Steven Love hasn’t been able to access the laundry room in his South Parkdale rental apartment for the past two months.
“They told us it’s another four weeks until it’s complete, but who knows how long really,” he said, walking through the main floor of his building, which has been torn up for renovations.
Since purpose-built rental developer Fitzrovia took over the building in 2023, Love said his building has become a construction site.
Upon entering the lobby, visitors see a digital screen showing the logo for Fitzrovia subsidiary Maddox, but the walls around it have been taken down, and there is metal framing poking out in various places. Around the corner, the main hallway exposes bare concrete walls. Love, who’s lived in the building for 13 years, said whenever a unit becomes vacant, it’s also renovated.
“It’s been two years of ongoing construction in various parts of the building.”
Fitzrovia is rapidly expanding across the GTA, launching a $1-billion fund backed by pension plans to build more rental housing and eliminate the negative stigma around renting. Since its inception in 2017, Fitzrovia has launched 19 purpose-built rental buildings in Toronto.
In February 2024, the company officially launched its Maddox subsidiary to manage and operate existing rental stock with the aim to “enhance vintage-style apartments to meet the modern needs of renters residing in Canada,” according to a news release. Currently, Maddox operates four rental buildings in Toronto.
That effort has led to tensions with some tenants in existing buildings acquired by Fitzrovia, who have raised concerns about how their new landlord operates, arguing that its focus on “elevating” existing rental stock often means intrusive construction and could result in higher rents.
The tenants argue they’ve received little to no notice of lengthy renovations that caused accessibility issues, and felt pressure to abide by sections of the company’s new 91-page lease, which include code of conduct rules. They have also raised privacy concerns regarding new electronic door locks.
Fitzrovia counters that it is investing tens of millions of dollars to maintain and upgrade postwar rent-controlled buildings that have become “invisible” in the housing conversation and deserve attention. The company also says it has been proactive about addressing problems with the small group of residents who aren’t happy with the changes.
“We’ve done this without ‘renovictions.’ Without above-guideline rent increases. And while fully honouring every lease. We modernize homes without pushing people out,” Adrian Rocca, CEO of Fitzrovia, said in a written statement.
While giving a tour of a fully renovated building on Tyndall Avenue, next to Love’s building (Maddox operates two buildings side by side on Tyndall Avenue) Rocca emphasized that while there are a handful of tenants who aren’t happy with the changes to the building, the vast majority are.
At odds over construction
In 2023, Fitzrovia became co-owner of Pat and Colin Perkel’s Moss Park building.
The couple, who have been renters at 191 Sherbourne St. for more than a decade, said for months Fitzrovia did “extensive” and “intrusive” renovations in common spaces in the building. Pat said she has a hearing scheduled with the Landlord and Tenant Board in October to address the permanent loss of amenities such as their building’s pool, hot tub and sauna, suspension of mail delivery, and closure of the laundry room, among others.
Rocca said when Fitzrovia acquired the building, the pool, hot tub and sauna were closed due to COVID-19 and in a state of disrepair, and it wasn’t possible to reopen and rebuild these amenities.
“We know this was a disappointing decision for residents,” he said. “We acknowledged this with a one-time rent credit for every resident who lost use of this amenity.”
While the mail delivery system was upgraded, alternative options such as off-site mail pickup were used, with management available to drive residents who needed assistance, Rocca said. And for the two laundry rooms, one room was closed at a time so residents always had facilities available, he added.
When the lobby was renovated, for four months tenants had to use steps and “substandard paths” to access the building, Pat said.
“This made it difficult and at times impossible for those with mobility impairment, including one of my family members, to enter or exit the building,” she said, adding that she cited the Ontarians with Disabilities Act during several meetings with Fitzrovia and Maddox senior staff before filing her complaint with the Landlord and Tenant Board.
Rocca said that during construction, the front entrance was occasionally closed for periods lasting from a couple of hours to three days between February to August 2024. During these times, alternative entrances were used, and accommodations that met the building code were put in place for those with mobility challenges.
But Rocca acknowledges the “arrangement was less than ideal.”
“We’ve listened, and we’ve learned. Since then, we’ve committed to proactive accessibility planning for all future construction work,” he said, adding that they have worked collaboratively with residents “on a revised and comprehensive accessibility policy for the building. This policy is currently being finalized and will be completed this summer.”
New leases, old tenants
After Fitzrovia took over the rental buildings in Moss Park and South Parkdale, long-term tenants say it adopted a new 91-page lease for new tenants — which includes 15 pages of the standard lease agreement plus dozens of pages of additional items.
The lease, which was reviewed by the Star, outlines additional terms beyond the standard lease. For instance, it states that visitors can’t stay for longer than two continuous weeks and details how tenant information can be used in marketing materials.
According to the Ontario government, additional terms for any lease that contradict the Residential Tenancies Act are not enforceable, such as not allowing pets, or guests.
Rocca said the new lease makes an effort to explain the Residential Tenancies Act so tenants understand both their legal rights and responsibilities under their lease.
