{"id":20378,"date":"2018-04-11T23:55:58","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T03:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20378"},"modified":"2018-04-11T23:55:58","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T03:55:58","slug":"new-rules-on-entering-onto-private-property-seen-as-step-in-the-right-direction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/new-rules-on-entering-onto-private-property-seen-as-step-in-the-right-direction\/","title":{"rendered":"New rules on entering onto private property seen as \u201cstep in the right direction\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

A proposed set of new rules governing how local bylaw officers may enter onto your property is being hailed as a \u201cstep in the right direction\u201d by Council members looking for change.
\nThe new guidelines, part of a one year pilot project, were presented to local lawmakers at last Tuesday\u2019s General Committee meeting, where Councillors signed off on the measures. That decision is expected to be ratified this week.
\nThe rules are the latest in a series of changes that have been examined to combat complaints over right of entry. Changes were first proposed this past February, but were since honed further following Council input.
\nFurther modifications are expected later this spring when the bylaw department will propose an official registry of vacant buildings and a new set of rules on how these properties should be kept.
\n\u201cWhen a property complaint is registered with the Town, a Bylaw Officer will attend the site and make every effort to contact the property owner to inform them of any property standards issue and discuss resolution,\u201d said Techa van Leewen, Aurora\u2019s Director of Corporate Services, in her report to Council. \u201cProperty owners who reside in the home, or are responsible landlords are, for the most part, responsive and will typically commit to addressing any non-compliance in a reasonable and timely manner.\u201d
\nIn the future, entry onto private property \u2013 rear or side yard, as defined in the bylaw \u2013 may be denied by the property owner or occupant. As such, Bylaw Officers will need to consult with the Director and together a decision will be made on whether or not to seek a search warrant, depending on the nature of the complaint.
\nIf these new measures are approved by Council this week, Bylaw will no longer be entering onto vacant private property without consent to cut grass in response to neighbour complaints either.
\n\u201cThe previous report that came to us was a good first step. I think this has gone that step further. It is in the right direction and it is moving towards what we\u2019ve asked for overall,\u201d said Councillor Tom Mrakas. \u201cI like the fact we\u2019re going to be trying it out for a year and reporting back, taking a look at it and seeing how it has worked and evolved and do we need to go more, do we need to go less, so we can have that overall look at how it has worked and developed.
\n\u201cStaff have listened and they have put something forward I think we can live with and that respects the rights of the property owners and also respects our staff and what they need to do to make sure our Town stays functioning.\u201d
\nSimilar views were offered by Councillor Jeff Thom who said when the matter was previously in front of Council, he expressed some \u201cmajor concerns\u201d over current practices. These \u201cremedies\u201d are welcome, he said, and will be moving \u201cin a direction that really tries to respect the property rights and constitutional rights of Aurorans.\u201d
\nHe also supported the fact this is a one-year pilot, but questioned how staff will assess one of the few options that will be available to them in entering a property without consent: when there is a sense that evidence might be destroyed.
\n\u201cThat will be through an assessment of the complaint we\u2019ve received,\u201d said Ms. van Leeuwen. \u201cFor example, if a person is cutting trees, there is an expressed concern and you can see when you attend the site: there will be contractors there, there will be evidence that is apparent from the street, there will be noise, there will be other indication that trees are being cut and, in those instances\u2026 often we work with our parks division because they receive the initial call and they request that we attend with them, so we will do an analysis and an assessment of the complaints received.\u201d
\nWhile Council members were largely supportive of the changes at the Committee level last week, there were still some lingering concerns.
\nCouncillor Wendy Gaertner, for instance, questioned the new rule which would prevent the Bylaw department cutting the grass on vacant properties, a service which was previously carried out and billed to the property owner on a complaint-driven basis.
\n\u201cFixing one problem and creating another, I can see that there will be some very upset residents if they are living next to one home [that] really disrupts the look of the neighbourhood,\u201d said Councillor Gaertner.
\nIn response, Ms. van Leeuwen said that her department would make every effort to contact the property owner and potential maintenance agreements will be outlined \u201cwithin the next four weeks\u201d with the vacant property registry.
\nCouncillor John Abel nevertheless shared Councillor Gaertner\u2019s issue.
\n\u201cWe can\u2019t very well go get a warrant to cut someone\u2019s lawn,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is a change and I think it is important to communicate that; that if someone does not cut their lawn, the Town is not in a position to do anything and it will remain unsightly with no recourse, apart from us to try and continue to make contact and let them know that the Town is suggesting that perhaps you want to cut the lawn. Otherwise, people can leave it as they are.\u201d
\nCouncillor Paul Pirri also had misgivings, stating his issue was \u201clargely philosophical,\u201d and supported the recommendation as just a one-year pilot \u2013 but he said his support could waver by the time of this week\u2019s final vote.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re talking about policies that are place based on property rights,\u201d he said. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen that many situations which, to me, would indicate the need for us to be undertaking this path forward. But I definitely understand the argument from an individual\u2019s perspective. This is a question of property rights and we have to fight for individuals property rights, we need to support the individual. From my perspective, I don\u2019t see that there is a problem and I haven\u2019t, in my view, seen any proof of that.
\n\u201cThat is one side of the equation. I think the other side of the equation is we have been having, over the last few years, tracked and collected the appropriate data to be moving forward on this. What we\u2019re seeing here tonight is we\u2019re going to put a policy in place and we\u2019re going to track the situation to see how things shake out, whether or not we\u2019re going to progress. We\u2019re not establishing any benchmarks first, we\u2019re not tracking first and then determining if we\u2019re going to put policy in place. To me, if we\u2019re going to be moving forward on putting policy in place, it makes sense to put benchmarks in place prior to instituting a policy.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A proposed set of new rules governing how local bylaw officers may enter onto your property is being hailed as a \u201cstep in the right direction\u201d by Council members looking for change.<\/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-20378","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\/p3D2k4-5iG","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 09:42:52","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\/20378","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=20378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}