A new bylaw to prevent renovictions in Hamilton is being celebrated by housing advocates who say that bringing similar changes across the province or nationwide could help protect renters.
This is huge, Canadians right now, or at least Ontarians should be having a party, Alejandra Ruiz Vargas with ACORN Canada mentioned recently.
ACORN’s Hamilton chapter was partly behind the push for the Hamilton by-law alongside some city councilors. The national organization is made up of low and middle-income community members encouraging housing changes, such as rent control and funding for social housing.
The City forces property owners to apply for a special permit for their rental addresses at a cost of about $700 when seeking a provincial N-13 notice, which ends a tenancy due to a desire to repair, demolish or convert a rental unit.
The eviction and renovations, under the law, would only be able to take place if all building permits have been protected and an engineer’s report confirms vacancy is required.
In addition, preparations must be made with a tenant who wants to return after the renovations, and the bylaw says this includes providing them with temporary accommodations with both the rent and the unit itself being comparable to their present home.
Opponents of renovictions says that there can be a method for some landlords to act in bad faith so they can get a current tenant out but then raise the rent exponentially for a new tenant.
Dale Whitmore with the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights said the process generally should see a landlord have the tenant leave so renovations and major repairs can be done. In Ontario, the tenancy will usually end during the work but once the work is over, the tenancy should start again and the person can move back in.
However, while provincial protections need landlords to give the tenants written updates on the status of a renovation and when the unit is ready for occupancy, it doesn’t always happen.
The tenancy is over, so for the landlord, it becomes very easy to conveniently forget to let them know and to rent the unit to another person at amuch higher rent, says Whitmore.
There can be proposed fines for non-compliance — in Ontario it’s up to $500 daily, but subject to scrutiny by the attorney general — but Whitmore notes landlords may have little issue with the fine because they’ll earn back the money or more by raising the rent for the next tenant.
He added that another issue that could arise is even if the landlord tells the tenant, they have moved on and are now renting at a new place in a lease they can’t break.
When faced with renoviction, though, some tenants choose not to reply to the N-13 notices, and under the Residential Tenancies Act, a tenant does not have to leaveuntil the Landlord-Tenant Board issues an official legal order saying they must do so.
For almost two years, Evan Pettitt of Hamilton has been facing a renoviction, first having been served the N-13 by the property management company that owns his building in February 2022, then a second sent in April 2022 with a vacancy date of August that year.
That document was later canceled, but Pettitt said he received another N-13 requesting they vacate by this year April. He added that they had to receive buyouts to vacate, but unlike other unit owners did not take them.
In the building he lives in construction has already begun and he said while the N-13s noted that he would be able to move back into his unit when the renovations were complete, he said he has been given no notice of when that could be nor any guarantee of being able to move back in or how much he could have to pay should he return.
Under the new Hamilton bylaw, he said it could rely on how soon enforcement happens and if it would come into play for his building that is already under construction, but he is hopeful.
I certainly feel it’s a great thing and that is because hopefully it’ll stop predatory landlords for displacing tenants for the sole purpose of raising rent, he said.
Housing expert and Canada Research Chair in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo Brian Doucet said while the bylaw impacts just the city of Hamilton, it could and should speed more action from the provincial government and others.
If we have a clear set of rules that exist across the province, then it’s fairer and more transparent for everyone, says Doucet.
While most Canadian jurisdictions have rules in place to protect tenants, such as limiting the types of repairs that justify requiring renters to move out, or specifying the amount of notice time, Doucet said such an eviction effectively severs the relationship between tenant and landlord.
He said Hamilton’s bylaw “binds” landlord and tenant throughout the renovation process and the duty of the “right to return” is both on the tenant and the landlord.
While the Hamilton law is known as the first of its kind, there have been similar renoviction laws passed including in New Westminster, B.C., which Doucet said, basically eliminated rent evictions in that city.
In 2021, It was later repealed because the provincial government amended its own Residential Tenancy Act to bring the bylaw province-wide.
Doucet says similar rules around renovations would also help to maintain affordable housing.
It’s not unusual for a tenant to be living in a place, the landlord renovicts them, does some basic cosmetic work, and the rent increases, Doucet said. “This is how we lose many affordable housings.
