THE CORPORATION OF THE CITY OF NELSON

REQUEST TO APPEAR AS A DELEGATION

DATE: December 18nd, 2017, Committee of the Whole
TOPIC: Residential Tenancy Act
PROPOSAL: Requesting endorsement of letters sent to the Minister of
Housing and the Director of the Residential Tenancy Act
PROPOSED BY: John Devries and Trevor Jenkinson from the West Kootenay
Landlord Society
_____________________________________________________________________
ANALYSIS SUMMARY:
The West Kootenay Landlord Society (WKLS) assists the rental property owner in
receiving information that helps with the business of renting.

BENEFITS OR DISADVANTAGES AND NEGATIVE IMPACTS:

The presentation is for Council and the public’s information.

LEGISLATIVE IMPACTS, PRECEDENTS AND POLICIES:

It is within Council mandate and authority to receive this presentation.

COSTS AND BUDGET IMPACT - REVENUE GENERATION:

There are no costs associated with this presentation.

IMPACT ON SUSTAINABILITY OBJECTIVES AND STAFF RESOURCES:

Supporting this project is in alignment with the focus areas of Land Use and Local
Economy from the City’s Path to 2040 Sustainability Strategy.

OPTIONS AND ALTERNATIVES:

1. Receive and thank the presenter
2. Refer to staff with direction

ATTACHMENTS:
 Letter to Mayor & Council
 Letter to the Honorable Selina Robinson, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing
 Letter to Nelson Hydro

RECOMMENDATION:
That Council receives the presentation from John Devries and Trevor Jenkinson, and
thanks them for the presentation.

AUTHOR: REVIEWED BY:

_______________________________ ___________________________
DEPUTY CORPORATE OFFICER CITY MANAGER
 West Kootenay Landlord Society
“Helping you succeed as a landlord”

RE: Letter to the Minister of Housing and the Director of the Residential Tenancy Branch

Dear Mayor & Council,

On behalf of the West Kootenay Landlord Society, we would like you to consider endorsing the
attached letter to the Minister of Housing and the Director of the Residential Tenancy Branch with
respect to changes recently made to the Residential Tenancy Act. While well intentioned, we believe
some of the changes made in Bill 16 will have the unintentional effect of causing some local landlords
to withdraw their units from the local rental market, causing a further decrease in what is already a
critically short supply of rental housing in the area.

It is our hope that the Director of the Residential Tenancy Branch, in cooperation with Cabinet, will be
able to take steps in drafting changes to the Residential Tenancy Regulation that will mitigate some of
the unintended consequences of Bill 16. We believe that the attached letter will carry some weight
with the Minister and Director if it is endorsed and sent by the City. With the speed at which Bill 16
was introduced and passed through third reading, time is a critical factor in trying to prevent the
unintentional damage that this Bill could potentially cause.

We thank you for your attention to this matter that we deem is crucial to prevent an already critical
housing crisis in our City from getting worse.

Trevor Jenkinson & John DeVries

On behalf of the West Kootenay Landlord Society

West Kootenay Landlords Society

PO Box 635, Nelson, BC, V1L 5R4
www.wkls.org | 1-877-255-9823
The Honourable Selina Robinson, M.L.A,
Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing
PO Box 9056, STN PROV GOVT.
Victoria BC, V8W 9E2

Dear Minister Robinson & Ms Elder,

We are writing to express our concern over the removal of the fixed-term-must-vacate
style of tenancy agreement that is a part of Bill 16, recently passed in the legislature.

As a smaller municipality, we have very few large-scale rental housing providers and
much of our rental housing is provided by “small time landlords” who only have a
basement suite in their home, or perhaps a couple of units in a building. Estimates
indicate that nearly 10% of our local population is housed by these kinds of small time
landlords. The issue of local landlords using the fixed-term-must-vacate clause to raise
rents beyond the legal limit is virtually non-existent in our area.

We have been made aware that many of these local landlords use the fixed-term-must-
vacate tenancy agreements as a crucial part of the operation of their rental units for a
variety of perfectly ethical reasons that are a necessary part of how they provide rental
housing. A surprising number of local landlords have expressed that if they are no
longer able to use fixed-term-must-vacate agreements, they will no longer be offering
their units for residential rentals, and will either remove them from the market
completely, sell, or use them strictly for short term vacation rentals such as AirBNB.

