Adding staff to conduct more maintenance inspections of multi-unit rental properties will help free up police from having to respond to hundreds of non-emergency calls, says a report to Saskatoon city council.

The report, from the standing policy committee on planning, development and community services, says repeat calls for emergency services to address non-emergency issues — such as overgrown grass and noise complaints — from some multi-unit rental dwellings are a huge draw on police resources.

The report provided a list of rental buildings (but not their addresses) that had the highest number of calls to police in 2018.

One apartment building in the city had a whopping 411 calls to police in 2018. That's an average of 7.9 calls per week.

Six apartments buildings in the city had at least 200 complaints to police in 2018.

The report recommends increasing staff to conduct property maintenance inspections so they don't have to respond to repeated complaints.

The report said current staffing levels mean they only address issues based on complaints from the public.

And they prioritize those complaints based on safety risks.

Mayor Charlie Clark says more property maintenance inspections could help with other social issues in the surrounding community. (Albert Couillard/CBC)

This means low priority complaints like dealing with overgrown weeds and grass or junked vehicles on the property take a long time to be addressed.

The city recently approved adding 1.5 full time staff positions to help with the current backlog of property maintenance complaints.

The report recommends adding more staff to do follow-up inspections on problem properties to ensure compliance is maintained over the long term.

Mayor Charlie Clark said cleaning up these properties will have a positive effect on the surrounding community.

"If we're going to resolve some of these issues of crime and addictions we also have to pay attention to the environment that they emerge in," Clark said at Monday's council meeting.

"A lot of the things we've been talking about with crystal meth and some of those issues that are having a huge impact on our community. This is the physical environment that they're taking place in — a fragmented system of unstable housing and unsafe properties."

The city will now look into what staffing levels would be required along with the associated costs and report back to council.