Montreal passes bylaw with heavier fines, stricter regulations for negligent landlords

The City of Montreal is cracking down on landlords who own vacant or poorly maintained buildings.

It has adopted a new bylaw that significantly increases fines, which it hopes will push owners to make use of their buildings.

There are currently around 800 vacant residential and commercial buildings within city limits, 150 of which are heritage buildings. These new regulations aim to preserve them.

“Clearer and more precise tools will facilitate the work of inspectors,” said executive committee member Robert Beaudry. “Heavier fines will make owners more accountable, better monitoring of vacant buildings will be done annually.”

The city will require annual fees to register empty buildings and will set time limits on the installation of barricades such as fences. Certain safety measures must be put in place, such as exterior lighting, and buildings will have to be heated to 10 C at all times.

“It really gives us some tools to make sure that we really send a message to landlords that it is important that they are taking care of their buildings,” said executive committee member Ericka Alneus.

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The new regulations are also meant to discourage landlords from letting a building deteriorate to the point of demolition.

“When we ask them to invest in a vacant building, the building is going to be in good quality,” said Beaudry.

“So we can reuse it and maybe it’s an incentive to rent the building to someone.”

Fines have been significantly increased from 2007, the last time a bylaw was created to curb negligent landlords. They will range from $2,000 to $250,000 for heritage buildings and $1,000 to $10,000 for non-heritage sites, including $40,000 fines for repeat offenders.

But how the new bylaws will be enforced is a concern for opposition leader Aref Salem.

“We didn’t have enough inspectors to do the job right now with this bylaw. How are we going to assess or implement it if we don’t have more inspectors?” Salem asked.

The city says it’s not about hiring more inspectors. It’s about giving existing ones the proper enforcement tools.

“They are more efficient, they can more quickly act, more specifically ask what has to be done, they have more leverage,” said Beaudry.

There is no set date for when the new bylaw could take effect, but the city says it could be as early as the end of this year.