With Brampton’s population growth outstripping most Canadian municipalities, and an inadequate affordable housing supply to meet demand, an increasing number of single-family homes across this city are being illegally converted into “multi-family residences.”

So say city leaders who are calling for greater legislative tools to crack down on the practice.

“This is an issue that really concerns me. The fact that we have many, many properties in the city that are converting single-family homes to multi-family residences,” said Regional Coun. Gael Miles during planning committee.

Miles picked apart a staff report she asked for in September 2016, which concluded the city doesn’t have the resources or enforcement tools to keep a handle on the practice. The report recommends establishing a cross-functional team composed of the fire chief, bylaw officials and others to study the issue.

“This report doesn’t tell us anything about the severity of the issue. I really think we need to do more,” said Miles, adding concerns she’s hearing from residents about converted properties, which “have three and more dwellings within their homes.”

Such conversions require municipal rezoning.

“This is becoming a business for individuals who go in and convert them. They’re chopping the houses up and residents in the neighbourhood are watching them do it,” Miles said.

Marked as a high growth community under the provincial growth plan, Brampton’s population numbers have exploded over the past two decades, as the housing supply, including affordable housing options, is unable to keep up with demand.

A shortage of affordable housing stock across Greater Toronto Area is a massive issue facing local government, as is pursuing an urban growth plan that does not support greater density.

Already on the ropes with secondary unit dwellings — Brampton in 2015 adopted a policy that establishes a process to license basement apartments with little uptake in the number of registered units — local officials say they’re receiving more and more complaints about single-family homes being converted to multi-unit dwellings.