Tenant advocates marked a huge win Wednesday as the City of Toronto released the details of a long awaited “renoviction” bylaw.
The bylaw is aimed at preventing evictions under the guise of renovations, only for the unit to be rented out at a much higher rate. It has been in the works since 2019.
“Finally we can smile,” said Alejandra Ruiz Vargas, Canada chair for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). “Every time we come in here to protest or to dispute [but] today we can relax. Justice has been served to the City of Toronto and I think tenants in every part of the city, they should celebrate tonight. They should say that, ‘Finally,we have been heard.’”
In June, city council directed Toronto Building staff to create the bylaw, using the one formulated in Hamilton as a guide. Public consultations were conducted throughout September and the report that was published Wednesday contained recommendations and a framework for the implementation of the bylaw.
The report will be considered by the Planning and Housing Committee on October 30 and then go to city council for a vote on November 13. If it passes council, it will come into effect on July 31, 2025.
“Those landlords that are using renovations as an excuse to evict people, you can’t get away with it now,” said Mayor Olivia Chow during the announcement.
“Those that say ‘I’m changing your bathroom, I’m changing your kitchen cabinets and you need some new lights, I need this vacant in order to do that’ — that should be considered rule breaking,” said Coun. Paula Fletcher, who has been leading the charge on the bylaw. “That’s what we’re out to stop and to keep people in affordable rental apartments throughout this city. So we are making it harder to break the rules.”
How the new bylaw aims to protect tenants
The Toronto Building report recommends that the new bylaw require a landlord to go through a number of steps in order to undertake renovations that would need the unit to be vacant.
Firstly, a landlord will have to obtain a building permit and then file for a Residential Rental Renovation Licence within seven days of issuing an N13 notice to end tenancy for renovations.
The landlord will also have to post a city-provided Tenant Information Notice at the unit to inform tenants that a licence for renovations has been applied for and how to obtain information about their rights. The city will also provide the tenant with a handbook titled “Preventing Evictions in Toronto.” Once the licence is issued, it must be posted on the door of the unit.
The licence will cost $700 per unit and in order to apply, the landlord will have to submit a package of documents including:
- A report from a qualified person, like an engineer, confirming that the renovation work is so extensive that the tenant has to leave the unit
- A confirmation of approved building permits
- A confirmation that the Tenant Information Notice was posted
- A copy of the N13 notice
- A tenant accommodation and compensation plan to provide returning tenants with temporary housing or monthly ‘rent-gap’ payments to cover the rent difference they have to pay if they find their own interim accommodations. The amount for the ‘rent-gap’ payments will be the difference between the tenant’s current rent and the average market rent for a similar unit first occupied in 2015, using data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
Landlords will also be required to provide tenants with a moving allowance. For studio or one-bedroom units, that allowance is $1,500 and for two-bedrooms or more, it is $2,500 — adjusted annually based on cost of living. For tenants who choose not to return, the landlord is required to pay a lump sum amount equal to three months of ‘rent-gap’ payments.
Fletcher says the added checks and balances these steps provide will deter landlords from seeing renovations as an easy avenue to evict tenants.
“Once you have to spend $700, once you have to hire an architect, once you have to go to the buildings department, once you have to get a building permit, then you really, really, really need to have a vacant unit. You’re not using it as an excuse,” she said. “This is to discourage those who can just get that N13 form and mark off that you need the unit vacant. You don’t have to have any proof that you need it vacant. You just give it to the Landlord and Tenant Board and hope your tenant doesn’t appeal it. So this is now a layer of protection that was not there before.”
Mayor Chow added that attaching a cost to evicting a tenant for renovations will act as a deterrent for bad actors.
“If they are just laying down carpet … they don’t need the tenants to leave … so there’s no extra cost if you don’t need to evict someone,” she said.
The added requirement to prove vacant possession is meant to have the same effect.
