Evictions by renovation hit Victoria

Mayor wants action from province to stop unwarranted rent increases

By Bill Cleverley, Times Colonist, February 17, 2009

Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin wants the province to take action to stem the tide of eviction by renovation some say is washing over the city.

Under provincial legislation, a landlord planning a major renovation to a rental unit can evict a tenant with two months notice. After the renovation, the landlord is free to jack the rent as high as he wants — escaping a cap set by provincial legislation.

“They can only give an annual rent increase of five per cent. But if someone leaves, they can jack it up as high as they wish,” Fortin said yesterday.

Fortin said that some landlords are doing surface renovations, rather than substantive work, and then increasing the rent from $200 to $400.

Victoria, with a vacancy rate of 0.2 per cent, can’t afford to lose affordable rental housing like this, he added.

Fortin and Coun. Pam Madoff want council to pass a resolution calling on the province to close “the loophole” in the Residential Tenancy Act.

“The loophole is this substantial renovation, where in essence, what we’re finding is that they’re doing one-day replacing carpets and then renting it out the next day,” Fortin said.

Madoff said the issue has been a major problem in Vancouver and is surfacing here. “There is just a real concern there isn’t accountability to it,” she said.

James Bay resident Mick Rhodes has challenged the eviction notice he received New Year’s Eve to vacate the apartment he’s lived in for six years.

The reason he was given for the notice was that his landlord wanted to upgrade the kitchen and the bathroom. Rhodes said no one has ever entered his suite to check on the condition of either room.

Since receiving the notice, Rhodes has been finding dozens of people, in his and other buildings, who have received similar notices.

“It’s flagrant,” said Rhodes. “Every month, more and more people are being served eviction notices. People are being tossed out.”

Apartment Owners and Property Managers Association CEO Al Kemp has no doubt there are some cases of the “renovictions” occurring.

However, he said, the legislation already provides a remedy if a tenant believes the landlord is being unscrupulous.

Tenants have the right to challenge an eviction notice and whether the renovations do fall under the category of major is then decided by a dispute resolution officer.

The landlord has to prove both that the renovation is major and that there is some reason it has to happen now, said Kemp.

Further, if the landlord doesn’t carry out a planned renovation, they are automatically subject to an additional fine equal to two months rent.

Kemp said a renovation like replacing carpet with laminate flooring or repainting would not qualify.

However, he said there are legitimate reasons for a landlord to issue a renovation eviction.

“Sometimes landlords get caught by the fire department or the building inspector who say as of today you have to do major renovations to your electrical systems to accommodate a fire alarm system.”

Fortin will also seek council’s approval to instruct bylaw enforcement staff not to close down buildings that may be substandard, but instead to work with owners to upgrade them.

The city has the authority under the Community Charter to order that buildings be brought up to health and safety standards, Fortin said.

“We want our staff to exercise their discretion. Rather than close buildings down and take low rent and affordable housing out of the stock, we want them to keep it going but take care of the health and safety issues.

“Nobody wants to see someone die in a fire. Nobody wants to see someone sick because of [building] health issues. But no one want to see people made homeless.”

bcleverley@tc.canwest.com

Source: © Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

Risky Business – Closing Eviction Loopholes

Posted February 12th, 2009 in Think City Minute

For the past few years, there have been heart-wrenching stories in the news about tenants facing eviction in our city.

Bay Towers, Seafield Apartments, Emerald Terrace, The Glenmore, Reid Manor and Marine Gardens – hundreds of people living in these buildings have been evicted or threatened with eviction, only to be pushed into a rental market that, at last report by Canada’s Mortgage and Housing Corporation, had a 0.5 per cent vacancy rate and some of the highest rents in Canada.

Adding to Vancouver’s rental woes, some landlords are planning to evict tenants and lease out vacated units during the 2010 Games at exorbitant rates to Olympic visitors.

It’s a perfect storm for the more than 56 per cent of city dwellers who rent and the perfect time for an organization to mobilize tenants to fight back. Enter Renters at Risk.

Founded in 2004, Renters at Risk (RAR) has been working to unite renters predominantly in the city’s West End, fight market-driven evictions and change laws to better protect renters. Formed by tenants facing eviction, today RAR is made up of a core group of a dozen volunteers, the majority of them West Enders – some of them home owners, most of them not. Meeting in their apartments to develop their plans and strategy, the group makes all decisions together and relies on different members to take the lead on an issue. It’s very much an on-the-job learning experience for these community-minded activists, according to RAR volunteer member Christine Ackermann.

Tracing her own involvement in RAR, Ackermann recalls how just last May she knew little about the issues facing renters in the city. Then her landlord issued eviction notices to her and the 20 other tenants of her building.

