Rod: Well, well. Good evening everybody. My name is Rod Escayola and I'm your condominium lawyer with Gowling WLG and welcome to our summer sizzler edition of the Condo Advisor's webinar. This is our grand season finale before we take a break this summer. Of course unless the Province gets broken again, and we need to call back people around the table, but otherwise this could be our last episode of the season. This evening we're going to focus on two main topics. We're going to focus on Ontario's new 3-Step Roadmap to Reopening Ontario and we will also provide you with our best tips to navigate a condominium summer. Basically it's going to be our handbook on how to behave and not break anything while we're on break for the summer and hopefully everything's going to be great and we'll meet you in September. Now, I've assembled an amazing panel of speakers. It's going to be the perfect mix of the usual crew, that you've come to love and trust, with new speakers. So just get ready to get introduced to new panelists. Let's start right away. Let's introduce them right away and so I'm going to start with Josee, a staple here in this webinar. From DES Services, the mother hen of all managers, always ready with a Band-aid, either to care for your scrapes and cuts and bruises or to yank it out when the time comes, Josee Deslongchamps. Hello, Josee.
Josee: Hi. Happy to be back.
Rod: You'll see, folks, when we introduce them that we're all sporting our summer outfits. So that was Josee in a baseball field. An eager beaver with WSP Engineer, ready to build a birdhouse or treehouse at the penthouse, we have David Heska. Hello, David. How's it going?
David: Hey, Rod. Thank you for having me on today.
Rod: Looking forward to this. I had the opportunity to present with David recently and I thought this guy's got to come to our webinars. New to the panel we have the owner and founder of Results Lifestyle Inc., a drill sergeant and motivating you to swim this extra lap or to do the extra pushup, by hooks or by crooks she'll get you in shape, we have Penny. Hello, Penny, how's it going?
Penny: Good. How are you? Pleasure being here.
Rod: Thanks for joining us. From the National Life Safety Group, always documenting and documenting and documenting safety and security, an honorary member of the Dead Poet's Society, Jason Reid. Hey, Jason. Is Jason muted?
Graeme: He's here. He's muted and he's about to make his grand entrance. Hold on.
Rod: Jason's undercover.
Graeme: You're still muted, Jason. There you go.
Jason: Good evening everybody.
Rod: Okay, so while we figure this out
Jason: I am undercover. I've got my ... Good evening everybody.
Rod: Okay. So let's move on. Good evening, Jason. I think you're coming in and out but let's see if we can work on this technical sort of challenge. Now of course we have your two condo twins. We have your condo lawyer with Gowling WLG, Graeme 'Magnum P.I.' Macpherson.
Graeme: Unfortunately the moustache isn't quite there but I appreciate the sentiment.
Rod: And to have twins you need two so our condominium lawyer with Gowling WLG, wearing pink tonight just to confuse you, we have the voice of reason on this panel, David Plotkin. Hey, David.
David: Hello. I like being the voice of reason.
Rod: I know. I know. We need that. Okay, so folks, the usual housekeeping disclaimer. We have the chat channels that are open. Feel free to feed into it. To say hi. To share views and points and opinions and so on and so forth. David and Graeme, you'll moderate this, but anybody else, if you feel like you have something to add feel free to share your wisdom on the chat channel. Let me put my Ken Reeves glasses here because it's a bit too dark with my sunglasses. Now keep in mind the following; when we talk about legislation we're referring to Ontario legislation. You know what? I missed someone. Did I?
David: You actually missed two someones, I think. You missed Denise and you missed Tania.
Rod: Oh my goodness.
Denise: I thought you were giving me something special, Tania and I, or there was some reason.
Rod: So let me go, you're right, I missed two of you.
Denise: It's the hat.
Graeme: He's just jealous of your hat.
Denise: You know what's wrong because he doesn't recognize us.
Rod: Well that's it. So here, the first, a new guest on this panel, we have Wilson Blanchard's VP of Operations, always ready with a fresh set of homemade Jell-O freezies for you my friends, we have Tania Haluk. Hello, Tania.
Tania: Hello. Cheers.
Rod: Thanks for joining us. From Lash Condo Law, the queen of condo law, we have Denise Lash. Hi, Denise.
Denise: Hi, Rod.
Rod: Denise, before we forget, I'd like you to give me more information about CAIs Level II Certification for virtual chairing. I mean, you had the first virtual chairing certification, which was an outstanding success, out of this world, and now I think there's a second one coming up and maybe you can give us information before we forget to talk about it.
Denise: Yeah, this is for virtual chairing and this one will be a really interesting one. It's on June 10 from 10 to 12 and it's a certification program. The basic one will be taught again in October. I have to mention that Rod and Graeme and Natalia and Adam from CondoVoter are the ones that are putting this on. So you've got a great group. You're going to learn how to do adjournments. You're going to learn how to do two AGMs in one. How to handle requisition meeting, information meeting and amendments to declaration. So really important to know as a chair and even if you just want general information. 2 hours well worth it. caicanada.com is the website.
Rod: Wonderful. Thanks so much and we're going to put the link when we upload the PowerPoint presentation. I usually do this tonight or the day after. So you're going to get the link there as well. Let me now go back and share my screen so we can go back to the slides. Everybody's wondering what about Evona. How come Evona's not being introduced? Well, she is really Penny's twin and she's there to keep her under control, just in case Penny gets overly excited and starts screaming at us, Graeme's going to start doing pushups any minute now, so just in case we have Evona to keep us under control. So there it is. We now have introduced everybody. Graeme do we see the slides now on the screen?
Graeme: Yes we do.
