At their meeting last night Council passed on first reading an amendment to their standards of maintenance and occupancy for residential property bylaw. Councilor Bill Hanson explains basically the bylaw is giving the Bylaw Enforcement Officer better tools to deal with people who are repeat offenders for say not maintaining their yard or having loose garbage flying around their yard on an ongoing basis. He adds what this does is a graduated penalty system so your first offence will be a hundred dollar fine and your second offence would be possibly a two hundred dollar fine and because they’re doing it through a municipal bylaw they don’t need to go through the court system if you are fined and don’t pay, the fine will just go on to your taxes.
The amendment requires second and third reading before coming into effect possibly at their next meeting November 7th.
