Report

To: Corporate Services Committee Item: Date of Report:

CORP-11-19 November 9,201 1

From: Rick Stockman, Commissioner File: Date of Meeting: Corporate Services Department D-2200 November 17,201 1

Subject: Municipal Law Enforcement and Licensing Services Third Quarter Report PUBLIC REPORT

1.0 PURPOSE

The purpose of this report is to provide the Corporate Services Committee and Council with statistical data on the core services provided by Municipal Law Enforcement and Licensing Services' (MLELS) for the third quarter of 201 1.

2.0 RECOMMENDATION

That the Corporate Services Committee recommend to City Council:

That Report CORP-11-19 "Municipal Law Enforcement and Licensing Services Third Quarter Repod' dated November 9, 201 1 be received for information.

3.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Council, in its special meeting on April 27, 2010, directed the Director of MLELS to provide quarterly branch statistics for the purpose of developing effective long-term enforcement strategies. This report responds to Council's direction.

Core service statistics have been collected on a regular basis from the Branch's two divisions: Municipal Law Enforcement Services, and Licensing and Support Services and are presented in this report.

4.0 INPUT FROM OTHER SOURCES

4.1 General

> Information Technology Services

4.2 Auditor General

> The Auditor General has no comments.

Report to the Corporate Item: CORP-11-19 Services Committee (Continued) - 2 - Meeting Date: November 17, 201 1

5.0 ANALYSIS

5.1 MLELS Third Quarter Highlights

> Municipal Law Enforcement (MLE) Services conducted two major enforcement initiatives ("projects") in the areas of Property Standards and Licensing amounting to a 9% increase in inspection activity when compared to the same period over the past three years.

> These projects focused on graffiti remediation and attaining a higher level of compliance with the City's Business Licensing regime and in particular, to second hand goods, food shops and Residential Rental Housing Licensing (RRHL).

> Licensing and Support Services (LSS) successfully completed the second round of scheduled taxi inspections for the City's 116 licensed taxicabs.

9 LSS continued to administer the licensing of Residential Rental Houses in the vicinity of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology / Durham College during the RRHL business cycle peak period in the third quarter.

5.2 Municipal Law Enforcement Services

> Municipal Law Enforcement (MLE) Services performs investigations and enforcement activities in three core areas:

a) Property b) Parking c) Animal Services

9 In addition, MLE is mandated to investigate and enforce a comprehensive number of City by-laws and is also responsible for Corporate Security at City Hall.

5.3 Property-Related Enforcement

P Third quarter calls-for-service (complaints received) and inspection activity levels typically mimic those of the second quarter given the continuation of the summer months. Lot Maintenance, Property Standards and Boulevard remained as the most active areas in property-related enforcement.

P Property-related calls-for-service and inspection activities appear in Attachments 1 and 2 respectively.

Report to the Corporate Item: CORP-11-19 Services Committee (Continued) - 3 - Meeting Date: November 17, 2011

5.3.1 Property-Related Calls-For-Service (Complaints) Received

P The total number of calls-for-service increased by 20% when compared against the same period in the previous three years. Increases in calls-for-service were most notably driven by licensing, noise, and property standards enforcement requests.

9 While there appears to be a substantial percentage increase in the number of nuisance enforcement requests (Attachment 1) and resulting inspection activity (Attachment 2), the percentages are not indicative of the general level of nuisance activity across the City. A new classification and reporting process was recently adopted by Service Oshawa contributing to the variance and thus, the comparison is substantially skewed.

9 Between Q2 and Q3 of 2011, the "Nuisance" classification was expanded to incorporate additional categories of enforcement request such as pocket bikes, parks- related enforcement and other enforcement requests. Service Oshawa adopted a new process to increase the accuracy of tracking non-classifiable service requests given that its request tracking software "Lagan" unlike MLE1s enforcement software "OLI", does not possess the general enforcement category "Other By-laws".

5.3.2 Property-Related Inspection Activity

9 MLE conducted 9% more property-related inspection activities than in the same period over the past three years.

P Special enforcement projects targeting second hand good stores, food shops, RRHL, and graffiti were partially responsible for an increase in Licensing and Property Standards inspection activity. The success of these enforcement projects and specifically, in Licensing, are reflected in the higher levels of licensing activity shown in Attachments 6, 7 and 8.

9 The recent provincial election and a successful sign enforcement project along Simcoe Street North resulted in a notable increase in sign inspection activity in the third quarter when compared against the historical trend (Q3 Three-Year Average).

9 An increase in Unauthorized Parking inspection activity and subsequent decrease in Zoning inspection activity is the result of MLE's efforts to increase the efficiency of the enforcement process for vehicles improperly parked on private property.

P Rather than achieving compliance through the lengthy Zoning enforcement process, where circumstances permitted, Officers investigated private-property parking contraventions pursuant to the more streamlined Unauthorized Parking By-law enforcement process.

Report to the Corporate Item: CORP-I 1-19 Services Committee (Continued) - 4 - Meeting Date: November 17,2011

5.4 Parking Enforcement

3 The overall level of parking enforcement (Attachment 3) increased by 11 % in the third quarter when compared against the same period in the previous three years.

