NDP CALLS FOR REGISTRY OF ABSENTEE LANDLORDS

TORONTO - Ontario municipalities would have the power to track
absentee landlords and quickly clean up derelict properties used as
crack houses if the New Democrats get their way.

Toronto New Democrat Peter Tabuns has introduced a private member's
bill that would allow the province's cities to create a registry of
absentee landlords and require them to post a bond to pay for the
upkeep of their properties.

The Liberal government must start addressing the rash of unsupervised
properties that often become run down and turn into neighbourhood
magnets for crime, he said.

"They are going to have to start coming to grips with this whole
problem of crack houses and disruptive houses in urban Ontario,"
Tabuns said. "I'm going to be pointing out to them that this is one
way that they can act."

Cities like Toronto have asked for greater powers to deal with
absentee landlords because of the difficulty some neighbourhoods have
with properties becoming crack houses, Tabuns said. Those neglected
properties breed fear in the community and are demoralizing for
neighbours who worry about their own property values, he said.

A registry of absentee landlords and a bond to cover property upkeep
would help cities track down culprits and give them the necessary cash
to clean up the problem building, Tabuns said.

"Cities need powers to deal with these problems," he said. "This
Liberal government is not actually acting."

But Tabuns' bill is unlikely to become law any time soon. Private
member's bills rarely pass the legislature, and Municipal Affairs and
Housing Minister John Gerretsen said he doesn't see the need for more
legislation.

The province has given cities the power to license landlords if they
choose, which would help municipalities to better regulate absentee
landlords if they pose a problem, Gerretsen said.

The issue would be better dealt with at the local level rather than
having direction come down from the Ontario legislature, he added.

"These problems seem to present themselves more in situations where
there are absentee landlords where they don't have the same interest
in the community or in their own properties," Gerretsen said.

"The local councils are in the best position to determine what's good
for their particular neighbourhood. As time goes on, I think ... we
will see a lot of innovative, locally based solutions to deal with
these kinds of situations."

But Terry McLaren, president of the Ontario Chiefs of Police, said
anything the province can do to help deal with such properties would
help police. Every municipality has trouble spots where police are
routinely called in to investigate suspicious activity, he said.

"If the landlord's not around and it's just a matter of collecting the
rent, they don't know who the tenants are," said McLaren, chief of
police in Peterborough, Ont.

"People are attracted there because everybody's there for a common
purpose. A lot of times, it's to do the drugs. It's a location to do
injections or do some snorting. It's a place where it can be
distributed, so that attracts a lot of undesirables into a
neighbourhood."

Knowing exactly who the landlords are would help police arrange
meetings with the owner and work toward cleaning up some of these
properties, McLaren said.