Rental Housing: Community Meeting September 30

Mark your calendar for Wednesday, September 30, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm, for our next GROUP community update.  We will meet again at the Pinnacle Club, located at Investors Group Field (315 Chancellor Matheson Road) to review the findings of the City of Winnipeg’s report regarding best practices for rental housing in neighbourhoods adjacent to University or College campuses in North America.

To view the report, visit Student Housing Report – Property & Development June 26, 2015. This report was released on June 26, 2015 to the Standing Policy Committee on Property and Development Committee (West Committee Room, City Hall).

At the September 30 meeting, we will discuss the City’s report along with additional new information. I am continuing to independently research this issue, and have identified another community which is experiencing almost the identical situation we are. Please read how the community of Stony Brook, New York has mobilized and is taking action on their rental housing issues: http://www.stonybrookconcernedhomeowners.org/about/

Over the past few months, I’ve attended multiple meetings with the University of Manitoba and all have been very positive! I’ve also been meeting with City Departments about the creation of a multilingual ‘rental guide’ for both students and landlords. The intent of this guide is to simplify by-law wording and provide clarity to landlords, students and neighbouring residents. We have targeted a distribution date of August, 2015, when we will link this information to multiple websites in addition to including in student orientation packages. Currently, the University of Manitoba is building a website which will contain this rental guide along with by-law information.

So where do we go from here? There is strength in numbers, and I know we will have to form some type of residents’ association to ‘be the voice’ in order to best represent our interests. As many of you know, I’ve been an advocate for many years, working to create better walking and cycling paths, school playgrounds and other community improvements. I can attest that collaboration, ownership and promotion of an issue go a very long way to effect policy, particularly when problems are too large and complex to be resolved by one organization. If you are interested in taking an engaged, ACTIVE AND POSITIVE ROLE on tackling the issue of rental housing in our community, please e-mail your name, address, and phone number to our Ward Assistant: bsawchuk@winnipeg.ca

For a summary of current media coverage on this issue, please visit Rental Housing. To stay informed on this and other important initiatives in the Ward, please sign up for a monthly E-Newsletter!

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