In February of this year, Council passed a By-Law which required Emergency Care establishments like Transition House to be licensed. This applies to both the current Transition house on Chapel Street and their new location at 310 Division Street. Without any public announcement, the Town’s web site indicates that Transition House is now licensed. The licence is for one year: valid from July 17, 2024 to July 17, 2025. Presumably when Transition House moves in September, the licence will transfer to that location. The licence requirements are quite stringent but do not cover costs to the Town – Transition House serves the entire county but is located in Cobourg. Summarized below are some of the requirements which Transition House must meet and presumably agreed to since they are now licensed.
Summary of By-Law requirements
As listed by the Town
Among other things, this licensing system is intended to:
- Enhance the enforcement of the Zoning By-law provisions that require an E.C.E to be located in a Main Central Commercial Zone
- Address issues related to Public Health and Safety; Consumer Protection; Nuisance Control and the General Well-being of Persons.
- Introduce a requirement to have a local contact available at all times to respond to issues and who is available to attend within a period of no greater than one hour from the time of contact by telephone or email.
- Introduce insurance requirements
- Introduce a Code of Conduct
A full list of requirements is in Section 6 on page 7 of the By-Law – download the by-law from resources below.
Services Provided
As listed by Transition House
As Northumberland County’s emergency shelter, we provide safe, dignified and supportive temporary housing, life skills and transitional support services to men and women over the age of 18 from Cobourg, Port Hope, Grafton, Colborne, Campbellford, Brighton, Hamilton Township, and Alderville. Our service area includes all of Northumberland County.
Since there are a lot of people at the encampment who are homeless, it seems that few are taking advantage of the services provided by Transition House. Licensing may make Transition House acceptable to the Town but does not solve the encampment problem.
And for anyone curious about progress on the sale of Brookside, go to the Infrastructure Ontario Site here.
Brookside is still listed as “On the open Market” despite rumours of negotiations with Fleming College.
Resources
Town Web site
- Emergency Care Establishment Application page – includes list of licensed establishments
On Cobourg Internet
Other web sites
Cobourg Blog reports
- Cobourg Council to regulate Transition House – 4 March 2024
- Progress on Transition House Agreement – 28 March 2024
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The bylaw is an impressive document. Kudos to the lawyer that obsessed over it. My general impression is the initial license is granted by default BUT the bylaw is a web of every possible mechanism by which the license renewal can be denied.
If denizens of Transition House are down on their luck, but otherwise responsible people motivated to better their lives, then all will be well and the license will renew.
One clause that stood out for me is proof of liability insurance (page 8, $2M or more) with the Town being added as additional insured. As an insurer, what premium would you charge?
You can’t enforce a by-law that does not exist, but you can also choose not to enforce a by-law that does exist. To what degree will the town turn a blind eye when the by-law is inevitably tested?
So Transition House got an ECE licence. As no one from the town/county/TH has stated otherwise the taxpaying residents can assume that all parts of the bylaw are going to be adhered to? It would be great to see the code of conduct, proposed occupancy date, which company was hired for security etc. The county and TH have been strangely quiet since the vocal opposition to the town bylaw which usually means someone caved in. Will we ever find out?
Caved IN is a very mild term for it !
Obviously the Property Owners of Cobourg are not making enough noise for Council ,Mayor and Management to Hear .
As for town and or BY Law Enforcement that’s a distant dream you can never get these people on the phone or to respond in a TIMLEY fashion the usual response is they are not Mandated to deal with ??
what ever that means ?
If there is not a 24 x 7 Response Team / Persons put in place ahead of time — over and above
By Law Dept —- mandated to handle what’s about to become of Down Town and the neighbouring properties to 310 Division then I think were all in trouble as it will never come into effect after the fact . And what about the impact on Property Values and peaceful safe enjoyment around 310. To many facts and decisions have been made without the publics knowledge or input .
I don’t see this “new” Transition House being any more successful than the old, especially if they serve only County residents. But wait a sec., l guess anyone using Brookside encampment as their address is living in the County…..beware of interpretation of the rules.so Cobourg will continue to pay all of the bills. There will be no relief of the squalor only increased drug activity around the turnstile Hub as the weather turns cold, the drug supply house still exists at James and John and fuels the problem so the Dynamic Patrols needs to really step up in this neighbourhood
“the Dynamic Patrols needs to really step up in this neighbourhood”
Surely your last comment was sarcasm. DYNAMIC patrols indeed.