Talks form over rent hikes at Seafield Apartments

By Matthew Burrows

A West End landlord seeking to jack up rents says he will consider negotiating with his tenants face to face at a March 11 dispute-resolution hearing rather than via conference call.

“If that is everyone’s wish, then we would consider it,” Chris Nelson, co-owner of the Seafield Apartments, told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview.

Ground-floor tenant Brian Broster, who lives with partner Ross Waring, told the Straight that the couple face an $881 rent increase for their two-bedroom apartment in the building at 1436 Pendrell Street. That would take their total monthly rent up to $2,255 from $1,374.

“We have hard-of-hearing people, and they are not going to be able to follow the conversation [via conference call],” Broster told the Straight.

He added that long-term tenants Roland and Mary McFall are 83 and 92, respectively. The conference call was set up by the provincial Residential Tenancy Branch.

“They [landlords] likely will refuse [the switch], because it is to their advantage to have it over the phone, because people get interrupted, people get cut off, and it’s typically the group of tenants that get cut off,” Broster added. “The RTO [residential tenancy office] cannot make that independent decision to go live in a live room; they have to get the landlords’ approval on the request.”

Nelson reiterated that Broster should contact him.

“He’s got my phone number, but yes, if that is how it [hearing protocol] works, I’ve never been through that before,” Nelson added.

This possible concession would be a small victory for the embattled Seafield tenants, who were served notice of the rental hikes on January 14, when Nelson and fellow Seafield owner Jason Gordon, of Gordon Nelson Investments Inc., slipped information packages under their doors. Laundry machines have also been replaced and the rates increased to $2.75 per load per machine (from $1.50), according to tenant Melissa Mewdell.

It all comes at a bad time for Seafield resident Dana Crudo, who is pregnant and due February 1. She still wants a home birth, she said, though her home life is more and more up in the air. Dana and husband Bobby Crudo face an increase of $772, to $2,222 a month, for their two-bedroom suite.

“Chris Nelson says this is purely business,” Crudo told the Straight. “He rents too. If he had a landlord that pulled the same stuff on him, how would that change his life? I don’t know if that would just be business as usual.”

Gordon Nelson Investments is making use of the Residential Tenancy Act to bring rents in line with other properties in the area, Nelson claimed. He said he pays $2,700 for a two-bedroom suite at the corner of Nelson and Bute streets, where he lives with his family, which includes one young daughter. However, he remained unapologetic about the Crudos’ plight as they approach their own parenthood.

“Do you know how large their unit is?” he asked. “It’s 1,250 square feet. It’s one of the biggest two-bedrooms in the West End. It is absolutely huge. Most two-bedrooms are about 800 to 900 square feet. They have a large unit, and when you look at it on a price-per-square-foot basis, it works out to about $1.10 a square foot. We looked at 129 comparable apartments, and the average is $2.10 a square foot. We’ve applied to bring their rent up to, I believe, $1.85 a square foot. I would encourage you to look at price per square foot.”

When asked about the heritage aspects and the fact that the building has a community feeling within its walls, Nelson remained resolute.

“Are you asking me to subsidize their rent because it’s a nice community and it’s an old building?”

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Renters at Risk refutes criminal charges

Posted By: Jackie Wong
01/29/2009 12:00 AM

A Vancouver-based advocacy group supporting renters’ rights has been ordered by Elections BC to register as an official advertising sponsor or face a $10,000 fine, a one-year jail sentence, or both — despite the assertion by volunteers that the group is non-partisan.

Christine Ackermann and Stephen Hammond, volunteers with rights group Renters at Risk, object to Elections BC’s labelling of the group as partisan. “We’re here to provide a voice for people who can’t speak up, who are scared of fighting,” says Ackermann. Photo: Doug Shanks

The three-year-old Renters at Risk consists of approximately 12 core volunteers and operates the website RentersAtRisk.ca. The group formed when tenants began sharing information about mass evictions in the West End, following controversial changes to the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) in 2004. Members have since been blogging about their experiences and collecting related news stories on the Renters at Risk website, with the aim of providing education and advocacy for other renters.

