{"id":19987,"date":"2018-02-28T16:11:08","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T21:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19987"},"modified":"2018-02-28T16:11:08","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T21:11:08","slug":"strengthening-property-rights-hits-another-snag-at-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/strengthening-property-rights-hits-another-snag-at-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Strengthening property rights hits another snag at Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Efforts to strengthen residential property rights when it comes to bylaw complaints once again hit a snag around Town Hall, amid calls for a stronger warrant system to address complaints.
\nCouncil, sitting at the Committee level last week, considered a number of changes to existing bylaw operations proposed by Techa van Leeuwen, Aurora\u2019s Director of Corporate Services.
\nThe review into the standard operating guideline (SOG) used by bylaw officers when entering \u2013 or preparing to enter \u2013 onto private property has been in the works for nearly 11 months, spurred by a Council motion to develop a notification process to private property owners where rights of entry will be exercised, along with a list of options bylaw officers might take if they are refused access by a property owner, including the option of requiring a warrant to ensure public health, safety and the environment.
\nThe proposals up for Council\u2019s review at General Committee included further outlines of various risks that might require immediate entry onto a property, measures to evaluate and manage \u201cfrivolous and vexatious\u201d complaints, and expanded protocols on how complaints and entries are handled.
\nThese suggestions hit a snag almost immediately out of the gate, however, when Councillor Tom Mrakas said the measures did not go far enough.
\nHe put a motion on the floor calling for an amendment to the proposals which would require a warrant be obtained by a bylaw officer before entering onto any premises.
\n\u201cFundamentally, I have issues with us just walking onto someone else\u2019s property, especially for some frivolous complaints as far as length of grass, or maybe they smell something,\u201d said Councillor Mrakas. \u201cI think we can take the time to get a warrant and do it properly. Just because [the Province] grants us those powers doesn\u2019t mean we should use them. Sometimes people abuse the power and I think we need to make sure our residents aren\u2019t being abused, at the end of the day. I do see there is an improvement, but I just don\u2019t think it goes far enough.\u201d
\nWhile this amendment was seconded by Councillor Sandra Humfryes, it quickly became the focus of Mayor Geoff Dawe who said while he is very much \u201cin favour of property rights\u201d he had concerns that it would limit how bylaw officers could react in urgent situations.
\n\u201cThere have been flood warnings over the last couple of days and under the watershed guidelines you are not allowed to make any changes to your property that would either effect upstream or downstream,\u201d he said. \u201cIf, in this particular instance, someone had made alterations to their property which was causing serious flooding either upstream or downstream, with Councillor Mrakas\u2019 amendment, would we be able to react immediately or would we have to go through the process of getting a warrant?\u201d
\nYou would indeed have to go through the process of getting a warrant, said Ms. van Leewen of her interpretation of the motion.
\nThis inspired no comfort in Mayor Dawe.
\n\u201cI am no fan of people coming onto my property but at the same time I am not a fan of people doing things to their property that could potentially affect mine, such as flooding, or we have a bylaw that we potentially now render unenforceable,\u201d he said.
\nCouncillor Jeff Thom also said it was \u201cextremely important\u201d to respect property rights, but he was hoping last year\u2019s motion would bring back a framework that would include more stringent framework as to how and when a bylaw officer could enter onto a property.
\n\u201cI understand this is an improvement on what is currently the process, but for me, it doesn\u2019t go far enough,\u201d he said. \u201cI am between a rock and a hard place and would probably err on the side of caution every single time. For me, if it is between what we have now and a warrant I would always err on a warrant [but] I was hoping staff would come back with a happy medium.\u201d
\nOthers, however, argued that while the Province gives municipalities responsibility for bylaw enforcement, requiring officers to seek a warrant in each and every case was, in their view, abdicating responsibility back to the Province.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know why we would give this to a third party where instead we can say let\u2019s approve our own policies to make sure we have something in place,\u201d said Councillor Pirri. \u201cIf Councillors around the table think that we need to strengthen this policy, maybe we take a little bit more time to do that but giving away our ability to enforce our bylaws, requiring us to go and get a warrant from a provincial body, I don\u2019t think is the right way to be doing this. If more work is required to get it right, we should be doing that.\u201d
\nAdded Councillor Michael Thompson: \u201cThe purpose of this is to balance the town\u2019s right to enter and an individual\u2019s right to privacy. I would still like us to follow down that path. For me, the warrant is an extreme measure and I would like us to try and find a more stringent or detailed set of procedures to deal with these situations and make every attempt to find that balance before going this route.
\n\u201cIf we\u2019re taking this amendment to address those issues, I don\u2019t personally think that is the right step. Who better than us to address those issues? Rather than abdicating that responsibility to the Province, let\u2019s work with the policy to address those issues. If that is really at the heart of it, I think we can find a solution that still maintains that balance and addresses those issues without having to go to warrant.\u201d
\nWith these questions still up in the air, and a happy medium still being sought, the matter was deferred for further consideration on March 20.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Efforts to strengthen residential property rights when it comes to bylaw complaints once again hit a snag around Town Hall, amid calls for a stronger warrant system to address complaints.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5cn","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-16 01:25:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}