WATERLOO - Nearly one year after it was approved, arguments against an eight per cent rent hike on Goldbeck Lane in Waterloo were heard before the Landlord and Tenant Board Wednesday.

A resident of a townhouse complex on Goldbeck Lane will learn in the coming weeks whether she will have to take her fight against the rent hike to court.

Leslie Houston is challenging a rent hike of up to eight per cent approved by the Landlord and Tenant Board in November that affects the approximately 57 townhouse units on Goldbeck Lane.

Joseph Richards of Waterloo Region Community Legal Services has been working on Houston's behalf. He said if the board doesn't side with Houston, they will take the issue to court.

"The intention is to bring this to Superior Court," Richards said.

He argued the board can use a provision in the Residential Tenancies Act to calculate the above guideline rent increase differently.

Residents were saddled with rent hikes of up to eight per cent after property owner Wally Janzen successfully argued the city's rental housing licensing bylaw fee is a tax that should be passed to tenants.

Joe Hoffer of Cohen Highley LLP in London, lawyer for the landlord, disagreed with Richards' arguments during the hearing, saying the board can decide whether to spread out the hike over more than one year but can't alter the calculation.

He puts the blame for the hike on Waterloo officials.

"We told the City of Waterloo a long time ago if you pass this bylaw it's going to affect the tenants. . I always put it back to Waterloo council and the bureaucrats there who decided this is what they wanted to do," Hoffer said.

In documents filed with the board, Janzen claimed costs of $323,121.46 that he was seeking to recover.

The province's guideline for rent increases in 2016 was two per cent. Janzen received an additional six per cent, according to the board's Nov. 18 decision.

Some tenants absorbed the six per cent hike attributed to licensing fees in 2015, if they received a notice of rent increase and agreed to pay ahead of the board's decision. With the 2015 guideline hike their increase was 7.6 per cent.

Those who chose to wait will have the full eight per cent increase in 2016.

Waterloo's controversial rental housing licensing bylaw limits bedrooms and requires landlords to pay fees. It was criticized by landlords who called it a cash grab.

It went into effect in 2012.

The city licensing program requires Electrical Safety Authority and other inspections.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission had raised concerns that the bylaw was discriminatory, but those issues were worked out with the city.

In addition to seeking permission for the rent increase, Janzen sought a judicial review of the city's bylaw in Superior Court in December 2014.

It was dismissed last year.

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"He fought that because he didn't want to have to pass (the licensing costs) through," Hoffer said.

Janzen also owns townhouse complexes at 100 Bluevale St. N. and 20 Mayfield Dr. with a combined 61 units.

According to court documents, counsel for Janzen argued the bylaw was actually a tax and it amounted to discrimination against families under the Human Rights Code, because townhouses are more likely to house families with children than apartment buildings, which are exempt from the bylaw.

In dismissing the judicial review request, costs were awarded to the city in the amount of $50,000.