Ford government to tackle ‘renovictions’ and beef up Landlord and Tenant Board
Queen's Park is doubling the number of Landlord and Tenant Board adjudicators and imposing new rules for property owners in hopes of preventing more renters from being renovicted."
Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark and Attorney General Doug Downey are to unveil the changes on Wednesday, but there are no plans to impose the rent controls that some housing advocates have urged.
The province will spend $6.5 million to appoint an additional 40 adjudicators at the Landlord and Tenant Board, which is swamped with complaints, and hire five staff to improve service.
It will give us the capacity to deal with the backlog ... from COVID-19," said Downey, noting there are currently 39 full-time adjudicators.
The attorney general said Tuesday there are tens of thousands" of cases waiting to be heard.
Clark, for his part, said there are no rent control measures" in this latest push.
That's because the government does not want to discourage the building of new rental units at a time when there is a housing supply crisis, the minister said.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles has been urging strengthened rent controls and increased tenant protection from renovictions.
Still, Clark pledged to improve tenants' rights by giving them authority to install air conditioning in their units, overriding leases that prohibit it.
He said that move stems from the Ontario Human Rights Commission's calls to deem air conditioning a vital service like heating under the Residential Tenancies Act.
The Progressive Conservatives are also proposing to strengthen protections against evictions due to renovations, demolitions and conversions, as well as those for landlord's own use."
Under the new plan, when a landlord is evicting a tenant to use a unit for themselves or their family, they would have to move in by a specific deadline.
We'd like to have some certainty in there for tenants that are being displaced," said Clark.
There's been ambiguities" in the Residential Tenancies Act, he said.
If it's a renoviction" - evicting a tenant to renovate - the government said landlords would be required to provide a report from a qualified person stating the unit must be vacant for renovations to take place, update the tenant on the status of the renovation in writing if they plan to return (and) give them a 60-day grace period to move back in, once the renovations are complete."
Should the landlord not allow the tenant to move back in at the same rent, the tenant would have two years after moving out - or six months after renovations are complete, whichever is longer - to apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board for a remedy."
Robert Benzie is the Star's Queen's Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie