Tenant advocates welcome plan to curb rent increases

Rent increases to be capped at 2.5 per cent on occupied private units built after 1991, under new provincial rules announced Thursday.

Thestar.com
April 20, 2017
By Emily Mathieu


Toronto tenants will be protected from massive spikes in monthly rent, as part of sweeping housing and rental protections announced by the province.

Under the new rules, announced Thursday, all occupied private rental units built after 1991 will now be protected by rent controls, or no longer vulnerable to an exemption that allowed landlords to boost the rent to whatever amount the market or their tenants could bear.

“This is a significant step forward and will provide more protections and affordability to tenants,” said Councillor Josh Matlow, who led rental reforms at city hall, including the creation of a bylaw for Toronto buildings that will require landlords to register with the city.

Going forward, the cap on annual rent increases for occupied private units built after 1991 will be 2.5 per cent each year. It will mean some security for tenants in Toronto’s commercial rental market, in a city where the waitlist for subsidized housing has topped 180,000 people.

Also included in “Ontario's Fair Housing Plan” is the creation of a standardized lease - with information in several languages - and tightened provisions around when and how a landlord can evict somebody to take back a rental unit for their own use, say, for a family member.

Diane Dyson, board executive with the Federation of Metro Tenants Association said the new lease is a necessary protection.

“Landlords use a wide variety of leases and when tenants walk through the door they don’t know what they are going to get. This new lease will make a fair playing field for all.”

Rent will be capped, but all landlords will still be allowed to apply for above-guideline rent increases to cover some significant expenses, including capital repairs. Landlords will not be allowed to apply if there are outstanding work orders on elevators.

Those above-guideline rental rules already applied to older buildings and tenant advocates contend that landlords used them to pass on the costs of unnecessary or excessive repairs, with the intent of forcing out long-term tenants.

The legislation also allows for the creation of new and tighter rules around how landlords can apply for and use those increases - something which the province will be consulting with tenants and landlords about in the coming months, according to a spokesperson from the Ministry of Housing.

Matlow said he was pleased to see above-guideline rent increases indentified as a considerable stressor on tenants and a place where legislative change is required.

“It is either going to be a substantive change or lip service and it is really up to the province to demonstrate to tenants what these reforms will look like,” he said.

Landlords can still name their price for vacant units.

“It is not rent control, it is rent regulation,” said Mary Todorow, research and policy analyst, with the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario. “When a sitting tenant leaves the unit the landlord can raise the rent to whatever they wish.”

Marva Burnett, president of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Canada, described the 1991 exemption of rent controls as a “failed policy that did little to building new rentals” but instead made housing increasingly unaffordable across Ontario.

The announcement marked a “significant day for tenants,” she said in a statement.