Could Hamilton’s anti-renoviction bylaw work in Toronto? Council committee wants to find out
Toronto councillors are asking city staff to study how Hamilton’s first-in-Ontario, anti-renoviction bylaw could be implemented in Toronto.
Four councillors made the request in a motion passed at the planning and housing committee Wednesday. The motion directs staff to include in an upcoming report “consideration and analysis” of the bylaw and how that approach could work in Toronto.
Hamilton’s bylaw, passed by its council in January, is designed to deter landlords from using major renovations as an excuse for bad-faith evictions and better protect tenants living in affordable units.
“A lot of housing is being bought up for investment purposes and landlords that buy it want to get rid of the tenants because they want to make more money,” Coun. Paula Fletcher (Toronto-Danforth) said in an interview ahead of the meeting.
“We have to stand up for tenants to be able to stay in their homes at a reasonable price, a reasonable rent.”
The move is a step toward tackling what housing advocates say is a major problem pushing tenants out of affordable living situations and contributing to rising rent prices.
The controversial practice of ‘renovictions’ allows landlords to evict tenants by claiming they plan to renovate the unit for themselves or family members. But some landlords end up putting the unit on the market so they can charge a higher rent to a new tenant.
Tie eviction notices to building permits, councillors say
Landlords are allowed to issue N13 eviction notices to tenants if they think units need to be vacant for renovation and repairs to be done safely. In Ontario, tenants have the right to move back in afterwards, at the same rate.
City staff in Hamilton described “bad faith” renovictions as when the landlord uses the excuse of renovations to make existing tenants leave and then rent the unit to new tenants at a higher rate.
In a letter to the committee, Fletcher and fellow councillors, Mike Colle (Eglinton-Lawrence), Frances Nunziata (York South—Weston) and Parthi Kandavel (Scarborough Southwest) said that a subcommittee during the previous council term heard from many tenants and advocates who said they had been pushed to leave a rental home despite no evidence that renovations were going to be substantial.
Some told the committee they didn’t understand their rights or had been offered money to sign away their rights and leave, according to the letter.
“There were many instances where tenants left and while only cosmetic changes took place the rent was doubled or tripled in the same apartment,” the letter reads.
“Many tenants have been forced out of their long time homes and neighbourhoods where they actually had the right to stay.”
The councillors say it became clear to members of the subcommittee that eviction notices should be tied to building permits, but the council term ended before the committee could advance this as a solution.
“The key to stopping a renoviction is the building permit,” Fletcher said. “Often, landlords give tenants an N13 and say, ‘We need you out of there because we have to renovate this to such a degree that you can’t stay.’ Meanwhile, they never get a building permit. They never do the renovation.”
CBC Toronto has previously reported that landlords rarely face penalties for illegally renovicting tenants or not upholding their right to return.
Hamilton bylaw requires renovation licence
The Hamilton bylaw attempts to tie eviction notices to building permits by requiring a landlord to apply for a city renovation licence within seven days of issuing an eviction notice to a tenant.
The city will only allow the eviction and renovations if the landlord has already secured all building permits to complete the work and provides an engineer’s report confirming vacancy is necessary, the bylaw says. The landlord will also need to make arrangements with any tenant who wants to return to their unit once the renovation is complete, which could include providing them with temporary accommodations comparable to their current unit and rental rate or compensation.
After the renovation is complete, the landlord will be required to allow the tenant to return to their unit at the same rate they were paying before the work was done, according to the bylaw.
Landlords who don’t comply with the bylaw could be subject to fines. Enforcement will begin next year.
Boubacar Bah, founder and chairperson of Small Ownership Landlords Ontario, said the Hamilton bylaw is a “bad idea” because a provincial tribunal already exists to mediate disputes between landlord and tenants, including renoviction claims, and it will only create more bureaucracy.
“Instead of re-inventing the wheel, they should pressure the provincial government to give the Landlord and Tenant Board more resources and give them a mandate to expedite any disputes between landlords and tenants,” Bah said.
Last May, a report published by provincial ombudsman Paul Dubé found the LTB was “fundamentally failing” to fulfil its mandate due to a major backlog of cases. Since then, the province has taken a number of measures to deal with the backlog, including allocating millions of dollars to appoint more adjudicators and hire more staff.
Coun. Gord Perks (Parkdale-High Park), who chairs the planning and housing committee, said provincial laws privilege landlords over tenants, requiring municipalities to use what limited powers they have to find ways to protect tenants.
“Municipalities seeing the consequences of that… are fighting back,” he said in an interview. “Either through the kind of tool that Hamilton is looking at or some other tool, or just by making noise, we want the province to understand you can’t make landlords wealthier at the cost of people losing their homes.”
A spokesperson for Housing Minister Paul Calandra said the province has taken “historic measures” to support tenants, including strengthening protections against renovictions, demovictions and personal-use evictions, and doubling fines against bad landlords.
Perks said he expects the committee will hear back within a couple months with advice about whether Toronto should follow Hamilton’s lead or take another approach.
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