Home > Housing Issues > Standards of Maintenance 

Standards of Maintenance

Municipal Standards of Maintenance (SoM) Bylaws allow local government to force landlords to keep their rental buildings in good repair.  The Government of British Columbia created a model SoM bylaw to assist municipalities in developing their own.

Not all municipalities have SoM bylaws. TRAC strongly encourages all municipalities to not only pass these bylaws but to strictly enforce them.

Additional information can be found in the links below:
•    City of Vancouver Standards of Maintenance Bylaw
•    City of Vancouver Motion on Enforcing Standards of Maintenance Bylaw
•    “A City soft on ‘Slumlords’"
      Source:A 2008 Article by The Tyee online newspaper

The importance of SoM bylaws has been recognized for years and by a number of studies, including:

•    “Strategies to Preserve Existing Rental Housing in Greater Vancouver”
      Source: February 2004 Report by TRAC
•    “Cracks in the Foundation”
      Source: 2006 Report by the Pivot Legal Society

West Coast Environmental Law has produced the following publications on Pesticides

•    Pesticides in your Home (English)
•    Pesticides and your Health (English, Punjabi, Spanish)