I don't want to misrepresent anything here, so to be very clear:
The red Focus had been outside for about a month, absent of a hood, rear hatch, and side door glass. It was absolutely an eyesore and I wouldn't expect people to put up with that for long. However, the car was not visible from any angle from the street, only visible from one neighbour on one side, and he is not the neighbour who complained. In fact, the neighbour who complained doesn't even live on my street, nor does his property abut mine on any side.
In addition to the Focus, other things called out by the bylaw officer included a chest freezer (awaiting warm weather to be powerwashed before bringing inside to use), a toilet (legit trash, no excuses there), and some wood scraps such as replaced rotten fence posts, waiting to have a full(er) trailer load to take to the dump. All items were not visible from the street and I had discussed with the one neighbour who did have visibility, and he had no concerns. He's 86 and seems to live vicariously through some of my projects, I think. Gonna miss him.
In Ontario, the Municipal Act affords a variety of rights to municipalities. It's a very lengthy Act with many sections dealing with hundreds of topics. One of those rights is for the municipality to establish bylaws relating to what defines refuse and what requirements the municipality has relating to refuse. Inoperable motor vehicles or parts for them are considered refuse in my municipality's applicable bylaw. A vehicle can be deemed inoperable because it obviously is (e.g. the Focus) but can also be deemed inoperable because its license plate stickers have expired. The municipality has no reasonable or justifiable basis to require me to put liability insurance on a vehicle stored** on my property, but if they want to mandate some form of proof that the vehicle can be operated on a road, I suppose that's one way of doing it. Anyway, enforcement of all this stuff is pretty much reactive and complaint-driven.
3 of my other vehicles did have expired stickers. Only one, the furthest-back expired, was called out by the bylaw officer. I renewed all of the expired ones to avoid further difficulties. There is some funny irony here because Ontario has announced it is eliminating license plate stickers and going to fully-digital validation of plate/registration status and I will get a full refund on all of the newly-purchased stickers. It's anyone's guess at this point how the bylaw may need to change to accommodate this. It very well may not change until someone receives a bylaw order and takes it to court because the stickers thing is gone.
All of that being said: I am "that guy", and there's no getting around it. That being said, the complaint originated from someone who had no knowledge of any actual violations on my property. He complained because of the Panthers (and sure, some had expired stickers, but he didn't know that), not the Focus, and the bylaw officer identified the actual violations that the complaining party didn't even know about.
I had it coming.
**: I think a lot of this results from this specific word, "stored". The city is very opposed to any type of "storage" of anything taking place on residential properties, and I think this ties in with hoarding regulations. Essentially, if it is an object and it isn't reasonably in some degree of active use, they don't want it on your property. I can't say I agree with this way of thinking but I understand where it originates from and I also understand the municipality is acting within its legally-established authority. If I don't like it, I must move somewhere that won't care. In reality, all inhabitable areas of Ontario are now amalgamated into some nearby municipality and I'm sure every municipality has rules kinda-sorta like this. But, I do believe enforcement is lax-to-none if you're outside of something resembling an actual town.
The red Focus had been outside for about a month, absent of a hood, rear hatch, and side door glass. It was absolutely an eyesore and I wouldn't expect people to put up with that for long. However, the car was not visible from any angle from the street, only visible from one neighbour on one side, and he is not the neighbour who complained. In fact, the neighbour who complained doesn't even live on my street, nor does his property abut mine on any side.
In addition to the Focus, other things called out by the bylaw officer included a chest freezer (awaiting warm weather to be powerwashed before bringing inside to use), a toilet (legit trash, no excuses there), and some wood scraps such as replaced rotten fence posts, waiting to have a full(er) trailer load to take to the dump. All items were not visible from the street and I had discussed with the one neighbour who did have visibility, and he had no concerns. He's 86 and seems to live vicariously through some of my projects, I think. Gonna miss him.
In Ontario, the Municipal Act affords a variety of rights to municipalities. It's a very lengthy Act with many sections dealing with hundreds of topics. One of those rights is for the municipality to establish bylaws relating to what defines refuse and what requirements the municipality has relating to refuse. Inoperable motor vehicles or parts for them are considered refuse in my municipality's applicable bylaw. A vehicle can be deemed inoperable because it obviously is (e.g. the Focus) but can also be deemed inoperable because its license plate stickers have expired. The municipality has no reasonable or justifiable basis to require me to put liability insurance on a vehicle stored** on my property, but if they want to mandate some form of proof that the vehicle can be operated on a road, I suppose that's one way of doing it. Anyway, enforcement of all this stuff is pretty much reactive and complaint-driven.
3 of my other vehicles did have expired stickers. Only one, the furthest-back expired, was called out by the bylaw officer. I renewed all of the expired ones to avoid further difficulties. There is some funny irony here because Ontario has announced it is eliminating license plate stickers and going to fully-digital validation of plate/registration status and I will get a full refund on all of the newly-purchased stickers. It's anyone's guess at this point how the bylaw may need to change to accommodate this. It very well may not change until someone receives a bylaw order and takes it to court because the stickers thing is gone.
All of that being said: I am "that guy", and there's no getting around it. That being said, the complaint originated from someone who had no knowledge of any actual violations on my property. He complained because of the Panthers (and sure, some had expired stickers, but he didn't know that), not the Focus, and the bylaw officer identified the actual violations that the complaining party didn't even know about.
I had it coming.
**: I think a lot of this results from this specific word, "stored". The city is very opposed to any type of "storage" of anything taking place on residential properties, and I think this ties in with hoarding regulations. Essentially, if it is an object and it isn't reasonably in some degree of active use, they don't want it on your property. I can't say I agree with this way of thinking but I understand where it originates from and I also understand the municipality is acting within its legally-established authority. If I don't like it, I must move somewhere that won't care. In reality, all inhabitable areas of Ontario are now amalgamated into some nearby municipality and I'm sure every municipality has rules kinda-sorta like this. But, I do believe enforcement is lax-to-none if you're outside of something resembling an actual town.
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