Image Credit: Mel Rothenburger

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: City’s nuisance properties bylaw is proving its worth

Dec 12, 2020 | 6:52 AM

IT’S A BIT RICH, to say the least, that the Kamloops Accommodation Association is grouching about the City’s crackdown on nuisance motels on Columbia Street West.

That particular area has been the subject of neighbourhood concerns centering on activity coming out of the motels. Parents of nearby Beattie elementary school kids, worried about public safety, have called for action to curb the crime that has caused school lockdowns on a couple of occasions.

Some incidents have been violent, and drug activity has also been an issue. School District 73 took measures to improve security around the school, and the City’s nuisance designation of the hotels is another step.

Nine motels were deemed a nuisance due to “criminal activity” and “nuisance bylaws issues.” A report to the City’s Community Services Committee noted that the owners/ managers of the properties are committed to cleaning them up and ensuring safety for area residents, and that the City and RCMP will work with them to come up with solutions.

But, as reported by local media, the accommodation association is unhappy about it. President Tyson Andrykew didn’t mince words in a news release, calling it “inappropriate and irresponsible to shame private businesses” and blaming the lookout beside the Panorama Inn for much of the problem.

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The reason I say that’s a bit rich is that the problem has been obvious for quite some time and the motel owners are suddenly doing their best to keep the area clean and safe. The bylaw was invented for chronic situations and this is one.

A few weeks ago I took some heat for running a photo of a dumpster at one of the motels overflowing with junk, garbage and shopping carts that clearly hadn’t been attended to in quite some time. As it happened, a City bylaws officer showed up for a look-see and a talk with someone in the motel office while I was there.

That was a couple of weeks after the nuisance declaration and a couple of weeks before Bylaws Services met with motel owners to discuss it.

The photo was relevant because that’s what happens when details are not looked after. The use of some of the motels as social housing has drawn attention along with the problems but let’s not go there for the moment. Columbia Street West is just an example of what can go wrong in a neighbourhood when some people make it miserable for others.

In fact, the City bylaw on nuisance properties is now referred to as the “good neighbour” bylaw. It was three years in the making, first proposed and debated in 2014 and finally passed in 2017.

The good neighbour bylaw, Bylaw 49-1, “A bylaw to enhance the quality of life for the citizens of the City of Kamloops and to provide for the cost recovery of nuisance abatement,” is based on one in Nanaimo, though several other B.C. cities now have similar bylaws.

Kamloops already had unsightly premises, noise and drug-house bylaws but they proved hard to enforce against some kinds of offences. The Nanaimo bylaw used a creative approach — charging tenants or property owners the cost of sending police or firefighters to check out complaints.

For example, the Kamloops bylaw now provides for assessing offenders $50 an hour if a bylaw enforcement manager has to attend, $30 for a regular bylaws officer, $80 for the fire chief, $55 for a City public works manager, $40 for a constable and so on. God forbid a big fire truck should be sent to your house because that will set you back as much as $790. An hour, that is. If the costs aren’t paid up front, they’re added to your tax bill.

Those motel owners, therefore, face some very hefty abatement costs not to mention other possible fines if they don’t get things under control to the City’s satisfaction. Since trying to get that kind of money off tenants is a non-starter, the owners are first in line. In such situations, it becomes the property owner’s responsibility to deal with problem tenants.

The beauty of the bylaw is that, not only does it recoup costs to taxpayers of dealing with such properties but it acts as a mighty strong deterrent. Cities that have such bylaws find they seldom need to do anything other than inform property owners that they’re now subject to these consequences.

Still, costs are levied from time to time. Twenty-one Kamloops properties including the motels were declared nuisances up to October this year, and the City dished out $4,292.50 in penalties. Other properties declared nuisances under the bylaw included one on Carson Crescent, another on Bank Road, one on Ord Road and a couple on Tranquille Road, one of which is now slated for demolition. On another, the owner is required to make repairs to the building and deal with excessive loitering and encampments.

There’s no reason the motels on Columbia Street West should be exceptions to the rules.

AROUND THE TOWN: Received our annual Christmas card from City council yesterday — via e-mail. It’s appreciated but we all lost something when we stopped physically signing cards, addressing envelopes and sending them out in the mail…. Speaking of going digital, congratulations to Marty Hastings of Kamloops This Week for winning a Jack Webster Award for community reporting at this week’s online presentations. It’s not easy for small-town media to win such a prestigious award. Sadly, the Websters nowadays are pretty much a Vancouver show, with the Big City media down there getting most of the attention. The Webster foundation did a nice job with the digital gala, though.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.