5.5 Animal Services: Shelter Operations and Enforcement Activities

9 Animal-related activity typically peaks in the third quarter during the summer months. Historic peak levels of animal-related activity are correlated with the 28% increase in shelter operations (Attachment 4) and the 8% increase in enforcement activities (Attachment 5) in the third quarter when compared against historic trends.

5.6 Licensing and Support Services (LSS)

3 Licensing and Support Services is responsible for administering and regulating the issuance of various licences and permits as well as providing administrative support to the Branch.

3 Overall, the levels of application examinations, inspections and licences issued for RRHL, food shops, increased in the third quarter while other trends remained consistent with LSS' regular business cycle.

5.6.1 Property Licensing Applications: Examined and Inspected

9 Ongoing MLE enforcement activities and the expiration of Residential Rental Housing Licences on August 31 drove the high numbers of applications examined (Attachment 6), inspections conducted (Attachment 7) and the number of Residential Rental Housing Licences issued (Attachment 8) in the third quarter.

3 Municipal Licensing and Standards group completed its second round of scheduled taxi inspections in mid September which are reflected in the increased number of taxi inspections conducted (Attachment 7) in the third quarter.

5.6.2 Business and General Licenses Issued

> The rise in the number of Business Licences issued (Attachment 8) in the third quarter, the majority (70%) comprising of food shop licences, is indicative of the success achieved by the MLE food shop licensing enforcement project.

6.0 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

3 There are no financial implications related to this report.

Report to the Corporate Item: CORP-11-19 Services Committee (Continued) - 5 - Meeting Date: November 17, 201 1

7.0 RESPONSE TO THE COMMUNITY STRATEGIC PLAN

> The recommendation is consistent with Objective C1 (Enhancing quality of communities and/or neighbourhoods, to protect the safety, health, and well-being of the public) and Objective C2 (Improving communications, cooperation and community engagement).

onlin, Director Law Enforcement and Licensing Services

kick 'Stockman, commissioner Corporate Services Department

Attachments

Item: CORP-I 1-1 9 Attachment I

Table I Property-Related Calls-For-Service Received

Property Standards

' % change measures the percentage increase or decrease between Q3 201 1 and the Q3 Three-Year Average (2008-201 0) which represents historical business trends. 2 Inspection activities related to Business Licensing By-law 120-2005 (includes RRHL By- law).

Not comparable

Item: CORP-11-19 Attachment 2

Table 2 MLE Inspection Activities

Unauthorized Parking

% change measures the percentage increase or decrease between Q3 2011 and the Q3 Three-Year Average (2008-201 0) which represents historical business trends. * Inspection activities related to Business Licensing By-law 120-2005 (includes RRHL By- law).

Not comparable

Item: CORP-11-19 Attachment 3

Table 3 MLE Parking Enforcement Activities

Proactive Enforcement 1

otal Parking Tags Issued ,

% change measures the percentage increase or decrease between Q3 201 1 and the Q3 Three-Year Average (2008-201 0) which represents historical business trends.

Item: CORP-I1-19 Attachment 4

Table 4 Shelter Operations

Animals Returned to

' % Change measures the percentage increase or decrease between Q3 201 1 and the Q3 Three-Year Average (2008-201 0) which represents historical business trends.* Confiscation of prohibited and/or dangerous animals by Police and MLE pursuant to a search warrant.

Not Comparable Cremation for deceased animals received and/or picked up by Animal Services. Process where Animal Services permits an animal with special needs to be

temporarily housed at an off-site private home for special careltreatment which would be impractical or difficult to provide at the shelter while the shelter seeks to find an appropriate home. Animal Services retains ownership of the animal and pays for (upon review and authorization) costs which may be attributed to special care. 6Process where the ownership and responsibility of an animal is provided to another agencylrescue group.

Item: CORP-11-19 Attachment 5

Table 5 Animal-Enforcement Activities

1 % change measures the percentage increase or decrease between Q3 201 1 and the Q3 Three-Year Average (2008-201 0) which represents historical business trends.

Item: CORP-11-19 Attachment 6

Table 6 Applications Examined

R.R.H.L. applications received prior to September 19, 2009 were processed by MLE. Multiple examinations are conducted for each application; the reported figures do not reflect the actual number

to zoning and parking standards.

Item: CORP-11-19 Attachment 7

able 7 Site Inspections

Business licences are inspected on a case-by-case basis. Includes R.R.A.P.-D Program. R.R.A.P inspections, on average, take 3 hours to complete.

5 ~ a x iinspections typically take 30 minutes per vehicle to complete.

Item: CORP-I1-19 Attachment 8

Table 8 Licences Issued

Notes:' Includes all classifications of business licences under Business Licensing By-Law 120-2005. 201 0 quarterly data is not available. * Data unavailable. 3 Recording methodology changed in 2009 resulting in higher-than-normal figures.

4 ~ a x ilicences are valid for 2 years; 2009 figures includes licences issued for 2009 and 2010. Prior to 201 1, figures were recorded on an annual basis.