Tougher rules for landlords and better protections for tenants could be in place by next summer, following the approval of a new bylaw for rental apartments.

The new rules, accepted by city council on Wednesday, will require property owners to register with the city, have a comprehensive pest management plan that includes licensed professionals, use licensed contractors for all repairs and have a state of good repair capital plan.

It will also result in a process to track tenant complaints and the creation of hard targets for city staff and landlords to ensure issues are identified and resolved.

City staff will collect information from 3,500 buildings — or all buildings with three or more stories and ten or more units — and containing roughly 350,000 rental units. In Toronto, council heard, roughly half of the city lives in rental homes.

“This demonstrates that Toronto councillors as a whole recognize that tenants need us to take substantive action to make sure that they are better protected,” Councillor Josh Matlow told the Star after the vote.

“For far too long, too many landlords have been able to keep their buildings in disrepair, leaving renters in shameful conditions without as much accountability and consequences as we need. We have taken a stand today.”

The program is expected to cost about $5 million, with 53 per cent of the money expected to be recovered from an annual landlord registration fee, costing $10.60 for each unit, 12 per cent from enforcement action, and 35 per cent from property taxes.

The protections will extend to all Toronto Community Housing buildings, but the money will come from privately owned properties.

If the funding plan is adopted through the upcoming budget process it would also mean 12 new full-time staff members working in inspection and bylaw enforcement, on top of a staff of 24.

The proposal includes the potential creation of a ranking system for rental buildings. The ratings could be similar to the city’s DineSafe program, and consist of a colour-graded sign with a rank, for example, A through F, Pass or Fail, to be posted in the lobby.

City staff will have until March to craft a draft bylaw, and aim to include the recommended staffing levels and program costs as part of 2017 budget discussions and then launch the program by next summer.

The number of new hires and the direction to city staff to move forward with the exploration on the feasibility of the ranking system came in the form of two motions introduced during debate and represent substantial victories both for councillors pressing for strict and swift enforcement and for tenants groups who had long called for more accountability for landlords.

The original proposal presented to council recommended six new hires and examining whether a ranking system was feasible, but only after the program had launched. It had also proposed a slightly lower cost to landlords, or an annual fee of $8 per unit. The amended program, council heard, will still result in a net savings in staff’s 2017 budget and most of the costs will be recovered through enforcement.

Tenant advocacy group ACORN had also pushed for the city to boost the number of new hires and move quickly towards the visible ranking system.

“We are thrilled that city councillors are on our side and we look forward to being able to show the condition of all apartment buildings in Toronto,” said spokesperson and Weston chairperson Laurie Simpson, following the vote.

ACORN has also called for more tenant outreach, or public education. The new regime requires landlords to install a notification board in a central area.

Part of the process will involve staff reporting back on proposed policies and procedures that could give city staff stronger tools to track and penalize bad landlords.

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Councillor Janet Davis, speaking to the Star, called the creation of a new bylaw “groundbreaking” and said the regulations will be a “framework for a very comprehensive approach to improving the quality, maintenance and cleanliness of buildings in the city of Toronto.”

Davis said the biggest complaint she hears from tenants is that landlords are ordered to make repairs, but the process drags on and on with no guaranteed result.

“What this program does is it puts in place a number of pieces and a number of approaches to put a full court press on to a landlord that is not keeping their building in good repair,” she said.

Council will also request that the province amend the building code act, or any other relevant legislation, to authorize the city to establish a penalty system for property standards violations and introduce regulations that would exempt the fee from eligibility for an above-guideline rent increase.

During the debate Councillor Stephen Holyday introduced a motion recommending that council not ask the province to craft regulations that would exempt the fee or, as he clarified when questioned, would allow landlords to pass the cost on to tenants. The motion didn’t pass.

A considerable part of the long debate leading up to Wednesday’s decision was whether the cost would be passed on to tenants, or if it was misleading to describe the fee as a tax.

At a meeting before the city’s Licensing and Standards Committee in late November, Daryl Chong, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Toronto Apartment Association, maintained that the city’s existing inspection tools, coupled with provincial legislation are sufficient to hold landlords accountable. He also said the fee would be passed on to tenants.

Councillor Matlow slammed Chong for “misleading rhetoric” and pushed him to acknowledge that ultimately landlords, not the city, would decide if the fee is passed on.

When asked to weigh in, the city’s lawyer agreed there are “limited avenues” for the fee, which he clarified is not a tax, to be passed on to tenants and that the provincial rules surrounding that are very clear.

When the discussions over the new regulations began, city staff had been tasked to evaluate the value of a licensing system, but determined tougher regulations would be enough to protect renters.