The website raised the ire of Elections BC following a Renters at Risk-organized rally held in the West End on October 25 of last year, days before the October 29 provincial by-election in Vancouver-Burrard and Vancouver-Fairview. The rally featured speeches from several political candidates, including the BC Liberals’ Arthur Griffiths, Drina Read of the Green Party, and the NDP’s Spencer Herbert, who won the election.

In an e-mail dated November 4, 2008, electoral finance reviewer Greg Macdonald wrote that an Elections BC review of the Renters at Risk website “identified several instances of messaging that appeared to be election advertising… based on materials on [the] website that describe past and current issues and legislation, associates them with registered political parties, and directly or indirectly takes a promotional or oppositional position.”

Renters at Risk members had until Tuesday (January 27) to either register as an election advertising sponsor or face financial and/or criminal penalty. They had yet to announce their decision by press time.

While the issue is regarded as censorship by many Renters at Risk volunteers, Elections BC spokesperson Kenn Faris maintains that the organization is doing nothing of the kind. “We’re not the election-advertising police… We don’t actively scour and monitor for election advertising,” he says, adding that Renters at Risk was brought to the attention of Elections BC by an unspecified outside party. “It’s not censorship. We, as administrators of the Election Act, are bringing the legislation to the attention of Renters at Risk and helping them to understand the legislation and how they can comply with it.”

Renters at Risk members have published and distributed a flyer which, according to Faris and Elections BC, “is the piece that qualifies as election advertising.” The flyer, produced last fall, is downloadable from the website and includes passages such as “…the BC Liberal Government has rewritten the Residential Tenancy Act to favour landlords, allowing mass evictions of people like you from your home,” and “Send the government a message! Vote!” The flyer lists dates for the Oct. 29 by-election and the Nov. 15 municipal election, as well as the Renters at Risk website address. “When it comes to that kind of active positioning on any particular candidate or party, and they’re distributing it beyond their membership… that qualifies for advertising,” says Faris.

“It is so Draconian, it is so bizarre, and it is so intrusive,” says Stephen Hammond, a lawyer and three-year Renters at Risk volunteer. “It’s very clear what our message is: helping those who are facing any kind of evictions or anything close to that, and then also calling for the government, or encouraging people to call the government… to say, ‘Change this legislation.’ If it takes a change in government in order for this to happen, then great. But that’s not being partisan to say, ‘We want legislation to protect the renters.’”

“We’re here to provide a voice for people who can’t speak up, who are scared of fighting,” adds Christine Ackermann, who joined Renters at Risk when she was issued an eviction notice, which she fought at an arbitration last spring. “Because we knew this was a silent epidemic, we wanted to give voice to that.”

Ackermann, who works as an executive assistant for the United Church of Canada, says she receives at least two e-mails per day from tenants facing or anticipating what they see as unfair eviction by landlords. Many of those landlords utilize a tactic that has come to be known as ‘renoviction’: implementing extensive renovations of a suite or entire building, then using those renovations as cause to raise rent exorbitantly.

Tenants at the Seafield apartment building, at 1436 Pendrell Street, are currently facing a 73-per-cent rent increase from their new landlord, Gordon Nelson Investments (GNI). The increase marks the latest development in what is alleged to be a long line of intimidation tactics from GNI, dating back to the summer of 2008, when it purchased the 77-year-old building. Since then, tenants say GNI removed laundry facilities from the building, and failed to clear snow from the walkway during December’s heavy snowfall (but were seen walking past the building as tenants tended to the matter themselves). Seafield tenants’ stories are documented on the Renters at Risk website and at SeafieldApartments.com.

“It seems to be very intimidating; it does bring in issues of freedom of speech right away,” says Seafield tenant Tim Pawsey, with regard to Elections BC’s order for Renters at Risk. “I don’t see how Renters at Risk is a partisan organization.”

“In order for us to disagree with our government or ask our government to help out their constituents, we’ve had to register [with Elections BC],” says Hammond. “It’s absurd.”