The District of Houston is stepping up bylaw enforcement, beginning with problem dogs.
With a bylaw officer now in place, a position shared with the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako, council has authorized a campaign beginning with educating problem dog owners about their responsibilities through a municipal bylaw.
“We’ve been getting a lot of particular noise complaints about dogs barking and I think some people, when I am able to actually talk to them, they indicate ‘Oh, I didn’t realize it was a problem.’ There’s a lot of that that goes on,” by-law officer Jason Thompson told council when it met June 6.
Telling people there is a by-law as an educational approach worked during the winter when the District began informing vehicle owners they can’t park on the streets because that will interfere with snow clearing.
“Making them aware [of a bylaw] prevents the deeper enforcement,” Thompson emphasized.
Problem dogs was one of three options presented to council for consideration as action items through municipal bylaws.
The other two, shipping containers and unsightly premises, were identified by staffers as prime areas during discussions about doing more to tell local residents about municipal bylaws, District of Houston chief administrative officer Michael Dewar told council.
“We realized, especially in the winter of last year, when we did a public awareness as well as completed our compliance bylaw campaign for not parking on the street during snow clearing season, is we’ve never actually communicated that [no-parking] bylaw to the public,” he said.
While council members accepted the idea of a first campaign about problem dogs, councillor Troy Reitsma brought up a second of the three options presented to council — unsightly premises.
“There’s some properties in the community that are getting really, really bad and need some serious work to be better informed they need to be better citizens of the community,” he said in suggesting an amendment to a motion to put dogs first on the enforcement campaign list.
Councillor Jonathan Van Barneveld noted that if unsightly premises were not a focus now, winter snow will cover up debris.
“If we don’t do it now, it’s next year this time before we’re going to be looking at this once again,” he said.
But the idea of two campaigns at the same time resulted in some caution from Dewar, worrying that too much information presented at the same time within the community might be too much to handle.
He said the idea of staffers was to introduce one campaign, then move to the second and then to the third.
Reitsma then withdrew his amendment to add unsightly premises to a campaign now but did wish for some action on the problem.
“I’m OK with dropping the friendly amendment if we can step up enforcement a little bit more. There’s apartment buildings in town with overflowing garbage cans that are now blowing garbage around the community,” he said.
“We’ve done enough with the carrot. And now I think we need to come out with the stick a little bit,” he said.
A background memo from Thompson to council pointed out the benefits of an education program.
“By creating awareness about these bylaws, campaigns can help minimize conflicts among residents. When people are aware of the rules and understand their neighours’ rights and responsibilities, it can reduce misunderstandings and disputes,” he wrote.
Public areas such as parks, trails and waterways are also preserved and better maintained when there is greater public awareness of rules, Thompson said.