An affordable housing advocacy group says there are 330 tenants currently facing renovictions in Ottawa.
Ottawa doesn’t have a renoviction bylaw, but the planning and housing committee has asked city staff to look deeper into the possibility.
Hamilton, Toronto and London are among the Ontario cities that already have such bylaws. Ottawa’s review process would take more than a year and it would mean that other priorities would be delayed, including regulations for leaf blowers and a review of existing regulations for body rub parlours.
But it will be worth it, said Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster, who tabled the motion for a review.
“We have identified housing and homelessness as one of our council priorities,” Troster said Wednesday. “At the end of the day, if we don’t solve this problem, it’s going to cost the city more. My entire goal in trying to advance a solution to renovictions is to turn off the tap at one source.”
A tenant is “renovicted” when they are issued an eviction notice by a landlord, ostensibly so the unit can be significantly renovated. But a landlord acting in bad faith can discourage the tenant from returning so the unit can then be rented to another tenant at a higher cost. The renovations may be unnecessary or cosmetic.
Tenants’ rights advocates say an effective bylaw would ensure two things: requiring proof that renovations were necessary; and that it was necessary for the tenant to vacate during the renovations.
Under Hamilton’s bylaw, which took effect on Jan. 1, a landlord must apply for a renovation licence within seven days after issuing an N13 eviction notice to a tenant. The licence fee is $715. The landlord must also provide a copy of the building permit as well as a report from a qualified engineer confirming that work requires the tenant to vacate.
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City staff had recommended against adopting a renoviction bylaw In Ottawa. Based on Hamilton’s experience, it would cost Ottawa $2.2 million a year to hire bylaw officers and to pay for other resources to enforce a bylaw, a feasibility report said.
The report also contended there were pending amendments to Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act, Bill 97, aimed at preventing bad-faith evictions, which would render a municipal bylaw unnecessary. Troster tabled a second motion asking the city staff to pursue answers about when the amendments would become law.
Eddy Roué, a board member of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an affordable housing advocacy group, said the group was aware of 330 tenants currently facing renovictions in Ottawa.
“Inaction puts all their housing at risk,” Roué said.
Nelda Giroux, 72, told the committee she had received an eviction notice last November. She has a pension, but can’t afford another apartment. She was contemplating living in her car, but can’t afford the car, either.
“I always told people it wouldn’t happen to me,” she said. “It could happen to any one of you.”
Roué said that despite provincial regulations allowing tenants to return after renovations, tenants often struggle to exercise the right of first refusal for a number of reasons, including challenges in finding short-term leases at the same rent during renovations, which often last for six to 12 months.
Roué added that N13 notices, which are granted when landlords propose major renovations, are often approved without verifying that the landlords have the necessary city approvals. Landlords are rarely fined for bad-faith evictions, he said.
Even if the provincial legislation came into effect, it would not include key elements such as temporary accommodations, rent gap payments or moving cost assistance — which a municipal bylaw could cover, Roué said.
Aileen Leo, a spokesperson for The Ottawa Mission, said renovictions were a major contributor to the surge of homelessness in the city. According to a recent study, for every new unit of affordable housing built in Ottawa, 31 units are being lost due to rising rents, renovations or demolition.
It’s not enough to focus on increasing the new supply of affordable housing, Leo said.
“It’s critical to stop the erosion and plug the holes at the bottom of the bucket. It’s extraordinarily frustrating and demoralizing for us to help vulnerable community members find housing only to see them back in our shelter after being renovicted.”
Renovictions are also a burden on the city, which provides funding to shelters, Leo said. “It’s far better to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.”
Christelle Azzi, a staff lawyer with Community Legal Services of Ottawa, a nonprofit community legal clinic, said there was no indiction of when Bill 97, the provincial legislation, would come into effect. The shelter system costs more than $30 million a year and the overflow hotel system costs more than $60 million, plus there are costs related to policing and care, she said.
“There will be costs to enacting this bylaw, but it will cost the city more to do nothing,” Azzi said.
Others warned the committee there could be unintended consequences.
Closing the loopholes on N13 eviction notices could result in more N12 eviction notices, which are issued when landlords want to claim rental units for personal reasons, such as family members.
Sometimes renovations are needed, and sometimes the tenant must vacate so that can happen safely, including in cases where hazardous materials such as asbestos are being removed, said John Dickie, chair of the Eastern Ontario Landlord Organization (EOLO).
Even without a bylaw, individual tenants sometimes delay repairs that are needed to bring dozens of rental units back into the market. It’s critical that the steps the city takes to address specific parts of the housing crisis don’t make the overall problem worse, Dickie said.
“Expanded rules are likely to create more delays and costs, making other unidentified tenants worse off, even as they make a few identifiable tenants better off,” Dickie said.
EOLO is in favour of asking the province to implement changes in Bill 97, Dickie said, but, when it comes to an Ottawa bylaw, better information can be obtained as renoviction bylaws roll out in other cities.
Some councillors expressed frustration that municipalities had to step in when the province could take action.
A bylaw could make it more difficult or expensive for a landlord to evict a tenant for an unnecessary renovation, but the Landlord and Tenant Board, a provincial tribunal, would still have the last word on eviction.
“There are 444 municipalities in this province. It seems wrong that we would leave it up to 444 municipalities to try to solve this problem,” River ward Coun. Riley Brockington said.
“This is a provincial issue that needs a provincial solution.”
Voting in favour of a review didn’t mean the committee was voting in favour of a bylaw, but for city staff to continue reviewing what other cities had learned, Troster said.
Considering a potential renoviction bylaw would not result on restrictions on building new housing, she said.
“All it would do is ensure that potentially we would consider a step to try to dissuade landlords from unfair evictions.”
