It is hard to believe that a full year has passed since I took on the role and responsibilities as your Executive Director.

The year has been full of many new and exciting changes and challenges such as:

As we look forward to the upcoming year, we will be reporting our vacancy rates on a quarterly basis here in the newsletter, we are planning a trade show for March and we look forward to making further in-roads in the area of rent control amendments with the Provincial Government.

A strong working relationship between our Board of Directors, our members and all affected industry stakeholders will remain at the forefront of our agenda. As such, your participation in our continued lobbying efforts is critical.

One of our success stories over the past year was the adoption of our recommendations for changes to the Solid Waste & Recycling Program introduced by the City.

A large part of the credit for tireless lobbying and representations on our behalf goes to our Solid Waste Chair, Shaun Parsons of Quality Management, who worked closely with Dan McInnis and Kevin Zaharia of the City’s Solid Waste Department.

Shaun’s efforts resulted in our suggestions for and concerns about the program being incorporated into the strategy adopted by the city. The positive benefits of this program will be enjoyed by all property owners & managers in this province; not just exclusively PPMA members.

Another positive step forward was realized in the announcement of the annual guideline rent increase, which was set at 2%. While this guideline increase does not address the accumulated shortfall of the previous 12 years (when compared to the CPI), we are encouraged by the Provincial Government’s second guideline increase in as many years.

Looking ahead, we have an exciting line-up of guest speakers planned for the second half of the year and into the spring. As always, if there is a topic that you wish to see addressed or feel is pertinent to our membership, please let me know and I will ensure that it is addressed in a monthly membership meeting or at an educational seminar.

I thank you all for the support and encouragement over the past year and I will endeavour to maintain the momentum of our positive growth. I look forward to many more years in service to you and this industry.