Rod: Okay, wonderful. So back to the housekeeping. When we refer to legislation we refer to Ontario legislation. You'll have to adapt if you're listening from somewhere else. The information we provide today is as up to date as possible as of 5 o'clock on June 2. Most importantly, keep in mind that the information we provide tonight is of general nature. It's there to help you. It may not apply to your situation, to the specific of your situation. It's important for you to go and get advice and guidance from professionals that can look at your very specific situation and guide you. Finally, keep in mind that this webinar is going to be recorded and we're going to upload it on CondoAdvisor's website when the time comes. Okay, so we've introduced people. There it is. Let's move on. Okay. Here we are. Graeme, we're going to turn to you first. Finally we are jumping in. So, folks, on May 20 Ontario announced that it was scrapping it's colour scrapbook and was implementing a brand new simpler 3-Step Roadmap to Reopening Ontario. We've been told that details would follow and we've been waiting and waiting and waiting and as of 4:45 today the regulation hasn't been issued yet. So we're going to try to shed some light on this but we may be missing some of the moving parts here. I'm going to turn to you Graeme and I'm going to ask you to help us figure out this roadmap. Is this like a treasure map without the X spot on it? Is that what's happening?
Graeme: A little bit but you know what? I think actually, to the Provincial Government's credit, this one's been pretty easy to understand. I stand to be corrected when the official regulations come out, perhaps, but for now it's been relatively easy to follow. For everybody listening, I'm going to try and move through this one relatively quickly so that we can give time to everybody else to speak. But this helpful chart that you're seeing on the screen here, that's going to be available for everyone to look at too, and that really helps focus in on how the various steps are going to affect condos and what's going to be open when. With all that said, like Rod mentioned, we're no longer dealing with colour coding. We're going to be doing it in a Provincial 3-step plan. So step 1, which is currently set to come into effect on June 14, or maybe as of some recent announcement, maybe even earlier than that. But as of June 14, or earlier, we're going to be in step 1 and what that means is that you're going to be able to have outdoor gatherings of up to 10 people. Any condos with outdoor pools and splash pads and wading pools might be able to open with capacity limited and making sure that people are standing 2 meters apart. Your indoor recreational amenities, the most pressing one that everyone's concerned about, being the fitness room, that's going to have to remain closed unless you're a high performance athlete. But those exceptions don't apply to condos. Then short term rentals are going to be able to resume. Two other big ones that everybody's probably going to be interested in are that all construction projects can proceed and lawncare and landscaping services can proceed. How the steps work, or generally the plan is, that about 3 weeks after each step, depending on the amount of vaccines that have been administered, they're going to look at looking into the next step. So the plan, tentatively, assuming we go with these dates, is that on July 5 we're going to be looking at step 2. That's going to increase your indoor capacity limits to 5 people. So this maybe, depending on your board size, an opportunity to have board meetings again, at least, in person. Your indoor pools are still going to have to remain closed. So really there's not a whole lot of difference. The outdoor gathering limit is going to go up to 25. So, again, nothing really changing there for the purposes of AGMs. The big main one there is going to be, perhaps if you want to, you can have some indoor board meetings again, but I think everyone's getting so used to Zoom at this point, we'll have to see how that shakes out. Then, again, another 3 weeks into the future, assuming everything proceeds as planned, larger indoor and outdoor gatherings are going to be allowed. We don't know what size yet. All pools, indoor and outdoor, are going to be allowed to open and you're going to be allowed to also use the fitness center, indoor and outdoor. I think, as you'll hear throughout this presentation, just because you can doesn't necessarily mean you should. But what this does mean is that we have a roadmap and we need to start thinking in advance about how we want to open these things and what that's going to mean. I think those are the big ticket items vis a vis condos and like I said, this chart that you're seeing here, that's going to be available for anyone to check out once we post this online.
Rod: Right and in fact we have a bigger chart with additional columns but they didn't fit in the slide. So you're going to have access to both. The other thing that I think is important to take away is this, it's in 21 day increments. Every step is at minimum 21 days. The other things that's important to keep in mind is that there's a lot of details still missing, because in many cases the Province says you'll be allowed to do this with restrictions, but we don't know what the restrictions are yet and your guess is as good as mine as to what the restrictions will be. If I was a gambling man I would probably hazard a guess, I think the restrictions will likely be close to what we had under the red zones restrictions, but calling it step 3 rather than red zone is a much easier sell. It's all about marketing. It's like giving a grilled sardine to a kid and calling it Portuguese chocolate. I can't tell you how often I fell for that. So I think it's going to be kind of the same concept here. But time will tell. Okay, David, turning to you now. What about the various orders that went into place? Are these changing?
David: Sure. The only thing I'll add on this because Graeme's presentation was very detailed is just that the stay at home order that was in existence until June 2 has now expired. All that really means is that it's no longer illegal to leave your home for what are non-essentials reasons. But, I mean, most things are still not open until the 14 so it really doesn't change too much, from a practical sense. One of the bigger things to keep in mind, especially for condos that do have tenancy, owners who rent out their units to tenants, is that the residential evictions are now able to go forward once again. During that stay at home order there was a pause on evictions enforcement. So basically it was kind of just a holding pattern for owners who were dealing with residential tenancy issues. Now the process will continue. Follow the normal process, again for owners, issue your notice, your application to the Landlord Tenant Board, have your hearing, get your order and then have the enforcement by sheriff. This isn't really from the condo level but for owners, but also for condos, to recognize if they're trying to have their owners enforce certain compliance on the tenants of the owners, it's a good thing to know that that stick is now available again.
