, but Kingsville Coun. Thomas Neufeld wants the town to reconsider a bylaw that licenses boarding, lodging, and rooming houses.
Neufeld has filed a notice of motion for the town’s next meeting on April 22.
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In January, Kingsville council passed a bylaw saying it “considers it necessary and desirable to regulate the use of boarding, lodging and rooming houses for the purpose of protecting the health and safety of the persons residing in the premises by ensuring that certain regulations are met, for ensuring that the premises do not create a nuisance to the surrounding properties and neighbourhood and to protect the residential amenity, character and stability of residential areas.”
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The bylaw applies to dwelling unit “where bedrooms are rented or provided to occupants, rather than the entire unit,” it says. “Occupants of a BLRH share bathroom and/or kitchen facilities, and may be unrelated. A BLRH is rented or provided to occupants for twenty-eight (28) days or more.”
Anyone operating a BLRH, as they’re known, without a license can be fined up to $1,000.
The bylaw passed in January updated and replaced one passed a year earlier “to ensure that the licensing regime is practicable and enforceable,” according to a Dec. 22 report by Angela Toole, who was the acting clerk at the time.
Boarding house bylaws are often put in place to deal with residences that have multiple persons living in them who do not own the property. They are often spurred by complaints from nearby property owners.
Windsor passed a similar bylaw covering Wards 1 and 2 in February 2023, only to see it challenged by a landlord’s group in court. That challenge ultimately failed after a court ruling was released in March.
bamacleod@postmedia.com
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