A Mississauga couple is in the middle of a war of words with the board of their housing complex, which a handful of residents say is imposing unnecessarily strict new rules on the complex’s approximately 140 owners.

Janet Kitson said her problems began in 2022, when some new members joined the board at 3050 Orleans Rd., in the Winston Churchill Boulevard-Dundas Street neighborhood.

That board issued an updated set of regulations that residents must follow — standard procedure for most condominiums and townhome complexes. But on Orleans Road, that list grew from about 30 in 2010, the last time the list was updated, to more than 70 in 2022.

The new list includes regulations prohibiting people from painting their fences, residents say, as well as limiting what pets they can have and banning certain plants from people’s yards.

“It’s frustrating. It’s stressful,” Kitson said. “You need rules so there is no anarchy, (but) this is almost like dog eating dog.”

Shortly after the board circulated the new list to homeowners, Kitson complained to her neighbors and wrote a petition asking that community members review the new rules. In response, she says, the board issued another new set of rules in 2023, this one including a rule banning gazebos, which she has had in her backyard for 20 years, without complaint.

“It’s almost like they’re attacking us,” said Kitson, who has lived in the home with her husband Joe Ferretti for 34 years.

“I want you to leave me alone.”

The gazebo ban list was approved in a member vote in January 2024.

Of the complex’s 141 owners, 55 participated in the vote, according to a letter from Malvern Condominium Property Management to owners.

Kitson said the battles between her and her allies, and the junta and its supporters, have divided the complex and destroyed at least one of her friendships.

“In the last two years, it’s not a community anymore,” he said.

“Everyone is looking at everyone else.”

Mona Usajewicz, one of Orleans Road’s board members, told CBC Toronto that the board would have no comment and directed questions to Chris Poland, vice-president of Malvern.

New rules enacted legally, says Malvern executive

Poland noted in a statement to CBC Toronto that the new rules were approved by a majority of owners at the January meeting, as required by the province’s Condominium Act, and that the board is now enforcing those rules.

Condo law expert Audrey Loeb of the Shibley Righton law firm said there are lessons to be learned from the complaints filed by Orleans Road residents.

Prospective buyers should be aware that when moving into a townhome complex or condominium, both governed in Ontario by the Condominium Act, individual tastes may be overridden by broader community interests.

“What it really says is that if you’re going to live in a community you have to understand that you’re going to be governed by the decisions of the majority,” he said. “You may not like it, but that’s living in a condo, and that’s really the bottom line.”

Loeb said condo boards don’t have carte blanche to write the rules they choose.

He said the rules must be “reasonable” and if a resident believes that line is being crossed, they can take their complaint to the Condominium Authority Tribunal (CAT) or they can go directly to the Ontario Superior Court.

“And if the CAT, or the court, determines that it is reasonable, there is no choice but to do it,” Loeb said.

Kitson recently received a letter from the board’s attorney, insisting that she remove the gazebo, which she says she will not do. She says it has been on her back deck for decades and should be allowed to stay, a position Loeb agrees with.

He said a condo board’s rules cannot impose new restrictions on existing amenities, such as gazebos.

“Even if (a rule against a particular service) had existed, if it hadn’t been enforced for 25 years, I doubt a court would order it removed now,” he said.

Homeowner Review Board App

The most sensible way forward, he said, would be for the resort’s board to allow the gazebo to stay, as long as it is removed when Kitson is sold.

Other owners at the complex told CBC Toronto they agreed some of the new rules were harsh and also objected to other decisions the board made about properties at the complex.

Georgena Bowles, who has lived at the complex for more than 30 years, says she is concerned about the arbitrary nature with which some board decisions are enforced.

“I don’t think they should force us to do some of the things they want,” he said.

For example, he says the board recently installed a sprinkler outside his house and tapped into his water supply to feed it. She says she had no choice in the matter. “They say they’re going to reimburse me for my water. I have to pay for it first.”

Additionally, the board had her and her neighbors’ garage doors painted “arbitrarily.”

“We should have voted for it,” Bowles said. “They’re telling us what we can do and what we can’t do.”

Loeb points out that a resident who believes a particular rule is too onerous also has the authority under the Condominium Act to call a meeting and rewrite that rule, or even repeal it, as long as they have a majority of owners on their side.

But the final result? Loeb suggests that new condo or townhome owners do their homework before moving in.

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“There are rules, there are provisions that can restrict what you can and cannot do and you have to respect them,” Loeb said.

“You get what’s called a status certificate and all those documents (construction or complex rules) are attached,” he said. “But people don’t read them because their size is overwhelming. That’s the problem.”

Overall, in his experience, Loeb doesn’t find that boards introduce unreasonable rules very often.