By Dominic Abassi

Councillors, RCMP offer differing views on dealing with Nanaimo nuisance properties

Apr 27, 2017 | 6:24 PM

NANAIMO — While some Nanaimo councillors are looking for changes to how nuisance properties are dealt with, RCMP and City staff say the current system is effective.

This week, council slapped a nuisance property designation on a unit in a Bowen Rd. townhouse complex. A City staff report said police had been called to the residence 106 times since January 2015.

“This is why I keep harping on the nuisance property bylaw,” coun. Gord Fuller said. “Two years and nothing has been done? Has this even been brought to our attention when it was at 50 calls?”

Fuller called it “ludicrous,” saying he wanted to see a threshold or standard number of calls that would trigger a property for the nuisance designation. “I think the public needs to know that this is going on and it needs to be rectified,” Fuller said.

“The sooner we can put an end to 100 plus calls to one address…I think we could do a lot of goodness for the people that are impacted by responding without them having to come and stand before us in a plea,” coun. Bill Bestwick said.

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Nanaimo’s chief operations officer Brad McRae told Council staff are reviewing the bylaw to see what a threshold number might look like.

RCMP Cst. Gary O’Brien told NanaimoNewsNOW nuisance properties have been prevalent for a number of years in Nanaimo and are a “thorn in the side” for members. However, he said the current bylaw is working for them.

“We look at totality of the issue, how many neighbours are calling in, what’s the nature of their complaints…is it simply a communication problem between neighbours,” O’Brien said. “Realistically it takes some time so we never want to put a threshold on it. Some take a long time, some can be cleaned up quite quickly.”

O’Brien said there are 13 locations being monitored around the city for potentially being a nuisance property, with five under the official designation.

He said it may not be realistic to put a time frame on resolving an issue that could have been ongoing for a number of years. He noted all of the steps involved in the process of getting a property designated cost taxpayers money, but there are ways their members can work informally to improve quality of life in the neighbourhood.

“Enforcement is the last thing we want to do, our objective is to resolve it informally…They (homeowners) have to own the issues but we are prepared to work with them to achieve results,” O’Brien said.

Rod Davidson, Nanaimo’s manager of bylaw, said a committee, featuring emergency services, social agencies and City staff, meets monthly to review properties that are generating high numbers of nuisance calls. He said the group determines on a case-by-case scenario when it’s time to take a property forward to Council for the official designation.

He said it’s always been the rationale to not have a certain number of calls that would push a troublesome property into enforcement territory.

“There’s issues where we can get spurious or vexatious complaints about one property that would very quickly bring us to the number of calls that would normally trigger a nuisance designation or at least a report to council,” Davidson said.

Davidson said Nanaimo’s framework for dealing with the issue has been viewed as a leader in the municipal world.

Once a property is tagged with the designation from Council, any future nuisance-related calls are billed to the owner. Davidson said typically once it starts costing people money, they tend to take notice very quickly and “in a lot of circumstances will correct the situation.”

dominic.abassi@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @domabassi