Calls to bylaw department on the rise in Shelburne

Written By Paula Brown

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Shelburne Town Council has received an update regarding the number of bylaw and parking enforcement offences that were issued in 2023. 

During their meeting on Feb. 26, Shelburne Council was presented with the updated enforcement statistics from the Town's director of legislative services, Jennifer Willoughby. 

“As the Town of Shelburne continues to grow, calls for services have significantly increased,” Willougby told Council. 

According to the report, the Town of Shelburne received over 400 calls for bylaw enforcement service last year, with the most common calls for service related to clean yards, parking enforcement, noise and animal control. 

Of the enforcement calls received by the Town of Shelburne the majority were related to clean yards with 40 per cent or 161 occurrences of which 142 were proactively enforced, 13 per cent or 50 occurrences were animal control based, and 9 per cent or 37 occurrences were noise related. 

The Town also saw 197 non-compliance notices issued, 66 false alarm calls and laid a total of 29 charges. 

The report detailed that in 2023 the Town of Shelburne issued a total of 2,189 parking tickets: 361 for general parking violations and 1,798 for winter parking. 

The Town says it is planning to begin enforcement campaigns for 2024 once winter parking has ended on April 15, with projects specifically related to accessible parking pots within the downtown cores as well as heavy truck traffic. 

In 2023, Shelburne increased the fines related to parking offences from $10 to $40, which was approved by the Ministry of Attorney General (MAG) in June of 2023. 

“The increased fine of $40 has proven to be a deterrent as the number of parking violations has decreased,” said Willougby. 

Currently, the Town of Shelburne utilizes the Provincial Offenses Act (POA) for prosecuting parking violations. 

Willoughby told councillors that they had recently received the challenged parking tickets from 2022 through the POA, meaning parking violations are taking nearly two years to be processed.  

The report noted that Shelburne staff are further investigating an Administrative Monetary Penalty System (AMPS) to speed up the process for parking offences. If implemented, there is the potential to expand the program to include non-parking-related bylaw offences in the future. 

“There's definitely a lengthy implementation towards it, but our goal is to be there by the end of this year,” said Willoughby. “Once implemented that will allow any tickets post-implementation to be managed within the Town and will avoid the provincial offences process.” 

The Town of Shelburne's bylaw and parking enforcement services are staffed by three officers consisting of one full-time officer who works 35 hours a 35-hour week, and two part-time officers who work a combined 40-hour work week.