“If all you’re doing within the building is painting and we receive something that says vacant possession is required, rest assured we’re going to be asking a lot more questions. There’s an ability here from Toronto Building’s perspective to be able to review those reports and confirm the validity as to whether the issuance of a license in this case is actually appropriate,” explained Kamal Gogna, Interim Chief Building Official and Executive Director, Toronto Building.
“The idea is to disincentivize them, to tell the landlords that are doing the bad actions ‘don’t do it because you’re not going to really be rewarded for that anymore,” added Ruiz Vargas.
Enforcement and keeping tenants informed
During renovations, tenants in Ontario have the right to first refusal — allowing them to return to the renovated unit at the same rent they were paying beforehand. In order to ensure that tenants are kept in the loop and can monitor when renovations are complete, a public registry will be set up.
“[This is] so people can track online in real time from anywhere in the world how that renovation is going,” explains Ted Van Vliet, Project Director, Toronto Building. “And then as part of the tenant accommodation or compensation plan, there would be documentation and some sort of security within that, a declaration that the landlord would maintain contact with the tenant and advise them once the work was complete and make the arrangements for that tenant to return.”
In addition, the Toronto Building report says, “Toronto Building will be actively monitoring building permits on units where renovation licences have been issued to support the timely completion of work and facilitate the ability of tenants to return to their rental unit as quickly as possible.”
Gogna explained that to ensure tenants are paid all the compensation required under the bylaw, confirmation of payment will be required from both the landlord and tenant before the Residential Rental Renovation Licence is issued. In addition, the bylaw also includes enforcement mechanisms.
“There are provisions within the bylaw ranging from issuing of orders to tickets to prosecuting and the fines could range from as minimum as zero, depending on the violation, to a judge fining someone up to a hundred thousand dollars depending on the severity of the violation being addressed,” he said.
Tenant advocate and lawyer Karly Wilson from Don Valley Community Legal Services feels confident in the city’s ability to enforce the bylaw.
“One thing the bylaw does very well is it ties this into the licensing process such that for landlords to get the licences that they require to do this work, they have to show that they’ve already compensated tenants, that they have a program to do so,” she said. “Also, the city has its own enforcement programs for licences and for bylaw violations … we have a very robust prosecution service here in the city, and I think they are up for the job.”
In addition, the city will launch an extensive education campaign in multiple languages to inform landlords and tenants as well as advocacy groups of the bylaw and the new licensing standards. The strategy will be implemented in two phases – first will be the initial roll out and then a continued education program to keep landlords and tenants informed.
Loopholes and other possible concerns
With the date of implementation in July of next year, there is a concern that there could be a sudden increase in the issuance of N13 eviction notices in order to get ahead of the bylaw.
“That is the only thing that I don’t like — that the bylaw is not [effective] today … I believe that probably could be a potential issue,” said Ruiz Vargas.
Gogna said they need time to put all the pieces in place to effectively implement the bylaw.
“We’ve had a very short window to prepare this bylaw. There’s a lot of administrative work that still needs to be done, whether it’s developing application forms, developing the implementation framework, how this is going to roll out. Resources still need to be finalized. Staff training on how this bylaw will be enforced still needs to be developed. So a lot of work behind the scenes still needs to take place. And we are going to complete that work between now and July, including the development of the public registry that is a key element of this report,” he said.
Gogna did not address how the city will counteract a possible spike in N13 notices or if any measures that can be retroactively enforced will be put in place.
Another concern is the possibility of a loophole during emergency repairs.
“There’s an exemption basically carved out in the bylaw that allows landlords to bypass the licensing program if they are ordered to do the repairs or if there’s an emergency for safety or health reasons,” said Wilson. “I can understand why that’s there, but I do know that that’s something that landlords could very easily abuse.”
Nevertheless, she says she’s satisfied with the overall scope of the bylaw and remains hopeful that any loose ends will be tied up before July, 2025.
“It’s basically everything that we were asking and advocating for in writing, which is really great to see after so many years of work,” she said. “[I’m feeling] enthusiastic, definitely really positive. It’s a really great day to be a tenant advocate.”