Rod: Okay. Thank you so much. So next, we're going to turn to you, Penny. We finally get to what everybody wants to talk about, the pools. I'm not going to repeat what Graeme said but basically, in a nutshell, until June 14 we're in the before stage and the before stage only allows exterior spray pad and splash pads. That's the only thing that's allowed now. On June 14, or sooner depending on what we've heard today, this afternoon, we'll fall into step 1. Now step 1 and step 2 are kind of the same in that outdoor water facilities will be open. So whether it's a splash pad or pool or whirlpool, the slides and so on, with restrictions and with a 2 meter distancing capacity. So step 1 and step 2 you'll have that but in both cases the indoor pools will be closed. Step 3 is when we see the indoor and outdoor pools opening. So that's sort of the legal side of it. I mean there's all sorts of steps to be taken even before we get to that point, and when we do get to that point, how to open them safely. So I'm turning to you, Penny, the floor is yours. Walk us through what people should be working on right now.
Penny: The first thing, anybody wants to open up their outdoor pool, is they have to submit their opening notification form. What we have done is we have include, in the attachment or in this slide that you can see, depending on where your building is located you can actually fill this online. It's a very easy form to fill out. So if you do want to open it I suggest you do it immediately just in case if you need to open up, if they will open up 14 days ahead of time. The next thing is right now if your pool was open last summer for that couple of months, the restrictions are staying the same, so far. Nothing has been changed. But I do highly recommend that we also have posted a Life Saving Society Guideline to open up your water facility. That page gets updated immediately when the restrictions or any new procedures come in. So it's good to go to that guideline and see the updated one. But so far the capacity of your pool, outdoor pool, to be able to open is 20 to 30%. One of the things that I've been hearing is that when the health inspector comes onsite they want to see your safety plan and your protocols. So they want to see a booking procedure in place because the number, obviously, the numbers are limited to 20 to 30%. If you are using building software, either Mac ..., BuildingLink, Condo Control or Concierge Plus, when people book their timeslot, we do recommend and it also says it in the guideline that some sort of a waiver or a disclaimer that residents do understand that they're using the facility at their own risk and you'd also like to include all the cleaning time and all the protocols there. So this way they have it so when they do book their appointment everything is in front of them. They understand what kind of measures that the condo corporation has taken for the safety of the residents. Then before they enter the facility they need to get a health screening done, and that is usually done either by a security guard or a pool attendee or a lifeguard, but someone needs to be there. Those are the things that the health inspector will also do inspect when they do come in for their inspections.
Rod: Okay. Let me jump in, Penny. What's the name of that Society or site that you are referring us to so that I post it.
Penny: Its called Life Saving Society Guideline to Open Your Water Facility.
Rod: Okay, wonderful. We'll post that and much of the precautions and protocols you're listing now, which are amazing, were in place under the red and the orange zone restrictions. So the signs seem to indicate that we will be able to reopen but there's going to have to be some protocols, some precaution. Screening, booking ahead of time, tracing and so on. What about adapting, maybe, the actual physical location. Your pool deck and so on. What kind of precautions do you think people should consider?
Penny: One other thing is mandatory to do is there's mandatory COVID signs that needs to be posted in your pool area and the link for each region, Toronto, York and Peel, they all have different posters. I believe we will post this for you that if you just click on the link and get access to those mandatory signs, you can print them and laminate them and they will tell you exactly where it needs to be posted in the pool area. Also, floor signs needs to be addressed as well. So it will basically direct if you go to enter from one area and exit from one because you don't want them to cross each other. If you have any outdoor furniture they all need to be removed. Based on the capacity I would leave half of the capacity of the chairs, as long as they're 2 meters apart. Cushions need to be removed because they can't be disinfected. It is recommended that you post your cleaning time. So what we recommend for our clients is that, let's just say they can swim for 2 hours and there's the 15 minutes cleaning time that they can fog the area, the railing of the pools and all the furniture outside, it can be fogged as well. But these things, they have to be in place before you open up. These are the mandatory steps that you need to take, basically.
Rod: Okay, wonderful. So a couple of things. People that are chatting, if you want everybody to see your comments make sure you select not just panelists but panelists and attendees. That's the first thing. Thank you very much, Penny. That was a very good overview. Also, that sort of reminded me that we put together a memorandum, a very exhaustive list of protocols and precautions, that you should consider when reopening your amenities. We'll probably put a link to it. If not ask us for it. There's about 25 things to consider. There's more but I came up with 25 at the time and they're all very much in line with, Penny, with what you presented. Now Penny talked about how the Life Saving Society was recommending or suggesting waivers and that got us all thinking. I'm going to turn to you, Denise. We spoke about waivers awhile back and I'm just wondering if the landscape has changed at all on that. They're kind of limited value to some extent. What do you think?
Denise: Well, I agree. I don't think anything has changed but I think what Penny was talking about is when you're signing up online that you just acknowledge by clicking and that in itself is a waiver. So in order to book you have to click it and there's an acknowledgement. If you have an acknowledgement, that's great. The point here is that owners should know when they're using the amenity it's at their own risks. Whether it was pre-COVID, or post-COVID or during COVID, it's the same thing. By saying that you must sign a waiver, and then if someone refuses to sign a waiver, are you really going to prevent them from using the pool? You have to be able to enforce it. So, of course, that's my position and I think, Rod, we were in agreement earlier on this.
Rod: We still are. We're still in agreement on that.
Denise: Okay.
Rod: No, no. For sure. The issue is what you just identified I think, Denise. What if somebody doesn't want to sign it? I'm far from certain that you can impose a waiver onto some people and if they don't sign it they can't go in. The other thing I would say is if you're faced with an owner that did sign it, an owner that did not sign it, and they both get injured somehow, does that mean the person who signed it is in a different situation than they person who didn't sign it? There's all sorts of legal questions around that but there's no doubt that sharing information and flagging to your users that there's some risks and you got to pay attention to the rules and restrictions, that's a different story altogether, for sure that's good. I'm going to turn, I know you're wondering where are the managers? They're quiet and you're not used to that so let me turn to Tania who's going to take the lead on this. What do you see, Tania, on reopening pools? How are people, and your corporations in your portfolio, how are they tackling this so far? A lot of resistance or a lot of compliance?
