The Record: ‘It’s a life or death situation’: Tenants’ group wants Kitchener to enact anti-renoviction bylaw

Members of a group advocating for tenants’ rights are planning a protest Monday calling for renoviction protections in Kitchener.
Waterloo Region ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) wants Kitchener council to enact an anti-renoviction bylaw that would help to protect vulnerable tenants and aim to curb bad-faith evictions.
The protest is expected to see participants march from the Kitchener Central Library on Queen Street North to city hall, beginning at 5 p.m.
Members also plan to issue a letter to city councillors demanding action.
“It’s a growing problem,” Waterloo Region ACORN’s interim chair, Jacquie Wells, said Friday. “It’s affecting more and more people in our community.”
Renovictions occur when a landlord evicts a tenant under the guise of undertaking renovation work. While such projects can be above board, renters’ advocates say some landlords use renovations as an excuse to evict tenants from below-market rate apartments and then raise rents.
Tenants are allowed under provincial law to return to their unit once the work is complete, with no change in their rent, and landlords must provide some compensation whether the tenant wishes to return or not.
But in many cases, residents aren’t aware of their legal rights. Wells said unscrupulous landlords have intimidated or harassed tenants in some cases if they do express a desire to return.
If a tenant doesn’t come back, the landlord can rent the vacant apartment to someone new at a higher rate.
Wells said provincial laws supposedly in place to protect tenants have “giant loopholes” and are rarely enforced, and fines, if they are issued, are small. “To a landlord, it’s the cost of doing business.”
Tenants forced to leave an affordable unit often find few, if any, new rental options within their budget, Wells said.
“It’s increasingly problematic that people are facing homelessness … It’s a life or death situation.”
A few Ontario cities, including Hamilton, Toronto and London, have already passed anti-renoviction bylaws aiming to provide more protections.
Kitchener has approved other measures — such as a rental replacement bylaw and inclusionary zoning — that support tenants or mandate affordable units in some new developments, but staff have maintained that cities don’t have the power to address renovictions.
“Currently, municipalities have no explicit tools at their disposal to protect tenants from evictions due to renovations,” a staff report said last year.
Wells disagrees, saying municipal bylaws are allowed, as they “don’t frustrate” provincial law. “They fill in the gaps that the provincial legislation doesn’t address.”
ACORN also believes Kitchener has an obligation to act, saying that city policies that have encouraged development downtown and along the LRT line have contributed to rising land values, gentrification and higher housing costs.
“We argue it’s their job to manage the fallout from their actions and policies,” Wells said.
Hamilton’s bylaw, which took effect Jan. 1, requires landlords to pay a fee and apply for a renovation licence, produce a building permit and an engineer’s report stating the unit must be empty in order to do the work, and confirm a tenants’ rights and entitlement package has been provided.
If a tenant wants to return after the work is done (with no increase to their rent), the landlord must provide temporary, comparable accommodations or a rental differential payment based on average market rent for the life of the renovation.
Fines can be levied for those not following the rules.
Toronto’s bylaw, which takes effect in July, also includes a moving allowance.
Wells remains “cautiously optimistic” about the prospects for a similar bylaw in Kitchener.
“I just want to have a serious conversation about why they’re hesitating,” she said. “The more that we make this an issue for them, the more they can’t ignore it.”
With files from Teviah Moro, The Hamilton Spectator

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Article by Brent Davis for The Record