Pubdate: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 Source: Daily Press, The (CN ON) Copyright: 2007 Daily Press (CN ON) Contact: http://www.timminspress.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1001 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. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek