Making sense of "Problem Properties" in the City of New Westminster: Investigating governmental problematization of private rental properties

This research is an analysis of how public agents negotiate changes in the framing of relevant policy issues at the municipal level. The case study is focused on the problematization of private rental properties in the Canadian municipality of New Westminster. Through the concept of 'problem properties', captured from semi-structured interviews, the thesis explores how municipal staff make sense of the legacy of older nuisance-based policies in the context of more recent narratives of inclusive city governance. The analysis features public agents' reasoning in dealing with complaints about urban nuisance through an updated narrative of livability, based on care/compassion towards vulnerable community members. Once a proxy for policed spaces, the expression 'problem properties' appears to have been reframed as a tool to hold landlords accountable for building neglect and disrepair, under the national prevailing narrative of a 'housing crisis' and, more recently, in the emerging global narrative of 'climate crisis'. In conclusion, I suggest that the problematization of rental spaces in policy narratives is produced by a network or community of policy-relevant actors, who are responsive to dynamic institutional narratives when enacting their roles.