By Doug Hallett
Guelph Tribune

City hall is losing one of three main weapons in its struggle to protect neighbourhoods by controlling shared rental housing, and the president of the Old University Neighbourhood Residents’ Association is dismayed.
“I think it’s unfortunate that so much effort will come to naught,” Daphne Wainman-Wood said Tuesday.
She cited work done “over many years by many parties” that led to a zoning bylaw amendment being passed in September 2010. It was repealed Monday by city council. It had been part of a concerted effort at city hall to deal with community concerns related to off-campus university student housing.
Council’s decision to repeal the bylaw, which a couple of landlords had appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board, came after it received advice from city lawyers behind closed doors prior to Monday’s council meeting. The advice related to human rights concerns about the zoning bylaw amendment.
After the meeting, Ward 5 councillor Leanne Piper said the Ontario Human Rights Commission got involved in the case amid concerns that Guelph’s zoning change could affect new Canadians, who often live in multi-generational family arrangements in one house.
The zoning amendment’s effect on multi-generational family arrangements “was an aspect of the zoning bylaw that we had not considered when we deliberated on shared rental housing,” Piper said in an interview.
Wainman-Wood said she wished city hall had vetted its plans for changing the zoning bylaw with the Ontario Human Rights Commission earlier.  “It’s also unfortunate that our urban environment, our cities, don’t have the ability to control their own domain, and it’s being increasingly prescribed by the province,” Wainman-Wood said in an interview.
As well as repealing the zoning bylaw amendment, a special resolution passed by council Monday directs city staff to develop a licensing program for shared rental housing “for council’s consideration, including consultation with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.”
There was no debate during the public part of the council meeting on the resolution, which passed unanimously.
Among other things, the zoning bylaw amendment that’s now been repealed imposed a 100-metre separation for two-unit properties – residential dwellings with accessory apartments – with a total of more than five bedrooms. It called for such houses to be at least 100 metres from any other accessory-apartment building of similar size, or from a lodging house or group home.
A 100-metre separation rule for lodging houses, which has been in effect for years, remains in force, Piper said.
City staff recommended in 2010 that city hall deal with concerns about shared rental housing in three ways – through zoning changes, a licensing program and increased enforcement of various city bylaws related to housing.
Now that the city’s zoning amendment has been repealed, it leaves licencing and enforcement as the main tools the city can use, said Piper. She has been heavily involved in city hall efforts to reduce the impact of off-campus housing on the stability of  neighbourhoods in certain parts of the city.
Guelph can look at licensing programs for shared rental housing used in such cities as Waterloo, London and Oshawa and “learn from their experience” as it prepares its own licensing program, she said.
Licensing accomplishes things that zoning changes can’t, including providing for inspections related to fire and building codes to ensure landlords comply with safety regulations that protect their tenants, Piper said.
In June 2010, council passed an interim control bylaw that prohibits the development of any new shared-rental housing on residential property in Ward 5 and east of the Hanlon Expressway in Ward 6.
This freeze on creating accessory apartments and lodging houses was supposed to last only one year, giving the city time to change its zoning bylaw. However, because the zoning bylaw amendment that passed three months later was appealed to the OMB, this interim control bylaw has remained in effect.
The special resolution passed by council Monday says the interim control bylaw will be repealed at a future meeting of council.
The OMB appeal has cost the city about $57,000 so far, and ending the appeal now will save the city $200,000, according to a fact sheet distributed by city hall after council’s decision Monday.