Make Markham's absentee landlords cut their grass, councillor says

YorkRegion.com
June 13, 2017
Tim Kelly

A Markham councillor with responsibility for the sprawling community of Cornell, wants the city to crack down on absentee landlords who let vacant or rental properties run riot with overgrown grass and weeds.

Ward 5 Coun. Colin Campbell, who represents Cornell where there is a petition on change.org to "beautify Markham" that has 89 names on the way to 100, isn't happy. He says the city must provide landlords with up to 21 days notice before it takes action on their properties.

"I would rather have it be 48 hours notice," said Campbell, before the city could take action against absentee landlords who let the grass grow well above the bylaw limit of 15 cm or six inches.

However, Ward 4 Coun. Karen Rea said it's important to follow the existing Keep Markham Beautiful bylaw that states lawns can only grow up to six inches in length. If a complaint comes in, bylaw staff follow up with the owner with three warnings and escalating fines totalling up to $447 before the city hires a contractor to cut the lawn at $68 per hour.

Rea, citing her concerns the bylaw department is overwhelmed with complaint calls — she said more than 6,000 came into the city in June 2016 alone, though not all were for overgrown lawns — said the city should hire more summer students to deliver notices to tardy homeowners who fail to comply with the bylaw to mow their lawns.

Frustrated at the huge number of complaints she received herself about wild lawns over the past few weeks, Rea called real estate agents and told them to get owners to cut overgrown lawns at homes in her ward last Friday. She said by Monday, eight of eight homes had cut the lawns.

Meanwhile, residents in Cornell are frustrated at out-of-control growth in their subdivision posting comments on the petition such as, "between the construction, dirt and weeds ... the very least we can do is make the neighbourhood look somewhat appealing," and, "I have small kids (1 and 3) and they were not able to run on the grass due to the large dandelions in our local park."