Hamilton, Ont. is looking at new rules that will limit or prevent renovictions by binding landlords and tenants legally during renovations.
Hamilton, Ont., is close to introducing a first-of-its-kind renoviction bylaw in the province that will force landlords to obtain licences to legitimize repairs they make to their properties.
The new legislation, carried 13-0-2 in a committee vote Wednesday, forces property owners to apply for a special permit for their rental addresses at a cost of around $700 when seeking a provincial N-13 notice — ending a tenancy due to a desire to demolish, repair or convert a rental unit.
University of Waterloo professor Brian Doucet, who studied housing insecurity and recorded findings in the Hamilton Neighbourhood Change Research Project, characterizes the bylaw as a movement that will be “blazing a trail that others in Ontario will soon follow.”
What if we all collectively broaden the concept of a haunted house with a greater focus on homelessness.
What if when a habitable house stands empty for bullshit financial reasons is when it gets hungry and angry.
What if a home that's been turned into an airbnb experiences the trauma of abandonment again and again every night, hoping against hope with each new renter, until the owner who hasn't set foot on its doorstep in years drops dead of a mysterious heart attack.
What if the taint of violence upon a home can originate not only from murder, but from the subtler forms of violence the wealthy enact in their class war.
What if the haunting within a squatted-in house develops a sense of gratitude and a fierce protectiveness of its squatters, becomes a labyrinth to swallow the cops who would harass them.
What if the newly built condo complex that juts painfully from the surrounding neighbourhood like a knife from a wound is haunted by everything that was sacrificed to build it, genius loci steeped in guilt and grief, a monument to human cruelty.
What if a house that's subjected to property speculation grows more sinister with each new investor until its corruption spreads through the entire neighbourhood. Those who can afford to move away do, unaware that what they're fleeing is supernatural and not merely the failure of the HOA to keep up the property values.
What if renovicted apartments whose tenants were unable to find safe footing elsewhere in the world are haunted by the ghosts, even though the former tenants never died there. They died because they were forced out.
What if the houses of the richest, homes bought or built with blood money, resent their owners. What if they never asked to be made this way, but have no moral agency to act and no hands with which to destroy themselves. What if they have their own ways of exacting revenge.
The Chinatown Working Group is calling for the area to be designated as a protected heritage district.
Defenders of Chinatown are sounding the alarm after much of the neighbourhood’s most historic block was sold to a developer with a reputation for renovictions.
Brandon Shiller and Jeremy Kornbluth recently acquired several properties on the northern part of the block bounded by de la Gauchetière, St-Urbain, Côté and Viger Sts.
If the block’s heritage buildings, which include the 1826 British and Canadian School at 1009 Côté St., were to be destroyed to make way for a massive real-estate development, “then it’s the end” for Chinatown, warned Jonathan Cha, a member of the Chinatown Working Group, whose volunteers have been meeting for about two years to chart a future for the district.
The group is calling for the area — the oldest urban neighbourhood outside Old Montreal — to be designated as a protected heritage district, like the old quarter.
“There’s an emergency right now and we need to use all the tools that we have to defend Chinatown,” warned Cha, a landscape architect, urbanologist and authority on Chinatown’s past.
“This is the moment and it might already be too late,” he added.
Designed by James O’Donnell, best remembered as the architect of Notre-Dame Basilica, the four-storey stone building on the corner of Côté and de la Gauchetière Sts. is Montreal’s oldest purpose-built school. It now serves as Wing’s noodle factory.
The developers also acquired an 1884 factory at 987-991 Côté St. that incorporates part of the former Free Presbyterian Church, built in 1848, as well as other buildings on the south side of de la Gauchetière, including an imposing stone house at No. 106 where the now-closed Orange Rouge restaurant was located.
Shiller and Kornbluth have been in the news over allegations of evictions and harassment of tenants. On Friday, about 100 demonstrators protested against evictions at the 90-unit Manoir Lafontaine apartment building at 3485 Papineau Ave. Residents of 3655 Ridgewood Ave. have also complained of being subjected to pressure to leave and deteriorating living conditions. The pair have been blamed for gentrification in Mile End, where a steep rent hike forced out the popular Le Cagibi café-restaurant in 2018.
Shiller did not return a call from the Montreal Gazette and Kornbluth’s answering machine did not accept messages.
Jean-Philippe Riopel, a tour guide who has lived in Chinatown for 11 years, learned that Shiller and Kornbluth had bought his building on Jan. 8.