Since our area has been experiencing a housing crunch for many years with vacancy
rates at less than 1%, any loss in rental housing will be a sore blow and would result in
rental rates being pushed even further away from affordable levels where rates are
already beyond the reach of many of our citizens leading to increased homelessness
which is already a dire problem in our municipality.

Our local area does have a sizable student and seasonal worker population, so even
rentals that are only available for portions of the year are extremely valuable for
relieving some of this crunch. Even having units that are only available for a short
period of time are a valuable commodity. We simply cannot afford to lose any of our
existing rental housing.

A local association of landlords in our area, the West Kootenay Landlord Society, has
collected an initial list of situations where use of the fixed-term-must-vacate tenancy
enables them and other landlords to be able to provide rental housing in our area. We
would ask that you consider the following situations when drafting the Regulations for
allowable uses of fixed-term-must-vacate agreements.

• A property is used as a vacation rental for two or three months of the year,
residential rental for the remainder
 • Friends and extended family use of property, similar to vacation rental above, but
not for commercial vacation rentals
• The owner plans to sell the property at a predetermined date.
• The owner plans to renovate the property at a date known before the tenancy
begins
• A long term tenant plans to leave for a year and wishes to return to the same unit
• The tenants intention is relatively short-term (while their own house is renovated
perhaps) but the landlord does not want the house becoming vacant in the
middle of winter.
• The owner of a house decides to travel for a year and wants to rent out the
house while they are away for a definite period of time.
• People buy a house, but can't move into it for a certain length of time and
therefore want to rent it out for that period
• An initial tenant trial period to protect the landlord and other tenants from
unscrupulous new tenants who can con their way into an initial agreement.

The last point about being able to have tenants go through a trial period has been
described to us as being vital to many of our local landlords. Many of them live in the
same building as their rental unit and as such can be quite vulnerable, especially since
many of these landlords are seniors. This policy also allows a landlord to give a chance
to a potential tenant who may not otherwise be able to find housing.

A good tenant would pass this initial test and the tenancy would continue on a long term
basis. Evicting a bad tenant who disputes a notice to end tenancy for cause is much
harder to get rid of since the notice is often overturned at a hearing. The fear of
becoming stuck with a bad tenant who cannot be gotten rid of is what will cause these
small time landlords to withdraw their units from the market and worsen what is already
a dire housing crisis in our community.

In closing, we would ask that you please put serious consideration into accommodating
the above situations during the drafting of the Regulation so that the good intentions of
Bill 16 do not end up creating catastrophic collateral damage to communities such as
ours across the rest of the province.
 West Kootenay Landlord Society
“Helping you succeed as a landlord”

RE: Nelson Hydro Policies in Regards to Landlord/Tenant Issues

Dear Mayor & Council,

On behalf of local area landlords, we would like to request an opportunity to meet with appropriate
city staff members to discuss the following changes in policy that will make the provision of rental
housing easier and more accommodating for both landlords and tenants.

We are already aware of several useful methods and tools available via Nelson Hydro, such as late
payment notifications and disconnect warnings. These items are in addition to these:

• Notification when a tenant closes their account – this may not always coincide with the end of
a tenancy, and can result in the account reverting to the landlords name without their
knowledge.
• Notification when a tenant’s account is actually disconnected.
• Take a deposit in all cases where the account is opened by a tenant and not the building
owner.
• Allowing a tenant to pay their deposit in installments to ease the expense of moving. Often, a
tenant cannot afford this additional expense and so either cannot set up service, or have to ask
for the landlord’s permission to completely waive the deposit requirement.
• A tenant’s deposit should be held until the account is closed and not returned to the tenant
until that time.
• Can late payments or delinquent accounts be reported to credit bureaus such as TransUnion
or Equifax?
• Send delinquent accounts to a collection agency before adding it to the owner’s taxes. Any
difference between the original bill and the amount recovered via the collection agency could
then be added to the owner’s taxes.

We believe that making these changes would either only incur minimal costs, or none at all and would
result in a more equitable and easier method of operation of rental units and maintaining tenancies in
our city.

We thank you for your consideration,

Trevor Jenkinson & John DeVries

On behalf of the West Kootenay Landlord Society

West Kootenay Landlords Society

PO Box 635, Nelson, BC, V1L 5R4
www.wkls.org | 1-877-255-9823