Tania: It's both really. It depends on the communities. We're seeing different things but what we really appreciate is the frustration of the residents. Everyone has had it with all the restrictions and the rules changing and no one knows what the regulations. I liken it to putting a freshly baked cookie on the counter and telling a little kid you can't touch that. They're looking at their beautiful pools and their gyms that haven't been open and we're saying, "Nope. Not yet." I just want to make it clear from the manager's standpoint, that's not our rules. We're following the regulations as we get them too, as confusing as they may be, and ever evolving. It's not up to the manager whether or open or close the pool. We would like everyone to be happy and have something else to distract them with instead of the usual nuisances that are coming up for, for sure, but our priority is the health and safety of the community, really. We want to make sure that everyone is safe and the proper protocols are in place so they can be able to use their beautiful facilities. Recognizing that that comes at a cost. So to Penny's point of if you need to have someone go in there every hour to do cleaning, who's doing that? Have you budgeted for that? Enforcement has been the biggest challenge. What are we going to do? We can't levy fines. We can't whack them with a hockey stick if they're closer than 2 meters away from each other. That's part of the challenge as well is the restrictions. So the booking is great if you have the capacity in your condominium to do that. For some of the smaller condos that's again another added expense to consider who's managing that process. The health and safety precautions are number one and then, of course, the protocols and having that in place even before you do your health inspections. How are you going to manage the traffic?
Rod: Right. Right. Another problem, Tania, with using a hockey stick to keep people 2 meters apart is that the GTA has demonstrated that they're not very good at handling their hockey stick. I'm going to turn to maybe you, Josee. Anything to add on the pool front?
Josee: I couldn't have said it better than Tania. People are anxious and looking forward to having their facilities back. We all agree on that. We all want the facilities opened and functioning as normally as possible and, again, it is our job to say no, unfortunately. We bear the brunt of the reactions sometimes but please, rest assured, as soon as they can be open safely and well within compliance with all of the regulations, I'm sure that all the facilities and all the boards and managers are working towards that. There's a significant amount of work to be done, mind you. It doesn't always show but a lot of it is done from last year. It's a matter of pulling out the stuff that you did last year, making sure it's still applicable, it's updated and away you go.
Rod: Okay. Thank you so much. Let's switch gears and let's talk about the other burning issue which is your fitness room. I've even seen it in the, we've talked about the waivers, I think we need Tinkerbell to tell me when to turn the page here, so let's talk now about the fitness rooms. I've even seen it in the chat room today where people say, "Well my public health region advisor told me that we could open the pools and we could open the gyms." So a question that we keep getting is, "Are you sure, Rod, that we can't open them?" So let me sort of tell you how I get to my conclusion and then after that we'll talk about June 14 and onwards. Presently there is no doubt that we fall under the Reopening Ontario Act and there is no doubt that we fall under regulation 82/20 which is a regulation that implements restrictions to both shutdown zones and grey zones. You can't argue about that. That's the starting point. Now this regulation is divided in schedules and there's two schedules that are of interest. If you want to have a look a them; Schedule 2 deals with businesses. Now everybody I can see you jumping up and down saying, "We're not a business.", right? Schedule 3 is dealing with places. I think you're a place. I think a condo is a place. Under Schedule 3, section 4 provides this, it reads like this, "Each person responsible for an indoor or outdoor recreational amenity," recreational amenity, " must ensure that it is closed." That's the starting point. So if you have a recreational amenity, such as a pool or a gym, whether it's indoor or outdoor, it must be closed if it's in a place. If your gym is not in a place, if it's in outer space, well then maybe it doesn't apply. Now it does refer to section 48, Schedule 2. So if you're allowed to open under section 48, Schedule 2, then you could open it. But that section deals with businesses and a minute ago you told me you weren't a business. But in any event, even if you were a business, what it provides for is that indoor and outdoor sports and recreational fitness amenities, I think that captures pools and gyms, they can only open if it's for a high performance athlete, a professional team, and we know there's one in the GT area that would have needed that, and child care, mental health support and social services. Okay, so anyway, I'm sorry to be the party pooper but every party needs one, I'll be the one, your gyms and pools have to be closed because they're in a place and because they're a recreational/sports facility. Let's look forward to June 14. June 14. Penny, help us out here. I guess the summary is that as of June 14 we'll be able to open outdoor recreational/fitness amenities and we'll only be able, as we read it now, we'll only be able to open indoor, with restrictions on step 3. I know we're looking at a crystal ball and we're trying to predict what would be these restrictions but what do you sort of say that people should do? What's your recommendation? What should we be working on at this stage?
Penny: Honestly, stage 3 is so far away but it's not. Things could change. It's hard to kind of say what the restrictions will be. One of the things we do suggest to managers is to have your fitness equipment maintenance, preventative maintenance, completed because your equipment has been done for almost a year. 6 months to almost a year or year and a half. So they need to be fully inspected, lubricated and checked, especially when stage 3 around the corner, a lot of places are going to be opening up so everyone's going to get booked ... your service provider. We do recommend that's the first thing to do. So far, if the restrictions stay the same as last year, it's going to be the similar thing with pools. It's booking online, limited people, probably blocking off equipment to ensure that people, when they're working out, there's 2 meters apart. Health screening test screening done and all that stuff and also cleaning in between appointments. What we did with our gyms, we book them every 45 minutes and 15 minutes we left it to be cleaned so they can maximize their time. So far that's what it says but, again, the minute the restrictions or the government say anything, I'm sure it's going to be posted online. Similar to last year.