Worried about losing her home, Ackermann started to talk with her neighbours. Someone suggested they meet with RAR representatives about getting help to fight the evictions. Ackerman threw herself into the fight to save her building and in a matter of weeks she went from being a potential victim of unscrupulous landlords to seasoned housing activist. Plus, she kept her apartment.

Following this victory, Ackermann did not fade back into her regular life. Working as an executive assistant in a non-profit by day, she has now become a central figure in RAR efforts to help other renters keep their homes.

“It’s heart-breaking to see the devastating profiteering by some landlords,” says Ackermann. “At the Seafield Apartments right now, we are working with an 83 year-old man and his 92 year-old sister who are facing rent hikes of $700 per month over proposed renovations – a 60 per cent increase – for a home they have lived in for 47 years.”

“Some developers are trying to turn the West End into Yaletown through ‘renovictions,’” says Ackermann. “We need to close the loopholes and take away these kinds of business tactics from the bad developers.”

RAR is about grassroots, community organizing led directly by the citizens who are impacted by the affordable housing crisis – and it is working. Under RAR’s leadership, renters are asserting their rights by effectively waging a public awareness and legal campaign to successfully prevent evictions.

Moreover, the fight is not merely defensive, it is proactive. For RAR, the housing crisis is not just about one neighbourhood or one city – it’s an issue that affects British Columbians province-wide. People from Kelowna, Kamloops, Victoria, Prince George and other cities are contacting RAR weekly asking for advice and guidance about fighting evictions. That is why RAR is also advocating Victoria make legislative changes that would protect renters across the province.

Five years ago, RAR started with a simple idea that ordinary people could fight against unjust evictions in one West End apartment building. As Ackermann notes, it just takes a few people to make change happen.

Source – http://www.thinkcity.ca/node/131

Campaign aims to raise awareness of tenants’ rights

The City of Vancouver will launch a new public awareness campaign later this month to educate landlords who want their tenants out leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Martha Lewis, executive director of the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre, said it is illegal if landlords force tenants out without sufficient reason and rent the places to tourists visiting the city to watch the Olympics.

The city is working with the advisory centre, a Vancouver-based non-profit organization aimed at promoting tenants’ rights, to roll out its new campaign at the end of February, Lewis said.

There are hefty penalties for rent hikes above the legal limit, Lewis said, the details of which will be announced when the campaign launches.

“We have found increasingly that landlords who are called mom and pop landlords — as opposed to professional ones — do not know the law,” Lewis said.

Boris Kuznets, who owns a half-dozen condo properties in Vancouver and bordering Richmond, said he hopes to fill them with Olympic tourists even though local tenants have been living in the units.

“I gave my tenants notice. When the Olympics come, they are going to vacate [their units] or pay the same amount that somebody else will pay,” Kuznets said.

Kuznets said he plans to earn $10,000 to $15,000 from each of his suites by renting them out during the Games.

But he said he will not kick the current tenants out if they cannot find other places to live during the Olympics.

Source – http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/02/09/bc-olympics-landlord-rights.html

Gag-law limits about to take effect in B.C.

The Straight
By Carlito Pablo

Unless it’s struck down as unconstitutional by the B.C. Supreme Court, B.C. Liberal legislation described by critics as a gag on free speech will take effect on February 13.

Bill 42 states that any individual or organization other than a candidate, a registered political party, or a constituency association must spend no more than $150,000 on advertising in the 88 days prior to an election. Also known as the Election Amendment Act, 2008, the law has the ability to impose stiff fines of 10 times the amount overspent.

“We will be trying to use some other methods to get our message out,” Irene Lanzinger, president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, told the Straight.

The BCTF was one of seven labour unions that filed a legal challenge in July 2008 questioning the constitutionality of Bill 42 before the B.C. Supreme Court.

In December, a B.C. Supreme Court judge denied the group’s application for an injunction.

The law would allow a political party to spend $1.1 million in the 60-day precampaign period and $4.4 million during the 28-day campaign period.

Individual candidates would be able to shell out up to $70,000 during the 60-day period before the start of the campaign, and another $70,000 during the campaign period.

Lanzinger said that leading up to the May 12 election the BCTF will rely heavily on its 41,000 members to spread the message that the Liberal government has underfunded education, resulting in school closures, oversized classes, and a lack of support for students with special needs. She said that her group will also use methods like rallies, speaking out at candidates meetings, and electronic communications to do this.

In a phone interview on January 30, lawyer Joseph Arvay, the counsel representing the unions, said he has written the court to ask it to render its decision before February 13, the day the bill would take effect.

“But we just don’t know whether the judge will be able to do that,” Arvay told the Straight.

Source – http://www.straight.com/article-199745/gaglaw-limits-about-take-effect?