Parkdale tenants end six-month rent strike after landlord withdraws AGI request

In May, the longtime owner sold the property for $15.5 million, organizers said.

MetCap withdrew the rent increase request from the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) one week after some tenants drove to Montreal to protest at the new landlord’s home.

MetCap Living previously told the Star the AGI would primarily cover a lobby renovation and a new security system costing a combined $224,000. 

The company did not immediately respond to the Star’s request for comment on Friday.

Cole Webber, a community legal worker at Parkdale Community Legal Services who assisted the tenants, called the development “significant,” noting landlords responding to a rent strike usually wait it out until the LTB approves their AGI application.

”(The tenants) did what everyone talks about, but very few people actually do,” Webber said. “They formed an independent organization of their building, they took collective action in the form of rent withholding for a period of six months, they didn’t back down, and they repeatedly and directly confronted the building owners.”

The AGI threatened to price these renters out of their homes, Webber said.

“Tenants at 75 Spencer are working class people. The leaders of the rent strike are working as hotel cleaners, in light manufacturing, as overnight concierges at condo buildings, so any increase in their housing costs above and beyond what is typically expected hurts people,” he said.

“That’s why they responded so resolutely.”

Luz Flores, a resident of 75 Spencer Ave. for more than 20 years, said the AGI would have been hard on many seniors in the building who live off their pensions.

“That money, we can use for something else — for food, for bills,” she said.

Sonam Tsering, who has lived in the building for 15 years, said tenants were shocked when they found out the landlord had applied for an AGI to cover lobby renovations.

“It’s not like they improved all the apartments,” he said. “It’s just a renovated lobby.”

Getting the AGI withdrawn is “a great feeling,” Tsering said, and he encourages other renters in similar situations not to “go down” without a fight.

MetCap manages more than 20,000 apartment units across Canada, according to its website, including more than a dozen multi-family buildings in Toronto.

The company has faced rent strikes in Parkdale before. In 2017, hundreds of Parkdale tenants living in MetCap-managed buildings went on rent strike for three months and successfully negotiated lower rent increases.

Apartments in Ontario built or occupied before Nov. 15, 2018, are rent-controlled and subject to rent increase limits set by the province each year.

However, landlords can apply to increase rents by more than the provincial limit under certain circumstances, including to cover major repairs or renovations.

For example, the rent increase guideline for 2027 is 1.9 per cent. Therefore, a tenant whose landlord has been approved for a 3 per cent AGI — the maximum AGI permitted per year — would get a rent increase of 4.9 per cent that year.

If a landlord is approved for an AGI of more than 3 per cent, the increase would be dispersed over more than one year.