The Municipality of Chatham-Kent is hosting public meetings to discuss the future of rental housing in the community.
The public meetings will be held on Wednesday in the council chambers at the Civic Centre and on Thursday at the RDC Pioneer Lecture Theatre at Ridgetown College. Both sessions begin at 6pm and are scheduled to run for two hours.
Director of Planning Services, Bruce McAllister says the municipality has also put out an online survey to gather more feedback on rental housing issues and potential changes. McAllister says they've had a strong response so far.
"In terms of numbers, there's more than 250 respondents as of the end of last week. We haven't gone through the results yet because the survey is actually still open until September 15... then we'll have a look at the results," says McAllister.
McAllister says the municipality wants to hear from all sides of the community, including landlords, tenants, students, migrant workers, and neighbours of rental properties.
"Council had asked us to review rental housing in general with regard to our current zoning by law and other regulations, such as licensing, just to see if there are options to improve that. We wanted to hear from the community at large first before we did make any changes, because it's important to consult widely with the public on this," explains McAllister.
The survey is online until September 15. Paper copies are also available at all municipal service centres.