The Trillium: Renovictions show need for bylaw, say Brant Ave. residents

Long-time residents of a Guelph rent controlled apartment complex facing potential renoviction, along with advocates, are not going quietly. They are calling for intervention from the city and a bylaw preventing such scenarios.

The majority of residents of 8 Brant Ave. received notice on July 26 informing them their management company, Brant Apts Inc., is terminating their tenancy on Nov. 30 as it plans major renovations set to take between six to nine months. Residents of the other apartment buildings in the complex owned by the same landlord, 4 Brant Ave. and 6 Brant Ave., expect they’re next.

And they’re not the only ones.

Ontario has seen a 300 per cent increase in N13 evictions since 2017, according to a report from advocacy group ACORN Ontario (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).

Stephanie Clendenning, executive director of the Legal Clinic of Guelph and Wellington County, agreed, saying renovictions have skyrocketed since the pandemic especially.

“There’s nothing wrong with a landlord wanting to renovate. But the problem is that these tenants are getting displaced in the meantime. We’re often not seeing them be able to return afterwards at that same rental rate,” Clendenning said.

This leads to existing affordable housing being lost forever, she said, which impacts the broader community and housing market.

While buildings built before 2018 are rent controlled in Ontario, that rent control doesn’t apply to vacant units, allowing landlords to “jack up the rent to whatever they want” when people move out of their units, said Jacquie Wells, Waterloo Region ACORN leader.

That means more often than not, with rent controlled buildings, it makes more financial sense for landlords to bring in new tenants at a higher rental rate and pay the fines for kicking the original tenants out, even though they have a right to return.

Landlords don’t have to keep tenants up to date on the unit, even if they’ve indicated they want to return once renovations are complete.

“What ends up happening is the unit is advertised, and you can’t tell that it’s your unit, because any unit in the building could be up for rent, and then (new) tenants move in and can’t legally be evicted,” Wells said. “So then you’re stuck. They’ve increased the rent for the new tenant, but the old tenant is displaced.”

She said it’s on tenants to enforce their rights, but there are so many barriers for them to do that, including backlogs and delays with the Landlord Tenant Board.

If this happens, tenants can ask for one year of rent in compensation, which would be a maximum of 12 months at the last rent amount charged. Sometimes tenants can also ask for rent abatement, or to move back into their rental unit at the previous rent.

“The problem with that remedy is that most of the time, if the unit has already been rented to another tenant, the board’s not going to be able to order that remedy, because in order to be able to do that they would have to essentially evict somebody else,” Clendenning said.

She noted if tenants decide to fight the N13, the landlord wouldn’t be able to start the renovations until the eviction hearing with the LTB, which likely wouldn’t happen within 120 days.

“The tenant can stay until the hearing happens. That termination date is not something the landlord can legally enforce,” she said. “If the board determines they need to be evicted, they will then have to go.”

“We’re at a point right now, particularly with this complex, that it’d be really impactful if the city would get involved to try and support the tenants in this,” adding that she hopes the City of Guelph will follow suit with the anti-renoviction bylaw Hamilton implemented in January.

Hamilton became the first city in Ontario to pass an anti-renoviction bylaw, which includes requiring the landlord to apply for a city renovation licence within seven days of issuing an eviction notice, ensuring evictions only happen if renovations are necessary, and that landlords make arrangements with tenants who wish to return once renovations are complete.

If they don’t, they could be fined up to $500 per unit per day, plus administrative fines.

Last month, Guelph released a report about renoviction bylaws in other communities to “form a preliminary view of the approach that has been taken as well as to determine the cost of such programs.”

While it didn’t suggest what approach the city might take, it did indicate interest in developing one.

Counc. Erin Caton said the city will be delegating at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario later this month to have something province-wide.

“Hopefully the province will roll something out based on our delegations there,” Caton said. “We’ll be moving forward with something individually regardless.”

Brant Apts Inc. is owned by Michael Klein, a figure associated with numerous other renoviction cases across the province, including 250 Frederick St. in Kitchener, where Wells was a tenant.

“People are entitled to their right of first refusal, but he’s not likely to honour that,” she said. “We don’t have any reason to believe that he would.”

She said other landlords in similar situations haven’t.

Attempts to contact Klein for comment have been unsuccessful.

For starters, she said there is a patterned approach to what happens in other buildings Klein buys.

These buildings are typically rent controlled, where tenants are paying sometimes under $1,000 for an all inclusive unit that includes utilities and parking.

When Klein takes over, the changes start with installing hydro meters in the units, charging for appliances like air conditioners, increasing the price of laundry and parking, even though utilities and parking are included in the rent.

These changes have also happened at the Brant Avenue apartments.

There is also the fact that none of the tenants know how to contact him: the names they are given are merely corporations he creates for each building with no phone number or email address provided.

For instance, the corporate profile for Brant Apts Inc. shows only the name Michael Klein and an address in Toronto with no phone number attached to it.

“This is very, very bad for people’s financial, physical and mental health. It’s extremely stressful and destabilizing for so many people, especially now with the rental market being what it is,” Wells said. “People have nowhere to go, and they’re being bullied out of their homes, essentially. If we had vacancy control, there would be no incentive for landlords to do this,” she said.

In the meantime, ACORN is hosting a Zoom session for Klein tenants throughout the province on Sept. 12 at 6:30 p.m. to organize tenants and inform them of their rights. Anyone interested can contact their local or nearby ACORN chapter for more information.

“I think anybody who’s a renter should be concerned, because it could be them a year from now,” Wells said.

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Article by Taylor Pace for The Trillium