North Battleford's council at this week's meeting. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Third reading

N.B. council passes bylaw to fine owners of properties emergency services are repeatedly called to

Dec 14, 2023 | 2:00 PM

North Battleford’s council approved the third and final reading of its new Protective Services Cost Recovery bylaw at this week’s meeting.

It goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2024.

Bylaw 2144 would see properties that have an excessive number of calls annually for emergency services, such as criminal activity, mischief, excessive noise, and parties, potentially receive a fine that would be paid for by the property owners. Fines would range from $85 to $1,200 per hour.

City Director of Protective Services and Fire Chief Lindsay Holm previously advised council that some problem properties were receiving up to 30 visits per year from emergency services.

At a prior council meeting, the city heard from a representative from the Saskatchewan Landlord Association asking the city to delay making a final decision on the bylaw to allow more time for community consultation, and until more details are known. The city also received a letter from the organization asking for a delay.

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City Manager Randy Patrick said in response that city administration will add more clarity on the process of administering the bylaw.

“We’ve got together and listened to what was said,” he noted. “We’re going to recommend a procedure be created through the administration, and we’ll bring it back to council [for] information to the planning committee in January.”

Patrick indicated there would need to be a minimum of six calls for service before action will be taken and the bylaw will be considered. Calls for service would exclude domestic violence/interpersonal matters or issues with child protection. Responses to crimes at businesses or medical calls will also be excluded.

“One of the things we also suggested was that we would give 30 days’ notice to any landlord who has this [issue],” he added. “We wouldn’t charge them for the first 30 days. It gives them some time to make the changes they think are appropriate.”

If the property owner rectifies the problem, the property will continue to be monitored for three months. The city says if the issue has improved, after three months, the property will no longer be monitored.

Administration will provide the full written procedure at the city’s planning committee meeting on Jan. 15, 2024.

Patrick noted the city has slowly introduced this bylaw to allow for sufficient public feedback.

“We started this in September,” he said. “It was in planning meetings. We’ve talked about it on multiple media. We did this over three readings, and we delayed it once because people wanted to talk about it to council.”

Patrick added there has been a fair amount of public consultation or at least the ability to consult.

“Not a lot of people have taken advantage of that, but it was purposely put in the system,” he said. “We don’t very often do three separate readings [of a bylaw] over three separate meetings. We do it on really important [items] when council would like to maybe get some people talking to them about it, and I believe we fulfilled that obligation.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow