Hey Condors,
The City of Kitchener is currently reviewing and updating its licensing bylaws to help improve health and safety, consumer protection and nuisance control for residents. The City of Kitchener wants to hear from landlords/property owners, tenants/renters, neighbours, and residents!
By participating in the survey, you can help the city understand the impacts of short-term rentals, your experiences with the lodging house bylaw and areas of improvement, and how the expanded licensing might affect property owners and renters.
The survey is open until June 6, 2023, and will take approximately 5-7 minutes to complete. You may also share this survey with others you believe would be interested in participating. Your participation will help ensure our community remains safe, vibrant, and inclusive!
Click here to complete the survey.
Before completing the survey, here is some information to help clarify what the Lodging House bylaws entail.
What is a lodging house?
The City of Kitchener defines a lodging house as: “a dwelling or part thereof containing one or more lodging units which lodging unit or units are designed to accommodate four or more residents in total. The residents may share common areas of the dwelling other than the lodging units, and do not appear to function as a household. This shall not include a hotel, motel, group home, nursing home, hospital or any residential care facility licensed, approved, or supervised under any general or specific Act.”
What is a lodging unit?
The City of Kitchener defines a lodging unit as: a room or set of rooms located in a lodging house or other dwelling designed or intended to be used for sleeping and living accommodation, which:
1. is designed for the exclusive use of the resident or residents of the unit;
2. is not normally accessible to persons other than the resident or resident of the unit; and
3. may contain either a kitchen or a bathroom but does not contain both for the exclusive use of the resident or residents of the unit.
What is a lodging house license?
Lodging house licensing is a form of business licensing for rentals shared by people (4 or more) who do not function as a family unit to address safety and common property standard issues. CSI is supportive of rental licensing structures.
CSI Supports:
- A pre-emptive and intermittent/randomized inspection program, with an incentive structure attached to landlords who successfully pass several inspections in a row.
- An anonymous complaint structure that triggers inspections (anonymous complaints must be tied to a program with random reviews).
- Incentives: these can include a reduced licensing fee for landlords or licensing fees waived for periods (renew license bi-annually as opposed to annually).
- An educational program geared towards tenants to ensure they are aware of standard rental unit issues and their rights and responsibilities.
- Measures to ensure the program is revenue neutral; this is to ensure all costs are justified through the actions of the bylaw staff, and the program maintains an image of fairness amongst property owners.
- A comprehensive license suspension process that protects tenants in the act of license revocation through constant updates with tenants in “at-risk” buildings and transition housing provided to tenants in suspended units.
Thanks Condors!