Toronto council votes to beef up RentSafeTO

Torontosun.com
Nov. 28, 2019
Bryan Passifiume

Tempers boiled over at city hall Wednesday after a failed attempt to move contentious tenant protection measures back to the planning and housing committee.

“I find this will lead us to years of litigation,” Councillor James Pasternak said of the committee’s recommendation to amend RentSafeTO to compel landlords to pay to rehouse displaced tenants if their homes become uninhabitable--as were the cases with fires at 235 Gosford Blvd. earlier this month, and 650 Parliament last year.

“It will not help tenants, and I think more work needs to be done at the committee level,” he said.

Councillor Josh Matlow angrily accused Pasternak of burying the measure at the behest of lobbyists.

“Did the landlord lobby request this either be scuttled or killed?” Matlow asked, inquiring if Pasternak’s recent meeting with Greater Toronto Apartment Association president Daryl Chong was related to his motion to return the issue to committee.

Pasternak was one of eight councillors Chong met with on Nov. 21 to discuss the issue, according to the city’s lobbyist registry.

“This is totally inappropriate,” Pasternak interjected. “If the councillor is concerned about lobbyists, he should go to the lobbyist registry.”

Pasternak’s motion failed, with only he and Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong voting in favour.

Holding landlords responsible for rehousing was one of several amendments to beef up RentSafeTO, which some on council say wasn’t doing enough to protect Toronto’s tenants.

Enacted in 2017, RentSafeTO introduced measures to improve living conditions for renters.

However, many of these have yet to be implemented, including set timelines for landlords to remedy issues such as maintenance, graffiti or pests, limiting time extensions at the property standards committee, and introducing colour-coded building rating signs similar to Toronto’s DineSafe program.

Council voted unanimously to the amendments.