Rod: Okay. Very good. So, again, just as with the pools you can work on the physical layout. You can remove some equipment to provide for more room. You could put some signs, traffic signs, on the floor and on the doors to sort of direct traffic. I realize that some people have a very, very small gym. Where I live our gym is in a broom closet and so even if we wanted we really couldn't fit two people in that room. You got to get out of the room to change your mind but still, it's a fitness room, it's accessible to members of the public as we can define it, in the sense that it's not just mine. So we're going to keep our eyes up for the regulation and we'll try to update you as soon as we know more. Josee, I'll give you the lead on reopening fitness rooms. How's Ottawa reacting here?
Josee: Much the same as with pools. People are looking forward to it. The challenge that we have in our particular portfolio is that we manage some buildings that are unstaffed who have fitness facilities where residents want them open. Then you're faced with it's fine to book in advance and only have one person in the room at the time, and perhaps you've improved ventilation by putting in a filter in and all that good stuff, but who is going to spend that 15 minutes between appointments cleaning the equipment? There is no one. There is no appointed staff so unless you're hiring a contractor to come and babysit the room, and that's quite costly as you can imagine, it becomes difficult and now you're relying on the users to do their own cleaning. You are asking them to use the facility responsibly and respectfully, and then when they're done, make sure that they clean off everything they've touched. Or perhaps you're asking the next person to clean before they use, maybe that's better, because you're motivated by your own safety then to make sure that you've cleaned everything. But that's one of the things that we're finding in smaller condos that is going to be a problem. If it is actually mandated that you have to clean the equipment between uses, and that you can't give the responsibility to the user, then they may not actually be able to open those facilities.
Rod: Right. So one of the questions that keeps coming up and I think, Penny, I don't know if you have answer, sorry to put you on the spot there, somebody says, when we're talking about 30% capacity, for instance, they look at the actual bather load capacity and then they go with 30% but then they said when they got their measuring tape out they realize that in fact they could squeeze in more people if you were to limit it by the 2 meter distance between the bathers. So how do we get to calculate 30%? Is it on the room capacity.
Penny: It's on the room capacity. For example, if it's 30 people, so its 20 to 30%. We have some of our pools that, I think somebody also commented, so they allow 15 people but there's no way you can put 15 people and keep 2 meters apart so the board has decided to actually cut down to 7 people at a time. As long as they can keep the 2 meters and it's 20 to 30% of the capacity of the room, which is posted, you should post it on the wall in the pool area, then they can't go above that.
Rod: Okay and I'm going to say this. The old regulations, the colour coded regulations, specifically provided on how to calculate this reduced capacity and it was really based on size of the room and there was a bit of a calculation to be done. So anyways, a bit of a mystery but if we find out if there's a way to put together a formula, we'll for sure try to guide you. Denise, in 30 seconds or less, the guest suites. Because we're behind schedule. Anything to say about guest suites?
Denise: Not much to say. I think it's an appropriate time to start looking at renting guest suites. Now short terms rentals are permitted. Visitors are now permitted. No more stay at home order. Just follow health protocols, cleaning and I think that's a reasonable approach
Rod: Okay. Keeping in mind as well the existing short term rental rules that are applicable to your municipality and to your condominium, if we're talking about Airbnb or short term rentals. Okay. Switching gears. We're going to talk about another pressure point and a point of friction and contention. The barbeques. We're going to tackle this on two fronts. We're going to first talk about the communal barbeques and then after that we're going to talk about individual barbeques on condos. Let me just see here, that's for you David, that's your slide. All I'm going to say about communal barbeques is that, in my view anyways, if you have a patio or area or rooftop terrace where you have communal barbeques, to me that is a recreational amenity. Right? And if it is a recreational amenity my reading of the regulation is that they have to be closed for the time being. I realize that is not popular, and I realize that what if you only send one person to deal with all the burgers and hotdogs and nobody comes close to that person, but you still have to look at what are the regulations applicable to this amenity, if it is an amenity. I'm going to turn to, I'm not sure who want to take the lead on this, let me just look at people's faces. Who's trying to avoid me. Josee or maybe Tania. Tania, you haven't spoken in a while. How are you approaching this?
Tania: A couple of different ways. Some have closed it. They're taking the approach that it's less inconvenient just to shut it as opposed to make additional rules and regulations of how they're going to use it and someone's got to figure out that maze of forms and documents and bookings, etcetera. Other ones have removed any of the furnishings that were out there. So you can go. You can cook, sort of one family at a time, but you can't stay there and eat. You have to just cook your food and then off you go. Again, just like some of the other amenities we talked about, if you have the luxury of having a booking facility where people can do that and then you have to take into consideration the cleaning and things in between. But I was inspired by some of the comments to try and keep that 2 meter distancing. Maybe we need to consider those human size hamster balls to keep us 2 meters apart when we're in the pool or gym. It'll measure the 2 meters for us. We won't touch each other.
Rod: Now Josee is all excited. You've put a thought in her mind and I can just see it.
Josee: Hamster balls.
Rod: I can just see it. Okay.
Josee: I feel a blog coming on.
Rod: Yeah, there's a blog coming on for sure. So that's for the communal barbeque and then another common question at this time of the year focuses on individual barbeques on balconies. Maybe I can turn to you, David, and you can share some light on what's permitted, what's not permitted.
