Newsmaker of the Year

Mike Howell, Vancouver Courier

Published: Friday, December 26, 2008

EXCERPT

“RENOVICTION”

Christine Ackermann

In 2008 the term “renoviction” entered the lexicon out of a sense of frustration and vulnerability. The term describes the practice of landlords evicting tenants under the guise of doing renovations, either real or merely cosmetic, to increase rents. The story of 2008 is the continued evictions of tenants in Vancouver to increase the revenue of rents.

The West End is most vulnerable to renovictions. Eighty-two per cent of West Enders rent. Vacancy rates have been at historical lows for the past three years. In April, 20 tenants of the Glenmore at 1885 Barclay St. were given eviction notices. Ten tenants made to arbitration at the Residential Tenancy Office and negotiated a settlement to stay in their building. Of these 10 tenants, a new community leader emerged: Christine Ackermann.

Ackermann did not just fight to keep her home; she also helped her fellow tenants file for arbitration. Her tenacity and determination inspired her fellow tenants to stick together, file their arbitration together and save their homes. Her mental toughness and emotional strength gave her the ability to look her landlord in the eye and know what they were doing was not right. This steely-eyed confidence allowed her to understand that she needed to stand up to them and save the homes of her community.

Not only did Ackermann take a leadership role in her own building, but she also became an active member of the Renters at Risk Campaign. She helped organize a community forum and rallies. She has been a strong speaker on the rights of tenants and helped many folks find their voice and stand up for their rights. Recently, Ackermann has been assisting the tenants of the Seafield Apartments who are facing renoviction.

–Brent Granby, West End Residents Association (WERA).

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Photo – Jan Halvarson

NEWS: Council makes plans for 2009

NEWS: Council makes plans for 2009

Posted By: Jackie Wong 12/24/2008 12:00 AM

Source: The Westender

Vancouver City Council will ask the province to amend the Residential Tenancy Act in an effort to improve the balance of power between tenants and landlords. Credit: Jackie Wong

In its final meeting of the year, which ran a lengthy five hours, Vancouver City Council passed three motions that will have City staff working hard in 2009. The motions include drafting a report on how to better enforce the Standards of Maintenance bylaw, which concerns landlords’ obligations for building upkeep; an implementation plan for the Burrard Bridge; and submitting a request to the province to amend the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) as part of efforts to boost tenants’ rights.

Lone NPA councillor Suzanne Anton was the only councillor who opposed the motions about the Burrard Bridge and Residential Tenancy Act, instead favouring the original NPA plans to build a sidewalk barrier on the Burrard Bridge and to carry out a more thorough examination of what the City can do to produce more rental stock. She supported the motion about the Standards of Maintenance bylaw.

Anton expressed particular concern for her colleagues’ interest in amending the RTA. “We need to focus on what we can do,” she said at the meeting. “Sending [the motion] away and asking the province to do something [only] looks like we’re doing something, but the important thing we can do is what we’re [already] doing…, which is to promote the building of new units.”

Anton said she believes the City needs to allow for more high-capacity rental buildings in Vancouver, in order to create more units for prospective tenants, who currently face a vacancy rate of 0.3 per cent. “We need to have enough housing in the city for people to live in,” she said. “We’ve got a moratorium on tearing the old buildings down and building new buildings. I’m hoping we can lift that moratorium.”

Meeting attendee Paul Sander, who identified himself as a landlord on the council speakers’ list, also opposed the RTA motion. When Councillor Tim Stevenson asked him if he was affiliated with controversial rental-property management firm Hollyburn Properties, Sander replied, “I could be.” A man of the same name is the CEO of Hollyburn Properties.

“There is already a system of checks and balances in place,” Sander said of the motion. He also criticized council’s use of the word “loophole” in the motion. “The word ‘loophole’ is used incorrectly in this motion. It is not accurate,” he said. “The word ‘loophole’ was derived from tenant-activist groups and the media. It refers to law.”
(see footnote)

As for Sander’s argument that the word “loophole” was used incorrectly in the motion, another meeting attendee, Brian Broster, begged to differ. He is a resident of the Seafield, a 77-year-old apartment building whose tenants are facing imminent eviction by its new owners in order to clear the way for renovations. “The loophole is admitted by not only the Supreme Court, but also the government in power,” he said, referring to Supreme Court cases that stated there is a loophole in the RTA, as well as a meeting Broster and other Seafield residents had with BC Liberal housing minister Rich Coleman. “Only the bad landlords that want to essentially gouge rents and reno-vict the tenants are the ones who are complaining. Good landlords will continue to maintain their buildings [within] the rent increases allowed every year.”

Renters At Risk footnote:  The word “loophole” – referring to evicting tenants for renovations-  originally comes from law. It is a direct quote from a BC  Supreme Court judgment in one of the five BCSC court cases  involving Hollyburn Properties and Bay Towers evictions in 2006-7.

Read the full ruling here:
http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/sc/07/02/2007bcsc0257.htm

[23] …It could not have been the intent of the legislature to provide such a “loophole” for landlords.