“It really worried me,” said Riopel, 37, who has been deeply attached to the district since childhood when his father, a police officer who walked the beat in Chinatown, used to bring him along on trips to the neighbourhood. He has extensively researched the area’s history and has given tours there.
“Who would spend $20 million on buildings with three or four storeys?” asked Riopel, who fears the new owners may be planning a highrise project like the ones hemming in the southern gates to Chinatown on St-Laurent Blvd.
Documents show the developers bought four other properties on March 22, including the former school, which sold for $9.2 million. They contracted a $15-million mortgage on March 10.
The fact that the owners of the property use the business name 1000 St-Urbain Ltd, which is the address of a vacant lot, is ominous, Riopel said.
Last summer, while helping his neighbour plant a garden in the backyard, he unearthed several artifacts including glass bottles, an antique gun and stone foundations.
After Riopel and a friend, Élyse Lévesque, revealed the change of ownership on Facebook two weeks ago, city councillors Cathy Wong and Robert Beaudry, who sit on Montreal’s executive committee, sent an inspector to warn the owner not to undertake any major changes.
“We are worried,” Beaudry, the executive committee member responsible for housing and real estate, said in an interview.
“We are somewhat familiar with the practices of this developer,” he said. “No permit has been requested, but from all appearances it’s a strategy of buying up the whole site, which leads us to fear the worst.”
The controversy arises as other historic downtown buildings fall victim to highrise projects that preserve only facades or fragments of the previous structure. On Thursday, developer Brivia announced a 19-storey condo tower on the site of the 104-year-old Lowes Theatre that will eradicate the iconic venue but include “architectural reminders” in its design.
Former mayor Denis Coderre, who has announced another run for the mayoralty, has said he would sweep aside zoning regulations limiting the height of skyscrapers to the top of the cross on Mount Royal.
Dinu Bumbaru, policy director of Heritage Montreal, said the revelation of the land sale has been “an electroshock” on the need to protect the historic district.
“That it could be sterilized by being turned into a block of condos would be tragic,” he said.
Karen Cho, a documentary filmmaker with four generations of family ties to Chinatown, warned that highrise development would destroy its soul.
“If we save a facade and all the culture and people that live within that building get erased, what are we saving?” asked Cho, who is working on a documentary about the challenges facing Chinatowns across North America.
“A lot of Chinatowns look like that. They look like these Potemkin villages or ethnic Disneylands where it’s pagodas everywhere and these fancy Chinatown gates, but the entire culture and community of the place have been emptied out.”
Montreal’s Chinatown lost half of its territory to expropriation in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s and is down-at-the-heels after years of neglect, Cho noted.
“You put the pandemic on top of it, the restaurant closures and the stigmatization, and you really get this perfect storm for developers to come down and scoop up property,” she said.
Cha warned that destroying the historic neighbourhood would be a profound loss for all Montrealers, not just the Chinese community. Known as Près-de-ville in the 18th century, when it lay just outside the gates of the walled city, it became home to successive waves of immigrants.
“This is one of the oldest districts in Montreal, where the Irish, the Scottish, the French, the Jewish community, everyone was there,” he said.
“It’s not just old buildings that we want to preserve. We also want to preserve the cultural presence that we still have,” he added.
“You put up a condo tower, and then you bring in a McDonald’s and a Starbucks, and it becomes a place with no identity.”
"Tenants Must Get Out Before Jan. 15," Vancouver Sun. October 19, 1943. Page 10.
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January 15 was set Monday by Judge Bruce Boyd as moving day for tenants of Victoria Court, which has been taken over by the National Housing Administration for conversion of 20 suites into 35 suites.
The only tenant who spoke in court on the matter, because his lawyer was not present, was quite agreeable.
H. E. M. Bradshaw, barrister, stated that the National Housing Administrator has said that eight or nine tenants may remain during alterations if they are prepared to endure inconveniences.
Tu défigures ma ville. Ton épine dorsale est faite de dollars, tu te moques de ce qu’une ville doit être. Ces jours-ci, je ne peux compter le nombre de grues et de gratte-ciels qui encombrent mon horizon. Agent immobilier des bordures froides et glacées, dealer de kitsch à la carte, tu as posé des formes cubiques gigantesques dans toute la ville. Ces grandes boîtes rectangulaires appartiennent aux riches et célèbres du boulevard Lakeshore, de l’avenue Spadina, de la rue Bloor, de la rue College, de la rue Dundas Ouest et la liste est longue. Monsieur malhonnête, il n’y a plus Honest Ed et sa myriade de lumières dans ma ville. Je me souviens quand elles clignotaient jour et nuit sur les trottoirs de Toronto and dans l’âme des Torontois.
