City council is adding a bylaw enforcement officer to specifically deal with issues downtown and is tightening up rules for vacant buildings.
A boarded-up building at the corner of St. Paul and Court streets in downtown St. Catharines looks eerie on Wednesday due to poor air quality.
A bylaw enforcement officer — specifically dedicated to patrolling downtown St. Catharines — is being hired for a two-year pilot along with a bylaw supervisor who will offer front-line support for issues across the city.
Council voted to beef up its bylaw department for the pilot this week at the same time it adopted a new bylaw to get vacant buildings secured faster with new enforcement tools and shortened timelines.
St. Patrick’s Coun. Robin McPherson said she’s heard from downtown businesses and residents who want the city to focus more on vacant buildings.
“It has to do with how people feel when they’re downtown and there are vacant buildings and properties that are not tended to,” she said.
“The idea that we would have a bylaw officer specifically looking at the properties, being proactive when it comes to long grass, when it comes to those things, is the one thing that I’ve heard repeatedly from residents and they’ve been asking for this.”
Demands on bylaw increasing
A staff report recommending the pilot program said current bylaw staff have been “unable to keep up with increasing demands for service” by council and citizens.
The new full-time bylaw officer will be dedicated to downtown issues, while the full-time supervisor will provide support to the bylaw team, which currently is at 10 full-time officers who report to one manager of bylaw enforcement and licensing.
Start-up costs and salaries for the first year of the pilot are covered by money set aside in 2025. The second year of the pilot will be funded with up to $175,000 from the tax rate stabilization reserve and up to $100,000 from the downtown stabilization, safety and reinvestment plan.
Alternative approaches
Council did consider two alternative options in the staff report for enacting a new vacant building security bylaw without hiring any additional bylaw officers. One idea was to have fire department personnel, who already monitor vacant buildings by routine patrol, administer the bylaw in a one-year pilot project.
They were advised by city solicitor Sandor Csanyi after a lengthy discussion about how, because of legislative requirements firefighters work under — versus the code bylaw officers work with — it could take longer for firefighters to achieve compliance or remedy the situation. He recommended the city continue to use bylaw officers.
“You may have to come up with upfront costs, but the timelines would be shorter, the amount of taxpayers’ money that you would have to spend on prosecuting to achieve compliance would be smaller,” he said. “In the long term you would gain and actually would be more efficient.”
Another option was to suspend enforcement of several other current city bylaws to free up time for current bylaw officers.
St. Catharines’ bylaw department had the former YMCA building near Fairview Mall boarded up in February.
Bob Tymczyszyn/ file photoThat was panned by Saleh Waziruddin, president of the Park Towers Tenants’ Association, who said stopping enforcement of the vital services bylaw, which was one example in the report, would make it pointless for tenants to complain when they don’t have the basic necessities to live.
“Instead, you should be funding more enforcement of the vital services bylaw and publicizing this protection to all tenants of the city because we know it’s badly needed,” he said.
In the end, council voted 10-2 to move forward with extra bylaw officers in a two-year pilot. Merritton Coun. Jackie Lindal asked that staff report back on expanding the dedicated downtown officer’s area slightly into the Queenston area.
The new vacant building security bylaw endorsed by council will be added to the bylaw department’s to-do list.
Quicker action desired
Currently, vacant buildings have to be secured under the city’s property standards bylaw. The owners of those found non-compliant receive an order giving them 14-days for buildings to become compliant, with an additional five days’ grace for registered mail. The orders are subject to appeal which can add time.
Under the new bylaw, the timelines will be shrunk for buildings the city has previously boarded up to one to three days depending on whether the property is registered or nonregistered. There will no longer be an ability to appeal an order.
“What’s being proposed here is to truncate those timelines so that a much more rapid response can come,” said manager of bylaw enforcement and licensing Paul Chudoba.
“So when a building does get breached, it’s not waiting 19 days plus appeal, it’s going to be dealt with immediately the next day, get it done right away and action could be taken to help preserve those buildings.”
There will also be different administrative penalty amounts.
Violations increasing
The staff report said there have been growing complaints of vacant buildings open to trespassers and other violations. The city found 87 registered vacant building violations in 2025 compared to 41 in 2024.
It also noted several vacant building fires have happened downtown near occupied buildings. In recent years, that has included The Standard’s former building on Queen Street and the historic Welland House around the corner.
But resident Alexander Miller told council that while lowering timelines with the new bylaw was appreciated, it doesn’t address the larger issue of the vacant properties themselves.
“During the housing crisis, we cannot afford to have vacant homes and properties counting to the hundreds while people are struggling to find affordable housing,” he said.
He suggested council create a vacant property tax that would force owners to comply and breathe new life into communities.
