Hamilton committee backs controversial bylaw program near McMaster University

A pilot program through which law and security students from Mohawk College slap tickets on properties around McMaster University for property standards infractions have received a vote of confidence.

The city’s planning committee has voted to make the program permanent and to double the number of student enforcement officers from two to four.

Hamilton City Council will have the final say next Wednesday.

The fines, which start at $271, are placed on the landlord’s tax bill but representatives of the McMaster Student Union have complained that the costs are being unfairly passed on to student tenants.

MSU vice-president Ryan Deshpande adds that the program “undermines” and “tarnishes” the city’s relations with current and prospective post-secondary students.

Ward 3 Councillor Matthew Green agrees saying that pitting students against the City of Hamilton is “not congruent with everything we’ve said about wanting to retain and attract these students.”

Ward 1 Councillor Aidan Johnson acknowledges that his motion does not address the problems that sprang up during homecoming parties last weekend, one of which attracted 2,000 people to Dalewood Avenue.

Johnson does, however, believe that the bylaw program gets at “the broad cultural problem that we see in Ainslie Wood-Westdale of bad landlordism.”