Ton appétit n’a pas de limite. Tu vas à l’Est, à l’Ouest, au Nord et au Sud comme une gangrène vorace. Un virus qui n’a pas de limite, symptomatique d’une maladie appelée le capitalisme sauvage ou le néolibéralisme avarié. Monsieur Rénoviction, tu es accroc à l’argent. Regarde le chimpanzé sur ton épaule! Tu es dépourvu de toute compassion. La ville peut te donner une amande de 135 000 dollars pour des rénovations malhonnêtes, mais cela ne te fait pas sourciller. C’est de l’argent de poche pour une homme riche et sans morale. « Sans morale » est ton deuxième nom. Tu ouvres ton portefeuille, sur le bord de l’ennui, et tu payes en sachant bien que tu as expulsé des familles travailleuses et augmenter le nombre de sans-abris.
Monsieur Rénoviction a besoin de faire plus de profit. Alors, tu augmentes le loyer de tes appartements ou tu les transformes en condominiums et laisse les riches se chamailler pour leur vue panoramique de la Tour CN ou du Skydome. Ensuite, tu écoutes leurs offres comme de la musique à tes oreilles. Tu prends plaisir à les entendre se disputer pour obtenir le carré le plus proche du ciel. Tu te sens comme un empereur romain appréciant le cirque morbide des gladiateurs.
Les politiciens avec qui tu joues au golf, tous les dimanches, ne se plaindront pas. Tu t’es acquitté de ton amende pour ta rénoviction, une infraction mineure, et tu es à nouveau en odeur de sainteté. Maintenant, ton nom est dans la liste des donateurs pour les élections prochaines. Alors, qui se plaint? Inutile de faire des vagues. Les insatisfaits sont simplement jaloux de ta chance. Tu t’es fait tout seul, n’est-ce pas? Tes détracteurs doivent être des socialistes frustrés. Ils oublient qu’on est au Canada après tout, à Toronto, la terre de la liberté. La liberté de mettre des parents et leurs enfants à la rue sous le prétexte de rénovation, la liberté d’imposer des immeubles hideux n’importe où et détruire l’esprit de communauté urbaine.
Le contrôle des loyers? Qu’est-ce que c’est? Une vision préhistorique d’une justice édentée. Les propriétaires peuvent augmenter les loyers de nouveaux locataires sans aucune répercussion sur eux. Monsieur Rénoviction, tu as le beurre et l’argent du beurre. Pendant ce temps, les loyers élevés forcent des Torontois de longue date à déménager très loin, des gens qui aiment leur ville. Les riches qui cherchent un pied-à-terre, loin de leur villa cossue, arrivent, dans un mouvement instoppable, pour remplacer l’irremplaçable. Il n’y a pas de substitut pour l’amour d’une ville. On ne le trouve que dans des citadins véritables qui adorent leur quartier, leurs parcs et leur tramway préféré.
Les Torontois ne sont pas ici seulement pour Caribana ou le Festival du Film de Toronto. Ils revendiquent et militent pour des logements à prix abordables, de bons services de santé et des frais de gardes acceptables. La lutte contre l’usage excessif des armes à feu, la violence policière et l’itinérance les unit. Ils ne font pas des va-et-vient à bord de leur Mercedes Benz pour voir leur dernier spectacle musical en ville ou la plus récente star du NBA. Ils restent et vivent les hauts et les bas de leur cité.
Monsieur Rénoviction, tu n’aimes pas ta ville. Tu n’aimes pas tout court. Ton cœur est un signe de dollar. Je peux l’entendre battre au rythme de l’horloge de la Bourse de Toronto.
Didier Leclair, écrivain, auteur de Toronto, je t’aime, à reparaître bientôt aux éditions Terre d’accueil.
Just received notice that the home owner of my rental is planning to sell the house. Not this shit again. The property manager says there's a possibility that we'll remain as tenants depending on the new owner's plans, but I think it's unlikely. This will be a renoviction for sure. I just went through this 3 years ago.
I'm so tempted to email them back and say: We're in a pandemic.