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Landlords’ loophole and its effects on tenants

December 17, 2008

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Columnist Don Cayo’s concerns about the development of slum housing in Vancouver overlooks what is really happening with rental accommodation in Vancouver.

The current trend is for developers to snatch up older rental properties and then use the renovation clause in the Residential Tenancy Act to evict people so they can make superficial, unnecessary changes and dramatically increase rents.

The purpose of the Residential Tenancy Act — to protect tenants and landlords — is being undermined by developers who are exploiting the renovation loophole as a way to get around the limits on annual rent increases. The result is stress and insecurity for those living in rental accommodation. We need immediate measures to protect the remaining affordable housing stock while we find new incentives to create more.

Ontario successfully met this challenge by implementing a clause similar to what Coun. Tim Stevenson proposed: Landlords must allow existing tenants to return to their units at the old rent once renovations have been completed. This ensures that renovations are undertaken only if they’re needed, not out of greed.

Most renters move frequently enough to give landlords ample opportunity to renovate without evicting anyone. My townhouse complex just off Cambie Street was bought by new owners a year and a half ago with the expectation of skyrocketing property values along the Canada Line. We faced sequential renovictions just three days before our 90 children returned to school. If we had been evicted, it’s unlikely we would have found suitable accommodation in the same neighbourhood. Our children would have been ripped from their homes, community and schools. As it turned out, we had ample evidence that the landlords never intended to proceed with renovations. It seems they hoped no one would dispute the evictions and they would bring in new tenants at rents $400 and $500 higher.

We filed a dispute and won after six weeks of stress and worry. I would not wish this on anyone

The current system has to be changed, and quickly, before there is nothing left to save.

Jillian Skeet

Vancouver
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

City councillor calls for increased protection for renters

By: Jackie Wong
12/18/2008 12:00 AM

Vancouver’s rental vacancy rates will remain below one per cent in 2009, according to the latest rental-market report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The report, released last week, shows that Vancouver has a rental-apartment vacancy rate of 0.3 per cent, one of the lowest rates in the Lower Mainland next to North Vancouver (0.2 per cent). As of October 2008, there were only 160 private apartment units vacant out of 54,442 total units in Vancouver. The report suggests that the low rates are the result of a combination of factors, including a tight job market, a decreasing number of first-time buyers entering the arena of home ownership, and more than 30,000 people having moved to Vancouver from other provinces and countries last year.

Tim Stevenson

Despite the CMHC report making official what many have known for a long time, Vancouver city councillor Tim Stevenson says loopholes in the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) continue to be exploited by landlords, forcing tenants from their homes in order inflate rental rates far greater than the legislated four-per-cent annual increase. A number of apartment tenants claim such loopholes have led — or will lead — to mass evictions this year, including many West End buildings that have been profiled by WE in the past year because of turbulent landlord-tenant relationships.

Stevenson brought forward a motion to city council Tuesday (December 16) asking the province to amend the RTA, in the hope that changes will offer better protection to already vulnerable tenants. Proposed changes include requiring landlords to allow tenants that have been evicted for renovations to reclaim their units at the same rent they were paying prior to renovations; limiting annual rent increases beyond the standard four per cent; extending the notice period for evictions from 60 to 90 days; requiring the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) to approve the termination of tenancies for the purpose of renovations before eviction notices can be issued; and requiring that landlords report rent rolls, rent increases, tenant turnover, and evictions to the RTB, from which it will compile an annual public report.

“It’s not hard to look at this situation we have now and realize that there need to be some changes made,” Stevenson says. “With the national rental rate being now what it is… they [the province] will be far more cognitive of the problems.”

Stevenson added that the Vision Vancouver-dominated council has struck a positive working relationship with BC Liberal housing minister Rich Coleman, despite Mayor Gregor Robertson’s role as a member of the opposition when he was an NDP MLA. “It’s a somewhat symbiotic relationship, in that we obviously need them to make some changes, and it’s in their interest to work with us, given that the election’s coming up in May as well,” Stevenson says. “I think that we now have a real opportunity here with the provincial government to find solutions. There are problems which haven’t been addressed previously.”

Before Stevenson’s motion was officially brought forward to council, however, he had already come under fire from critics who contend that his proposed changes to the RTA will not help create more affordable housing. One of those critics is Manny Riebeling, a realtor specializing in properties downtown and in Yaletown. “Investors won’t renovate or upgrade their buildings unless [the buildings are] useless and, thus, demolished,” he says. Instead of amending the RTA like Stevenson suggests, Riebeling recommends a tax incentive program for investors to motivate them to build rental properties. As for the best course of action in creating affordable housing, Riebeling suggests “innovative ideas that help people own a property and not just rent it,” such as life leases, equity co-ops, development funds, and charity donations.

As it stands, current market conditions are not, as the CMHC reports, making things better for renters. According to the report, less than 300 new rental-apartment units were completed in Vancouver by October 2008. Stevenson’s motion notes that more than half of all households in Vancouver are rentals.

Source – http://www.westender.com/articles/entry/city-councillor-calls-for-increased-protection-for-renters/news-and-views/