Leamington council approves administrative penalty system for bylaw enforcement

Leamington Municipal Building at 111 Erie St. N. (AM800 News file photo)

Leamington council has approved a major shift in how the municipality enforces parking and other bylaw violations, moving disputes out of the court system and into a municipally run administrative penalty process.

Council voted Tuesday night to adopt an Administrative Penalty System (APS), a framework permitted under Ontario’s Municipal Act that replaces Provincial Offences Act prosecutions with an administrative review model.

The change applies to a wide range of municipal bylaws, including property standards, noise, parks, fireworks, land maintenance, waste management, traffic and parking, business licensing and taxi enforcement.

AMPS coordinator Taylor-Anne O’Connor said the new system preserves due process while addressing inefficiencies associated with court-based enforcement.

“The administrative penalty system will provide for the same open, transparent and objective process as currently in place with the POA,” O’Connor said, adding the appeal process would be “shorter, less formal and less intimidating” while also reducing processing times.

Under the APS model, bylaw officers will issue penalty notices rather than court tickets, with residents able to dispute those penalties through an administrative review process.

“There is no fee to appeal to a screening officer or a hearing officer,” O’Connor said.

During questions from council, O’Connor addressed references in the report to administrative fees.

“That would be if a screening review is scheduled to be conducted and the person failed to show up at that time, then they would have to pay an administrative fee for the time spent on preparing and at that hearing,” she said.

Coun. Tim Wilkinson also asked whether the new system would eliminate the need for existing committees, including the property standards committee.

O’Connor said those committees will continue to operate as they do now.

“When the property standards issues or modifies an order, when that order is confirmed, if they do not comply with that order, then there could be an administrative penalty,” she said.

Administration stressed the vote did not involve changes to bylaw rules or penalty amounts.

“With respect to the bylaws that are listed, nothing has been changed in any of those bylaws, other than to suggest that they come in under the AMPS bylaw,” said legal and legislative services director Matthew Todd.

Coun. Anthony Abraham questioned how the system applies to business licensing, noting council had previously eliminated licensing requirements for many businesses.

Todd responded by saying enforcement would apply only where licensing categories still exist.

Coun. Bill Dunn raised concerns about enforcement discretion, particularly related to waste management. Administration said education would continue to be the first step in most cases.

“Our first approach with bylaw enforcement is always education,” Todd said. “It is not an automatic enforcement situation.”

Mayor Hilda MacDonald said the shift is being welcomed by bylaw staff and is expected to improve how repeat violations are handled.

“I spoke to Leamington’s bylaw manager, and he is very excited about using this new format,” MacDonald said. “It will be more efficient. It will be more prohibiting to some of the repeat offenders.”

She said the bylaws being brought under the system are among the most common sources of complaints received by council.

“When I look at these, these are always the ones we as council have the most complaints about — land maintenance, greenhouse light abatement, fireworks, open fire, noise, taxi cabs,” MacDonald said. “Time after time, repeat, repeat, repeat.”

According to administration, the municipality does not expect the number of penalties issued to change significantly because of the new system.

The cost of retaining an independent hearing officer is estimated at about $9,000 annually.

Once final approval is received from the Ministry of Transportation, administration expects to move toward electronic enforcement and online dispute tools, potentially as early as the first quarter of 2026.