Parking complaints up, noise calls down, annual bylaw report shows

Parking complaints made up the bulk of calls to Ottawa bylaw officers in 2024, rising for at least the fourth straight year, new statistics show.

The city's bylaw department got 43,380 requests for parking enforcement last year, according to the annual report being presented Monday to the emergency preparedness and protective services committee.

That's about 2,000 more calls than in 2023. 

It's also nearly 13,000 more calls than in 2020, although that was the year the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.

The overall number of bylaw requests in 2024 stayed relatively steady, with officers handling just under 98,500 calls — a slight drop of 1.5 per cent from the year before, the report notes.

Parking complaints made up 43 per cent of all service requests. The other top three requests focused on property standards and zoning enforcement (16 per cent), animal care and control issues (14 per cent) and noise concerns (10 per cent).

"They are a very busy department," said River ward Coun. Riley Brockington, the chair of the committee. "Only 222 people work in bylaw, but they've received just under 100,000 calls."

Noise complaints down 

Noise complaints were down for the fourth straight year, according to the report, falling from north of 12,000 in 2020 to just shy of 9,800 last year.

The gradual decline "can likely be attributed to residents spending more time away from home as they return to office following the pandemic," the report notes.

There was a much steeper drop-off, however, in the number of pets either getting spayed or neutered or having microchips implanted at the city-run clinic.

Both totals dropped by more than half in 2024, in part due to the clinic lacking a permanent full-time veterinary surgeon amid a wider industry-wide vet shortage, the report notes.

Other tidbits from the annual report:

• Illegal dumping calls were up 43 per cent in 2024, the same year a new three-item limit for curbside garbage came into effect. The report credits the higher call volumes to better public awareness.
• About 300 illegal short-term rental listings in Ottawa were taken down.
• The city's new on-demand accessible taxi program, a pilot project launched last spring, has led to a 21 per cent monthly rise in the number of people taking accessible cabs.
• More than 30 enforcement actions were taken as part of another pilot project aimed at addressing problematic properties in Rideau-Vanier and Somerset wards.

Top priority calls — like those concerning dog attacks, a lack of heat or a dangerous tree — were responded to within 24 hours almost 99 per cent of the time, the report said.

For several years, Ottawa's bylaw department has also been saddled with a higher per-officer call volume than what's been seen in other mid-to-large-sized Ontario cities like Toronto, Hamilton and Windsor.

But that number dropped sharply in 2024, with Brockington also noting the city has since hired "about a dozen" more bylaw officers.

"We heard that there were pressures in bylaw," he said. "And in 2025, city council made a good investment to address some of that work."

Brockington also said he would be introducing a motion Monday to create a "bylaw personnel appreciation day," similar to days that already exist for Ottawa police officers and firefighters.