TRCA board members congratulate themselves on job well done 

Torontosun.com
April 11, 2014
By Sue-Ann Levy

I was summoned to a Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) meeting Friday morning to hear what chairman Gerri Lynn O’Connor called “their side of the story” on the 118 homes valued at $35 million they own and rent out at modest prices.

The highly hyped report on the residential rental program was the key item at the Authority’s monthly executive committee meeting, although Toronto councillors Maria Augimeri and Glenn De Baeremaeker were conspicuous in their absence.

But after a presentation by the TRCA’s senior manager of property services, Mike Fenning, some milquetoast-bordering-on-inane questions from a few board members and much back-patting about TRCA’s rental program, I learned only a few things.

No one on the board raised the issue of CEO Brian Denney’s rental situation — the fact that he’d lived in two TRCA homes for 38 years and that he is paying about $1,800 rent for his current home on Pine Valley Dr. No one uttered a word either about the in-camera vote last year, which allowed Denney to retire, collect his $140,000 pension and be rehired on the spot in the same job earning another $201,000.

That was a statement in itself, although they never broke any of their own rules.

But it was what Fenning said about the rents, how they establish those rents and who is eligible to rent those homes, that caught my attention.

He told the board that the rents for their homes — including 66 on the Rouge Park lands which will be turned over to Parks Canada in two years time — range from $471 per month to $1,924 per month with the average going rate of $1,212 per home, confirming what I wrote earlier this week.

Fenning claimed the homes are mostly in rural settings on large parcels of land with the utilities on the high side, which impacts on the amount of rent they can charge.

Asked after the meeting how they actually determine their “market” rents, he said they have internal staff who go out and look at comparable home rentals in the area and “use that as a basis” for their rental rates. Fenning couldn’t give specifics on what kind of homes were used as comparables.

He added that they abide by the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal which dictates how much they can raise the rents each year. The only exception to that rule is when they do major capital work on the homes or when they have new tenants — they can look at increasing the rents up to “market,” he said.

I wondered if that latter statement was a Freudian slip, considering that I was repeatedly told by Denney that rents charged are all at market rates.

“Generally most of our tenants are long-term ... so we’re stuck,” Fenning said.

Up to now they’ve mostly advertised their homes on the web, but he said in the future they will send out the information to local real estate agents as well.

“We make our rental properties available to everybody ... we don’t have a preferred list ... it’s first come first-served,” he said in response to a question from one of the board members, conveniently ignoring Denney’s 38-year rental history with two TRCA homes.

Toronto councillor Gloria Lindsay-Luby wondered why the houses couldn’t be sold.

“This is an interim use of an asset ... we try to maximize use of that asset ... at some point we will demolish them (the homes),” Fenning said. “The land is really what we’re looking for ... most of our houses are in very nice settings.”

The questions by board members quickly morphed into back-patting about the rental program and the TRCA’s great abilities as a landlord, in between trips to the food table where a spread was laid out offering designer muffins wrapped in nice red napkins, scones, strawberries, banana bread, expensive teas and brewed coffees.

Markham deputy mayor Jack Heath claimed the rental home expose became part of the “mayoralty circus” that occurs in Toronto every four years — and one which doesn’t occur in other municipalities (no doubt referring to his.)

Caledon board member Richard Whitehead snarled that there wasn’t enough research done (in the Sun articles) because “you certainly don’t sell large land parcels (acquired for conservation purposes) to get rid of a house.”

Vaughan regional councillor Michael Di Biase, moving to receive the report, applauded the rental of the homes because it keeps “intruders” from going in. He added that his wife “would be dead” if forced to live in one of the TRCA homes “in the bush.”

And within an hour of commencing, the board meeting ended, the councillors having weighed in heavily on the rental homes issue and decided they were doing just fine.