The city has to process complaints about snowy sidewalks more quickly and be more effective in following up, one city councillor says.
Currently, the city doesn’t accept complaints during a 48-hour grace period after a snowfall, and bylaw officers usually issue a warning before giving $100 fine for snow-covered sidewalks.
Coun. Andrew Knack pointed out that if it snows every day there’s no chance for the city to process complaints.
“There’s a risk of too many calls,” Knack said. “But it feels like right now that the opposite scenario is happening, which is that people have given up because they can’t call because the snow falls at different times.”
In March, Knack asked city administration to give councillors a breakdown of the complaints process, and those results came back to the community and public services committee on Wednesday.
The administration said it will explore ways to accept calls while it’s still snowing.
Knack said the situation can be dire, treacherous sidewalks are causing people to slip and fall.
“Four or five years ago, there was a death in a west-end neighbourhood because of a walkway not being shoveled,” he said. “Somebody slipped, an elderly person slipped, fell and they died. In a winter city where we’re going to get this every year, that’s completely unacceptable.”
The city has started looking at technology that would allow bylaw officers to register warnings and give fines directly through their mobile devices.
Knack noted that during the spring, summer and fall, only six bylaw officers would be on duty. He said he has had many complaints about the inconsistent response times.
“No wonder we weren’t always being timely in our response.”
Repeat offenders don’t fall off the list at the end of the season, the committee was told. City administration said they have a list to proactively follow problem property homeowners.
Coun. Michael Walters questioned whether bylaw officers could be more aggressive.
“As opposed to just responding to things, we go out and sort of proactively blitz neighbourhoods,” he said.
David Aitken, manager of community standards branch, said they’ve done that before and can consider it again.
“We proactively in the past have sent notices to those areas to sort of get them aware of their responsibilities.”
Walters suggested that might be too light a touch.
“You identify through the data and the complaints those problem areas, and you just hit them,” Walters said.
Aitken said the city tries to balance awareness with pressure, that zero tolerance doesn’t always work and they’ve had success by sending out notices out first.
Knack said he hopes to see some of the changes in effect this winter.
The city’s snow and ice strategy will be discussed again at a council meeting Sept. 24.