Landlords make presentations to council
Over the last couple of months, the Town of Woodstock has been working to change by-law 609 regarding waste disposal. Residents have had unlimited waste disposal and pick-up for many years, with no rules on bins. To increase recycling, save the town substantial money, and support the transition to armed garbage trucks, they have been working on the best way to restrict waste disposal.
“I think what a lot of people fail to understand is the term garbage man is not going to exist very soon,” said Mayor Jeff Wright during the town’s Oct. 27 meeting. “I talked to a garbage man the other day that says as soon as that truck comes that picks those bins up, he’s done. He’s retiring.”
Originally, they planned to limit residents to one 240-litre bin per property. After residents’ feedback by the second reading, they changed this to two plastic wheeled bins with a combined capacity of no more than 600 litres.
The changes also restricted the town to taking responsibility for waste collection and disposal only for residential properties with four dwelling units or fewer. Properties containing five or more dwellings would be responsible for their own dumpsters and disposals.
In response to the proposed changes, investor and rental property owner Graham Gill and SJR Investments Limited rental business president Joel Rose presented to council during their regular meeting on Oct. 27.
Gill owns properties ranging from single-family dwellings to 10-unit apartments.
“I’ve worked hard over the years to obtain these properties and maintain a suitable standard of living for tenants, as we property owners have endured, over the last three to four years, some economic turmoil on regular households. Costs are rising. Tax assessments, fuels, wages for staff, benefits and most importantly, the rising expenses of materials and services. We have endured these increases at the same time as we’ve been dealing with a rent cap of three per cent imposed by the provincial government for the past three years,” said Gill. “I don’t know of any other business out there where the government actually restricts how much money we can make.”
Gill explained that the rent cap and rising costs had steadily shrunk his operating budget and forced him to be more selective about which projects and upgrades he could do. He pointed out that property tax assessments had been increasing over the last few years and that, since property taxes fund municipal services like waste disposal, they were already paying their fair share, a sentiment Rose echoed.
Gill told council that tax payments have increased by 19 per cent over three years. With the rent cap allowing them to recover only three per cent annually, he was at a net loss of just over three per cent a year. With average inflation just slightly higher than that over the last five years, additional costs would continue to strain his operational budgets. He said these percentages may sound small, but they can add up.
“It results in a net loss of tens of thousands of dollars for most of the affected property owners. This is a loss rate that must be managed carefully and cannot be ignored,” said Gill.
If the by-law changes remain as they are, it would cost his business $24,000 in garbage bins alone, before adding the cost of weight fees and pick-up. He also pointed out that smaller apartment buildings tend to have smaller parking lots, leaving little space for dumpsters.
Understanding that some changes are needed, he asked the Town to compromise and allow continued pick-up from apartments with six units or fewer, saying that based on parking spaces and costs, anything less than that would be far too expensive and impractical. During Rose’s presentation, he suggested that while six should be the minimum, including eight- or even 12-unit buildings in the town’s pick-up would be better.
Rose felt the public, especially landlords, had not been adequately informed about the proposed changes.
Rose, who has been in business since 1984, explained that for many years the town handled collection and disposal for most apartment buildings. Owners of larger buildings supplied their own dumpsters, and the town handled collection and disposal. A few years ago, owners of large apartment buildings started collecting and disposing of their garbage, with the town still paying the tipping fees.
“I personally believe this was a fair business working relationship between the property owner and the town. Although property taxes included the collection, pickup and tipping fees, the property owner accepted the responsibility of collecting and bringing it to the transfer station while the town paid the tipping fee. Costs were shared by both parties,” said Rose.
Rose said the tenants would ultimately end up paying for these changes, many of whom were already struggling to keep up with the cost of living. He was also concerned that limits on waste disposal would lead to more litter when people couldn’t fit everything in their allocated bins.
“I’m not blaming this council, but when they chose to go with smaller bins, that’s going to create an issue. Sure, it’s okay for my wife and I. It is not okay for people who have four or five kids. There’s no way all that garbage is going to go into that dumpster. So, they’re going to drive around town and find dumpsters around to dump the garbage in, which may cost me money,” said Rose. “That’s going to be a problem, I believe, around town. Where are people going to put their garbage? Drive out in the country and throw it off the side of the road?”
Deputy Mayor Mark Rogers asked what they were doing to promote more recycling. Both Rose and Gill said that over the past two years since the program began, they’d had difficulty getting recycling bins from Circular Materials, the company responsible for handing them out, and that many other landlords were experiencing the same.
Councillor Arthur Slipp said they should return to the current system of free pick-up, noting that multi-residential property owners already pay nearly twice the residential rate and that property and residence expenses are already high enough.
“Obviously, costs are continuing to escalate. I know the finance committee started to look at the budget. But our residents and commercial sector residential are going to see a fairly significant tax increase this year due to the assessments that the province has put out in the numbers. I think Woodstock’s looking at roughly a 10 per cent increase in our assessment base for 2027,” said Slipp. “That’s going to be a fairly substantial hit, and that’s even with the town, if the town council, keeps the rate at the same rates they are now.”
Council members expressed concerns about the impact on economic development and not-for-profits, as well as the need to treat all landlords equally, noting that several landlords had been paying all their disposal fees and wondered why some of their costs hadn’t been covered like other landlords’.
Councillor Keith Bull noted that since recycling was a big part of the mandate, insufficient access needed to be addressed. Several councillors expressed concerns about how communication had been handled. Councillor John Dolimount disagreed, pointing out that it had been on the agenda since September, like any other by-law change.
“The problem this council has struggled with, and the previous council struggled with: How do you get information out to the public? I think there are probably 35-40 people watching this event live, and maybe 25-30 people will watch it tomorrow on Facebook. There’s a very small gallery, here. We don’t have a newspaper any longer that publishes a regular update. People don’t go on Facebook and read big, long things and they don’t go on Instagram and TikTok and read big, long things. They don’t go to our website,” said Dolimount. “Getting the message out to the constituents is a significant challenge that we have on every issue.”
Mayor Wright agreed with Dolimount and emphasized that they had been transparent. They announced every reading and took time between readings to consider feedback and new information, like tonight’s presentations, before moving ahead with changes. He felt the process was working as intended.
“This process started in 2024 with the previous council. We’ve been handed a big ball of turd or garbage, and the decision was made through RSC,” said Wright.
He explained that the Regional Service Commission had been working with communities up and down the valley, and all but Carleton North had opted for the smaller 240-litre bin option. He understood the previous council’s decisions, given how much of the municipality’s budget went to waste disposal. Personally, he felt residences should be restricted to one bin but allowed up to 360 litres.
He pointed out that garbage collection was changing and Woodstock needed to adapt. With automated trucks, sanitation workers manually loading trucks would be a thing of the past. Moving forward, collection would have to happen in the appropriate bins. If those bins weren’t placed in the right location, oriented correctly, at least three feet apart, and not overflowing, they wouldn’t be collected.
“We have all kinds of challenges,” said Wright. “It’s going to take education and communication to the residents of Woodstock.”
Rogers reminded the council that all but one former council member had re-offered in the last election and would gladly be here to continue working on this by-law now if they’d had the opportunity.
All councillors agreed that the by-law needed to go to committee before it could be considered for its third and final reading on November 10.
