UPDATE: Troster’s motion to have city staff investigate an anti-renoviction bylaw was passed unanimously by Planning Committee on April 24, and will go to City Council on May 1.
This article was also updated from the print version to reflect City Council decisions on April 17 on affordable housing.
Alayne McGregor
Councillor Ariel Troster is proposing city staff investigate an anti-renoviction bylaw similar to the one recently introduced in Hamilton.
Her office has seen “a huge uptick” in renovictions, she said – particularly renovictions of senior women, long-term tenants who have lived for decades in their apartments in Centretown, and “who, we believe, are being evicted for spurious reasons for very minor renovations.”
Troster said she has seen those apartments soon go back on the market “maybe with the new countertop or a fresh colour of paint” at a much higher rent. “I just hear one heartbreaking story after the other and there’s very little I can do.”
In many cases, “tenants don’t want to fight. They’re intimidated out of going to the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB). And we know what a mess the LTB is right now – it can take a year to get a hearing.”
She blamed “a complete lack of vacancy control at the provincial level” for this situation.
“Landlords know that, if the tenant is there for a long time and the building was built before 2018, they have to follow provincial rent control. But if they get a new tenant, they can raise the rent as much as they want. So what I found when I was door knocking in Centretown, I would go into an apartment building that would have two identical apartments beside each other, and there could be $1000 rent differential between the two of them.”
On April 24, the city Planning and Housing Committee unanimously passed Troster’s motion asking city staff to review the Hamilton bylaw and report back by the end of 2024 “with a preliminary assessment of the feasibility of developing a similar ‘anti-renovictions’ bylaw in the City of Ottawa.” The assessment would include timelines, costs, and resource implications, as well as the effect on other departmental work. The motion now must be passed by City Council, which will debate it on May 1.
What’s in the Hamilton bylaw?
Hamilton’s Renovation License and Relocation bylaw, passed January 24, is designed to deter landlords from using renovations for bad faith evictions and to assist in preserving existing housing stock. It requires a landlord to obtain a renovation license, costing $715, prior to commencing any renovation that requires that an N13 eviction notice be issued to a tenant under the Residential Tenancies Act, and to provide proof of a building permit and an engineering report confirming that vacant possession of the unit is required to carry out the renovation work.
An N13 notice allows a tenant to be evicted when the landlord wants to do massive renovations that require vacant possession of the rental unit, demolish the rental unit, or convert it for non-residential use. A recent ACORN review of eviction data, which it obtained from the LTB through freedom of information requests, showed that the number of N13s filed in Ottawa tripled in 2022 compared to 2021, from 23 to 71.
The bylaw also strengthens the right to return for a tenant who has to move for major renovations, by stipulating that the onus to exercise the right to return to their former unit is now shared between the landlord and the tenant. A tenant who received an N13 would get a Tenant Rights and Entitlement Package from the city, and legal assistance to file a “right of first refusal.” A landlord may not advertise a unit for rent if the former tenant had exercised this right.
The City of Hamilton is currently working to publicize and implement the bylaw, and won’t accept renovation licence applications until next January. The estimated annual cost to administer the bylaw will be $942,850, and revenues $94,285.
Troster said she had talked to Hamilton Councillor Nrinder Nann, who introduced the bylaw after years working with ACORN. She said it was too early to determine its impact, but it was “very interesting to hear from her how they were able to get very strong political support” for it (it passed 14-0).
Three-quarters of Somerset Ward residents are tenants
The 2021 census showed that 36 percent of all Ottawans are tenants. In Somerset Ward specifically, the 2016 census (the best available ward numbers) showed that 77 percent were tenants.
City Council unanimously declared a housing and homeless emergency in Ottawa in 2020. Troster noted that one way to stop homelessness is to keep people in their homes instead of being evicted.
Ultimately, “what would really make a difference is vacancy decontrol at the provincial level, and restoring rent control for anything built after 2018. But, in the meantime, we have to take this into our hands at the city and figure out how to how to help people because people who lose their homes fall into homelessness and then only makes the crisis worse.”
City proposing other affordable housing action programs
The city is also looking at other ways of increasing affordable housing. A proposal from Councillor Stéphanie Plante to have city staff investigate setting up a fund to acquire affordable housing and land – similar to those in Toronto and Hamilton – was passed by City Council on April 17.
Staff were to report back by the end of June “in alignment with” consideration of the city’s long range financial plan, and engage with “local sector partners including but not limited to the Ottawa Community Land Trust and Ottawa Community Housing.”
Council also approved an Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan, which would provide grants to for-profit developers who provide new affordable units (at or below Average Market Rent (AMR) as defined by the CMHC, for a minimum of 20 years) in developments. At least 15 percent of the units must qualify as affordable. The grants will range from $6,000 and $8,000 per affordable unit per year for a period of 20 years.
Troster said she had advocated to ensure that any developer who gets these grants must follow provincial rent control guidelines for those units, even if the building was built after 2018.
She expected the plan would provide some moderately affordable housing at 80 to 90 percent of AMR.