David: For sure. Just from a fire code standard, there's no prohibition on individual usage of barbeques on balconies but there's so many other elements you've got to look at here. You've got to check your Municipal bylaws. These barbeques are not permitted by a number of different municipalities. You see Ottawa, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton and London. Sorry, they are not prohibited so they are allowed. I did that double negative thing that I hate but I did it to myself. They are prohibited by Municipal bylaws in Guelph and Kitchener if the corporation has a board in two dwelling units which is everyone. What's interesting is regardless of whether the Municipal bylaws prohibit or permit barbeques on balconies, they all kind of tend to refer back to the condo's ability to regulate or prohibit barbeque usage anyways. So that leads into the next place you have to look, and with every other question we have it's always you've got to look at your governing documents, because some condos will permit, for example, electric grills versus by gas or propane. Some won't allow any and in any event you've always got to keep in the back of your mind the nuisance provisions that are always in the rules or bylaws. At worst you fall back on section 117, Injury to Others. In the new version of the Condo Act whenever that shaded section of 117 becomes unshaded and comes into effect, there's a specific language in there on nuisance from noise or smell. So just something to keep in mind that even if you don't have a specific rule on barbeque usage, you just got to keep in mind not to cause nuisance to others, and just more generally be aware of the Provincial regs on propane barbeque usage, for example. When you go to Costco to refill your propane tanks you've got to have a certain type of tank and they won't refill it if it's more than 10 years old. That sort of thing.
Rod: Right and you can't get into an elevator with a propane tank. You have to use a service elevator. If there's no service elevator you can be in the elevator but you've got to be alone and so on and so forth. Okay. We're running out of time but I'm going to go from David to David. David, now you're on. Give us maybe your top 5 tips, engineering tips, for the summer. What is going to keep you guys busy this summer?
David: Before I do that, Rod, let me cover this bottom point just to clarify for everyone that construction before step 1, so where we're in right now obviously, is still open for residential condos but eventually will open up. Commercial is currently closed. Which is also related or allowed residents with the stay at home order. Some people were less willing to allow an engineer who needed to get out and look at their balcony or their windows to ... ... and even we were trying to minimize the number of people we were accessing and bugging so component evaluations have been rescheduled and now there's a bit of blitz happening in June and into July. If you go to the next slide is my top 5, Rod.
Rod: Oh, there it is.
David: There it is. I think these are things that had kept us busy and will continue as an engineering company doing reserve fund studies and restoration repairs. The health and safety spotlight that has been cast on the contractors doing the work is going to remain. Whether that now shifts gradually away from what their specific handwashing measures are but continuing to be on top of them in terms of what's their safety protocols and it's not something that is going to be a light switch that just turns off and I think it's actually going to help us be able to have safer sites, not just from a COVID pandemic standpoint, but also from the standpoint of them following other health and safety guidelines. So that's probably here to stay. People should also know that they need extra time for building permits. This is not new. It's been the case kind of for the past 12 - 18 months as the pandemic has been happening. The building departments have all gone online and so it's been a slower process. Some Municipalities weren't ready for it and we found that there were a few processes, if they said 4 weeks then in most cases it's 6, sometimes 8 weeks. Contractors are already booked. Some of them solid for this year because there were projects that got delayed last year and there was a pent-up demand for working happening here in summer 2021. So not only has that backlog of work impacted contractors, in terms of they're so busy they're trying to hire people but the fourth point comes in, the prices. That graph in the bottom right corner is actually steel rebar. If you're doing a bargain garage or balcony repairs, that's the price of steel rebar. I could have put the graph of lumber. Lumber has almost even a worst graph than that in terms of increases in pricing, if you're trying to do fencing. So, the pricing for projects has gone bonkers in the past spring and summer time and it's only continuing. I just got an email yesterday from a supplier that says that their products are also increasing in costs and harder to find. So if you're not already locked in to a contract with someone firm, the contractors are, obviously in some cases, padding their pricing for they don't know what the situation may be like in the months to come, and they're also extending some timelines because they know they might not be able to start the roofing project that you want to happen in July. The reality is they might not be able to get polyiso insulation in time. Or lumber at a decent cost. Then finally I think something we're always considering with our clients is what does it mean that residents want a break? They've been home for so long. It was cold and now summer's out and some of us want to be on the beach. So if we are doing a smelly roof replacement project, or chipping hammers with your balcony, all the way Monday to Friday plus Saturday and Sunday, sometimes you need to consider, as a team together, does this makes sense? Should we just shut this thing down for Saturday and Sunday? Other clients are wanting a break on their contributions to the reserve fund and so knowing where your residents are at, what pinpoints they have, whether it is taking a couple of days off or postponing the project that was going to start this summer into the fall, I would say those are some tips we've been talking to our clients about. Back to you, Rod.
Rod: Okay, wonderful. Amazing, David. Always very clear. This guy's amazing. I love this guy. We should have you more often. So book some time this coming fall. We're going to get you back on this. Maybe you know what you could talk about next time? You could talk about how the reserve fund studies maybe now are a bit out of whack considering that the price of wood is just out of this universe. I'm not sure how we'll be able to sort of keep on track with our reserve fund balance. Maybe something to think about. Okay, and you've almost allowed us to get back on time. We're 1 minute late and that's just in time to turn to our good friend, the safety and security guy, and I think you've changed your background. There must have been some scrambling taking place. It was probably no good Wi-Fi signal in the bunker where you usually hide. So, Jason, turning to you. I've divided your slide in three slides. You've got 5 minutes to cover them. 1, 2, 3, go, Jason.
