Crafting of a ‘renoviction’ bylaw isn’t in the immediate future for Guelph, but it may be on the horizon.
Meeting as the committee of the whole on Tuesday, city council unanimously agreed to put off detailed discussion of such a bylaw until next month. That’s when a housing affordability strategy will be presented to it, along with staff-recommended action items intended to address the larger issue of the housing affordability crisis … or at least the part under municipal control.
“I'm actually really excited that this is going to have a slate of choices and other options for us to look at,” Mayor Cam Guthrie said of the Oct. 8 meeting. “This is an issue that's an issue across Ontario, across the country actually, and it's a growing issue.”
Renoviction occurs when landlords evict tenants so they can renovate their unit and don’t allow the tenant to move back in at their previous rental rate, convert the unit for another use or demolish it.
Committee members were set to consider the creation of a rental replacement bylaw, a landowner licensing fee program for renovations or a combination of both, aimed at requiring alternate housing or compensation for evicted tenants.
“We cannot lose sight of the critical importance of protecting the affordable housing that already exists when people are forced out of their homes due to renovictions and cannot return,” Dominica McPherson of the Guelph and Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination told council. “Those affordable units are often lost permanently, replaced with market rate housing that many can no longer afford.”
Daniel Kaufmann, a Brant Avenue resident facing eviction due to the landlord’s renovation plan, urged council to take steps to protect tenants. He called on them to move ahead with a renoviction bylaw that requires landlords to inform renters of their rights, such as returning to the unit after at the same rate.
“The main issue that I've had is the lack of transparency,” he said, adding he wants to see landlords required to provide “proper information … so people don't think I have no choice here.”
He believes people with low incomes, such as seniors, are being targeted for eviction, noting many will end up paying twice as much if they leave and rent elsewhere.
In some cases, Kaufmann said, landlords have people move out for alterations to their unit, then move someone else in so the previous renter can’t return.
He would also like to see council create a registry for landlords to make it easier to tenants to find out who owns the buildings where they live. He said it took a "deep dive" to find out in his case – something he said may others can't do.
Corporate and financial landlords account for 20 per cent and eight per cent of rental property ownership, Morgan Dandie told council. It’s them who should be the focus of a renoviction bylaw.
Though it didn’t direct staff to work on creating a renoviction bylaw, the committee unanimously approved motions directing staff to “immediately create” an eviction survey to “shape and capture ongoing impacts of evictions” in the city, as well as the immediate creation of a web page intended to help renters understand their rights, expectations and information from other levels of government.
No time was provided for that work, but it was noted it won’t happen ahead of the Oct. 8 meeting.
Any decisions of the committee of the whole must first be ratified by council before they become official. Council is expected to consider ratification of Tuesday’s decisions during its meeting on Sept. 24.
