Hamilton city staff sorry about botched ‘renovictions’ report

City councillors have told staff to go back to the drawing board on renter-protection measures after a report fell short of expectations and left Hamilton tenants who'd hoped for a renovictions" bylaw disappointed.

Apologetic senior staff were at a loss to explain how direction from the past council to examine the ways and means" to enact such a bylaw instead resulted in an analysis that dismissed it.

Council said we're asking you to tell us how to do it; not if we want to do it," Coun. Brad Clark, recalling his December 2021 motion, told The Spectator. And there is a distinct difference in that."

But the expectations are now clear after renewed direction to staff to report back in August on a bylaw, Coun. Cameron Kroetsch said.

I think everyone here was impeccably clear about what we're looking for in an renovictions bylaw," he said after Thursday's emergency and community services committee meeting. So I think we're on the right path."

There has been staff turnover in key positions on the file since last term's motion, the timing of which also coincided a wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Angie Burden, who became general manager of healthy and safe communities in early 2022, told councillors.

I can give you a whole bunch of reasons why this did not turn out the way it should have," Burden added, as tenants and advocates calling for bold" action watched in the gallery at city hall.

Instead, she apologized for not being able today to bring forward the solutions that were anticipated."

In addition to reporting back on the renovictions bylaw, staff are also expected to make recommendations on a full suite of options to halt renovictions," including changes to existing bylaws, rental-replacement policies, use of building permits and a city-wide licensing program.

The committee's decision awaits a final vote at full council next week.

In Ontario, landlords are able to evict tenants for renovations that require building permits, but tenant groups and housing experts have condemned the practice as a main driver of displacement and hiked rental rates that are eroding affordable market stock.

Under provincial legislation, once units are vacant, landlords are no longer limited by annually capped increases and can charge new tenants whatever they want.

In a letter to councillors, the Hamilton and District Apartment Association asserted that despite the negative connotation toward renovictions," they in many cases are necessary," pointing out the city's very old" rental stock is in desperate need of repairs and renovations."

Renovictions are essentially a big win for tenants who end up with a better home and at the same rent they were paying before."

That's far from the case, says tenants, including those affiliated with Hamilton ACORN, who since 2019 have pushed the city to emulate policies in New Westminster, B.C., to protect renters from renovictions.

Those measures, which provincial legislation has since superseded, obliged landlords to apply to the city if units needed to be vacated for renovations and required them to provide accommodations to displaced tenants.

Thursday's staff report, presented in tandem with a public affairs consultant's paper, pointed to substantial differences" between Ontario and British Columbia legislation that establish municipal powers.

In B.C., city councils can create bylaws to protect persons and property" relating to rental units, but Ontario's Municipal Act provides no direct reference." Moreover, the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) has clear exclusivity" when it comes to evictions.

That take, however, clashes with other legal opinions, including one provided to Hamilton ACORN.

If properly drafted, such a by-law would be unlikely to run afoul of the City's authority within the Municipal Act," lawyer Claire Michela of RavenLaw wrote in her analysis.

Likewise, Karen Andrews, a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, told councillors she disputed that Hamilton couldn't create a renovictions bylaw under Ontario legislation.

Be bold. Take it out for a spin," added Andrews, who also teaches at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. You are the City of Hamilton and people are suffering."

Andrews was among dozens of speakers who urged councillors to pursue the bylaw and other policies to rein in renovictions during the emergency and community services committee and an earlier rally in front of city hall.

Tenants recounted how landlords applied a variety of pressure tactics to push them out of their units for renovations, ranging from cash buyouts to poor maintenance and interrupted basic services like hot water.

They also underscored that while a tenant's right to return to units at the same rate once renovations are done exists in law, in practice, it's frustrated by landlords who simply deny it and scant options for temporary accommodations.

Darlene Wesley, an old-age pensioner with a lung condition, told councillors she's couch-surfing" after losing her apartment of 18 years on Strathearne Avenue in January.

Renovictions are having a devastating impact" on affordable rentals in Hamilton, Wesley added.

Evan Pettitt said he and other tenants have managed to stave off their landlord's attempt to evict them from a sixplex on Cannon Street East after they hired a paralegal drawing on financial assistance from the city's tenant defence fund.

Pettitt, who lost a leg to cancer and receives a disability pension, said his landlord initially offered him about $2,500 to move out, but as of Thursday, that incentive was jacked to $27,000.

Even that won't last long in Hamilton's escalated rental market, he said. Where would I move to? I'd be homeless in a year or two."

David Galvin, who lives in one of seven units still occupied in a mostly vacant and derelict building on Main Street East across from Gage Park where tenants went without running water for 86 days, said the city utterly failed" them on a number of fronts.

In turn, Coun. Nrinder Nann apologized to Galvin and his 1083 Main St. E. neighbours, not only for the city's response to the water debacle, but also for the years" they had to file complaints over and over again" about property standards.

The committee also voted to give immediate $50,000 boost to the depleted tenant defence fund and tasked staff with looking at expanding its scope.

Karl Andrus, one of the delegates and lead at the Hamilton Community Benefits Network, told The Spectator he's hopeful" about councillors' pushback on the staff report but awaits what comes back in August.

There's progress being made in that council pushed back against what was a poorly received staff report with some clear timelines for delivery, but at the end of the day renovictions are happening every day."

Teviah Moro is a reporter at The Spectator. tmoro@thespec.com