Jason: Well thank you, Rod, and some really excellent points that have been said today and really I wanted to breakdown into three points here. Number one, there should be some condo security tips that are pressing for this summer or at least timely to take a look at now. Right now many of your amenities have been shutdown for several months. So a key control or a fob access control audit. An internal one. You don't have to go and spend money but an internal one verifying that your keys are where they're supposed to be and who has access to your amenities. So before you start opening them all up, what a great opportunity to kind of audit them, and make sure that that is up to date. Finally, exterior lighting. Slip, trips and falls are the number one injury claim in the Province of Ontario. Slip, trips and falls are quite often related back to poor site conditions or lighting issues. So a great step, one night this week, have your evening security team do a safety and security review of your exterior lighting and make sure they're all functioning. Finally, bicycles and minor thefts, specifically with vehicles in parking lots. We have seen an increase of these. In fact, in Niagara region, Toronto and Ottawa I've learnt of arrests, very recently, of individuals that have been found with lots of materials in their home that don't belong to them. The majority of those items were things that were taken from vehicles on properties as well as underground parking garages and, primarily, it was bicycles and expensive bicycles. We could talk for an entire afternoon on the security precautions for that. That's something to focus on. Finally, item number 2, condo safety tips. You are going to see an increase in alcohol consumption on the condo grounds. Why? We're seeing it of alcohol consumption in public parks and it's been a question raised for Municipalities over the last several weeks. So don't think that this question won't be raised, if not already, in your condominium or vertical community. Finally, it's 2021 and I know it's been 15 months but our code compliance for the last 15 months has not been waived. In fact, nothing has been waived as far as fire code compliance. So that means fire safety plans still have to be annually reviewed. Your staff. Have you gotten any new staff in the last 15 months? How did you do training if you didn't have group training available? So it brings a lot of code compliance questions and it's just another time to take a look at those. The next one was resident's spring cleaning. As you can imagine your residents have been busy over the last 4 weeks, cleaning out their suites and storage areas. Where do they put some of this stuff? Parking garage spaces and balconies. So here's the problem. No storage of any kind is permitted inside your vehicle parking space other than a vehicle. That means no snow tires. It doesn't mean garbage until I move it. There is no storage permitted in your vehicle parking space and balconies are a big problem for fires in the summer time. Why? Because in the spring we overload our balconies, or in the winter time we do it too, but then discarded cigarette butts fly onto the balcony and we have balcony fires. Lots of statistics in the last 12 months, or 24 months, on that. Finally, the third component. Amenity reopening. Listen. I've said this for the last 12 months on these webinars and I'm truly excited to be here. But quite simply, everyone of your amenities should have a one page safety plan. It's that simple. That one page safety plan, pretend like you're writing a letter to the residents, explaining what you're doing to protect staff. What you're doing to protect residents. When and what time intervals you're cleaning. Then send it to all the residents and post it at the front door of that amenity. We've had discussions about waivers, whether I'm allowed to use it or it's safe. Listen. We are responsible to manage these amenities and that includes being safe. So create a plan. Property managers, have it approved by your board, and once it's approved send it to all the residents and post it at the residence. So that you're allowing your residents to make informed decisions and know what's being used and what you've been done to there. Transparency and informed use of those amenities is very important. That's all I've got, Rod. I hope I'm not over time.
Rod: Oh my goodness. You would be an amazing kid's hockey coach. You would just get them running and playing and scoring. That's amazing. Our very own national safety expert. We're on time. I'm going to turn to you, Graeme, with the Hawaiian shirt. Yeah, that's you. So something that's just around the corner, and we blog about it every year, is how to deal with excessive patriotism, I guess, when Canada Day comes around. So, take it away.
Graeme: Well, this is good timing because it's coming up and it's going to come up faster than we think. So lots of condos have various rules preventing people from hanging things from the balconies or erecting structures, like flags. That raises the question when people are feeling patriotic, especially around Canada Day, what are you as a condo supposed to do when people start putting flags out? Or as an owner can you put a flag out? It's hard to say. We do get some help here from a Federal piece of legislation called the National Flag of Canada Act and it tells us that every person who is in control of a condominium building is encouraged to allow the National Flag of Canada to be displayed, in accordance with flag protocol, and that flag protocol, you can find it online but it sets up how it's supposed to be displayed and to make sure that it's hung with dignity and all that. But it doesn't actually say that you have to allow the flag to be displayed. It says you're encouraged to. Now that said, if you were here for our presentation, our deep dive on rules, you'll remember that condominium rules have be to reasonable. Is it reasonable to put on all out ban on Canadian flags, especially in light of that legislation I just read? I don't know. I'm tempted to say no it's not reasonable. I think maybe the helpful middle ground here is to maybe set up some rules that set the timeframe during which you can put a flag out. Maybe the rules have to show that you can't damage the common elements when you put this flag out or that they can mandate the size of it. Anything like that. I think maybe this is just something for condo boards and owners to look deep inside and not start WWIII with each other over this. This isn't something you want to be fighting about. Find a way to work together and awake and make sure that owners can display their patriotism probably in a reasonable way that's not damaging common elements. But in such a way that it doesn't give unlimited freedom and open the door to if I can put the flag out then I guess I can build a shed on my balcony.
Rod: Right. The issue is this, I don't think anybody's opposed to seeing a couple of Canadian flags on balconies around Canada Day. Everybody's in favour of that. I think the issue happens when October rolls around and the Canadian flag is still there and the issue is not the flag. The issue is what is a flag attached to. That's the issue. Don't get me wrong. There's no bigger Canadian fan than this guy here but the way I see this, just like pumpkins at Halloween, get them out, display them, have fun but afterwards just bring them back in and everybody's going to be happy. So that's how I see it. Okay, folks, for the first time in our 25 episode history, we're on time. So I'm going to go around the table. I'm going to thank our good speakers and I'm going to start with you, Josee Deslongchamps, the mother hen of all managers, any parting words for the summer?
Josee: Just keep your sense of humour. Take some time to relax. Be kind to one another. We'll get through this. It's almost over.
Rod: Okay, very good. Thank you so much and the VP of Operations with Wilson Blanchard, we have Tania Haluk. Tania, parting words?
Tania: Similar sentiment. Can't wait for the regulations to be over and we can socialize once again. Again, be excellent to yourselves and each other. This is a challenging time for all of us so just be kind, be nice.
Rod: Okay, thank you so much, Tania for joining us today. Yesterday during the practice run she was a little bit edgy but I think today she decided to be on her best behaviour. We'll have her again in September/October and poke at her just to get her going a bit. Thank you so much, Tania. Engineer with WSP, we have David Heska. David, thank you so much. Any sort of parting words?
David: No. I think I'll just close off by telling everyone to enjoy the summer. Get out there. Enjoy the fresh air. Enjoy the beach and if there are any contractors that are bugging you, then talk to your fellow board members, and tell them you need a break.
Rod: Very good and if you have any engineer questions go to your friendly neighbourhood engineer and get some advice. It's always less expensive to get advice at the front end than at the back end. Now, the queen of condo law, Denise, also speaking on behalf of CAI. Remind us again, Denise, the dates for this CAIs Level II Certification.
Denise: It's June 10 at 10:00am. It's a 2 hour workshop. But I wanted to say something. I know this is about working. I'm going to give you a piece of work to all those directors and managers listening. You really need to start planning for your hybrid meetings. If you want a hybrid. Something to think about is surveying your owners to see if they want to stick with virtual meetings. If they want to have in person meetings but perhaps use electronic voting. Or some kind of hybrid. You really need to plan ahead of time and understand what that means. I think over the coming months, I know Rod you're involved, Graeme, more webinars on this topic because you really need to plan ahead.
Rod: Right. I do think that is the future of meetings. People have tasted virtual meetings. I don't think anybody is overly excited to go back to putting a ballot in the shoebox that's being handed around. I think that regardless of whether or not we're going to meet in person and to what extend and how we're going to meet, there's going to be an element of virtual meeting that's going to stay. There's no doubt in mind. Who would want to go to without electronic voting? It's just so, so, so, simple. So, yes. Let's keep an eye out for that. Thank you so much, Denise. You've been with us from the very beginning. From our very first episode. I can't thank you enough for that and for your support.
Denise: You've done an amazing job, Rod, and I just want to thank you for allowing me to participate in all those episodes. It's been a wonderful experience.
Rod: Thanks so much. We'll see you in September. Now, Penny. Penny, the coach from Results Lifestyle. Thank you so much for coming and on such short notice. You did an amazing job. Any sort of words of wisdom or parting words before we go?
Penny: Honestly, I know it's going to be a very stressing time when the amenities are going to be opened. Just please refer to the links that's posted on CondoAdvisor for your outdoor pools and pools. That's going to make your life easier and it's going to help you with your safety guideline to be posted. Just follow the guidelines and then hopefully everything will go as smooth as possible for everyone. Cross fingers.
Rod: Thank you so much, Penny. Thank you so much. Now, the hockey coach that every kid wished they had, from the National Life Safety Group, Jason Reid. You've also been a part of many of our webinars and I can't thank you enough for that. There it is. We're parting for the summer but any parting words for us? Do we still have Jason?
Jason: Hi, yes. Listen, Rod, thank you very much for having me and everybody. Listen, you really deserve a little pat on the back for the simple reason is that I've attended a lot of these condo advisor meetings and we've had upwards of 300, 400, 500 attendees. All of this out of your time, off the off-hours typically, and Condo Land's really stepped up so you deserve a little bit of recognition and you deserve a little bit of time off. One thing I'm going to give everybody what for. Tomorrow morning I'm going to email Rod a sample, one page kind of amenity opening that will cover a lot of the things that people talked about. I'll give it to CondoAdvisor as a Word document, and if anybody wants to download it from there, you can audit it and do it yourself and turn one into each one of your amenities. I'm just thankful that everybody comes together. So thank you for the opportunity.
Rod: That's amazing. Thank you so much, Jason. Okay, that leaves us with the two condo twins. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the two condo twins. The voice of reason and the other one that's here to keep us in line but he's also here for comical relief and for his good looks. I'm going to start with you, Graeme. Graeme Macpherson, our fierce condo lawyer with Gowling WLG. So, Magnum, take it away.
Graeme: Well, in keeping with the introduction you just gave me, my advice is less practical more just life advice, consider buying and wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I've been wearing this one all day and I've had a lovely relaxing day.
Rod: Nice. Thank you so much, Graeme. So, David Plotkin, the other condo lawyer we have here at Gowling WLG, the voice of reason. You get the final words I think, David.
David: Yeah. I see in the chat that Tanya is a Jets fan and I just want to say Go Habs Go and the Toronto and Ottawa condos don't have to worry about their team's flags flying on the balconies. ha ha. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. We talked about that. One of the earlier one, early, early, early webinars and now we're talking about it as we plan through the summer into reopening. So consider what reasonable steps make sense for your condo and wish you all a very happy and enjoyable summer.
Rod: Wonderful. Thank you so much, David. So folks, our next webinar, unless Ontario comes to a screeching halt, our next webinar will be on September 1, which is the first Wednesday of the month. We're going to be posting the information on CondoAdvisor. You'll need to register again. You know where to find the information on CondoAdvisor. Top right, there's the webinar tab. If you click on this it will give you the registration and information about upcoming webinars. It will also link you towards past webinars. If you want to rewatch some of your favourite classics you can do this by going to the CondoAdvisor webinar tab. Folks, I can't thank you enough for spending time with us every month. I have a blast putting this together. I hope you find it interesting and useful and my turn to wish you an amazing summer. To encourage everybody to roll with the punches. We're almost getting close to almost being near the end of this dark tunnel. Wash your hands. Wear a mask. Be kind to each other and let's pull through and meet on the other side of this summer, on September 1. Thank you very much everybody. Have a great evening.