He acknowledged the lease is “detailed” so residents know what to expect in the building, and what’s expected of them.
“We also understand that nothing in our lease overrides a tenant’s right under the Residential Tenancies Act,” he said.
Items such as visitor-stay limits help to “ensure transparency about who’s living in the unit, which is essential for emergency planning and building operations,” Rocca said.
New tenants can also opt out of being in marketing and promotional material, he added.
Love says tenants who were already in the building when Fitzrovia took over were allowed to keep their old lease contracts, but he worries about what might happen in the future.
Love said he received a letter in 2024, reviewed by the Star, in which the building’s management asked him to consider getting private liability insurance, a requirement under the new lease but not his own.
“We fully honour all existing lease agreements and tenant rights under Ontario law,” Rocca said in a written response. “Long-standing residents remain on their original leases from the previous landlord.”
Privacy concerns over locks
Another key issue for the Perkels and Love was when Maddox wanted to change the locks on the apartment unit doors from manual to electronic with a fob being used as the key.
“Those locks aren’t designed for residential use, they’re for offices and hotels,” Pat said. “And they track you every time you open and close your door.”
Rocca said that in October 2024, after listening to resident concerns, they disabled a feature that could “retrieve unit-level access data” which was “a feature that had never been used.”
“We permanently deleted any stored unit-level data,” he added.
Pat raised the lock and other privacy violations with Fitzrovia but said they “didn’t understand” her concerns. She said she was left with no choice but to take her complaints to the federal privacy commissioner.
Rocca said that on Nov. 19, 2024, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada formally notified them of a complaint.
Over the winter, Fitzrovia’s third-party privacy expert collaborated with the privacy commissioner to ensure they were compliant under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.
An updated privacy policy was shared with Maddox residents at the Perkels’ building in early May 2025, Rocca said, adding the Office of the Privacy Commissioner said in mid-June 2025 that the “complaint is tentatively considered resolved, pending the final report.”
A spokesperson for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner confirmed to the Star that an active investigation is ongoing, and could not comment at this time.
Love also filed an application at the Landlord and Tenant Board over the locks, which was settled through “successful” mediation, according to a spokesperson for Tribunals Ontario, the details of which are “confidential.”
As such, Love said he could not comment on the mediation but said he kept a manual lock for his apartment door.
Around 10 per cent — 33 tenants out of 325 suites for both Tyndall buildings — opted to keep their manual key locks, according to Cole Rodness, the director of asset management for Maddox.
Unwelcome marketing tactics
Some tenants are concerned that Fitzrovia’s bid to upgrade and redesign existing rental buildings, as well as build new rental stock in their neighbourhoods, could push rents higher in historically low-income areas — gentrifying neighbourhoods by attracting higher-income earners into their buildings, which have historically housed vulnerable populations.
But Rocca said modernizing the buildings while maintaining rent control adds quality supply without removing affordability.
“Many of the rental buildings were constructed in the postwar era and haven’t seen meaningful upgrades in decades,” he said. “We believe residents in historically underserved neighbourhoods deserve clean, safe and well-maintained homes just as much as anyone else.”
According to city of Toronto data, in South Parkdale, where both Tyndall buildings are located, 21 per cent of the population is on government assistance. However, in marketing materials Fitzrovia says Love’s building is in Liberty Village, where just seven per cent of the population is on government assistance.
Similarly, the Perkels’ building is now described as being located in Cabbagetown in marketing materials, which is considered a more upscale neighbourhood than its actual location in Moss Park, the Perkels said.
“It places upward pressure on rents here,” Colin said, adding that neighbourhoods like Moss Park and South Parkdale are part of the few remaining pockets in the city where there are still rent-controlled and affordable apartments.
Rocca said “the name change was a marketing decision” to reach a wider audience of potential renters.
“This marketing strategy is about reach, not pricing. It’s about helping more people discover well-managed homes in centrally located neighbourhoods in a city where rental options are increasingly limited,” Rocca said.
The tenants argue the move could help inflate rents, which go for $2,150 to $3,250 per month at 191-201 Sherbourne St. and $1,800 to $2,775 per month at 115-135 Tyndall Ave., Fitzrovia confirmed. The new asking rents are more than double what the existing tenants pay, which is less than $1,000 a month.
However, asking rents posted on both buildings’ websites are in line with current asking rents in their respective neighbourhoods, according to Rentals.ca.
“Rents in these buildings are only raised beyond annual rent increase guidelines for suites that become vacant and undergo substantial renovations,” Rocca said in a written statement. “These newly revitalized suites are then leased at market rates which are at a significant discount to nearby purpose-built rental buildings (first occupied after Nov. 18, 2018).”
Even though Fitzrovia has not raised rents on existing tenants, some feel these few affordable buildings could, in time, disappear.
Love said if developers want to build in Liberty Village, nothing is stopping them. But gentrifying neighbourhoods that serve those on government assistance and other social services squeezes them out.
“Their marketing campaign is not geared toward people that live there,” he said. “I cannot afford to move. I am here for life.”
