Toronto 
Ontario is investing $6.5 million to increase the number of adjudicators and staff at the Landlord and Tenant Board by appointing an additional 40 adjudicators and hiring five staff.
According to the news release, the move aims to improve service standards, reduce active applications, and speed up decision timeframes to reduce delays at the Landlord and Tenant Board.
The government is also proposing changes to enhance tenants’ rights to install air conditioning in their units and strengthen protections against evictions due to renovations, demolitions, and conversions, as well as those for landlord’s own use.
According to the news release, when evicting a tenant to renovate a unit, landlords would be required to:
- provide a report from a qualified professional indicating that the unit must be vacant.
- update the tenant on the renovation status
- offer them a 60-day grace period to move back in once the renovations are done.
If the landlord refuses to allow the tenant to return at the same rent, the tenant would have two years or six months after the renovations (whichever is longer) to seek a remedy from the Landlord and Tenant Board.
If a tenant defaults on rent and has arrears, to ease the repayment process, the government is proposing the use of a plain language repayment agreement form for tenants to enter into with landlords to pay the rent they owe and avoid eviction.
The province is also proposing to double the maximum fines for offences such as bad faith renovictions under the Residential Tenancies Act to $100,000 for individuals and $500,000 for corporations.
The government is also consulting on changes that would help to create a balanced framework governing municipal rental replacement by-laws. The proposals would require replacement units to have the same core features as original units, and existing tenants would have the right to move into the new unit while paying the same rent. These changes would encourage the revitalization of older, deteriorating buildings and increase rental housing supply while protecting affordable housing.
The government’s long-term goal is to create 1.5 million homes by 2031, including rental homes. The More Homes Built Faster introduced changes in October 2022 to reduce barriers for home builders to replace older, mid-sized rental apartments with larger, more modern rental buildings.
Tenants need to stop looking at landlords and their ownership of property and the gains in wealth it provides when rented out as something that occurs in a vaccum. Tenants make up a a vital part of economies, by working, and persuing a livelyhood, in which a home, plays an important part. The notion that the only motivation to renovate is to increase rents may be balanced with the fact that a neglected building will lose the tenants, and possibly lead to legal liability.
As much as building more housing is looked upon as increasing affordability, how about building a system and an economy based on increasing the salaries so more people can actually own a home. Otherwise, subsidize home ownership, not just rent.
Where would the money come from\? Just look up a documentary called “the great Canadian tax dodge”
The root cause is that manufacturing jobs were outsourced overseas and leaving people here in poverty!! So renters can’t afford increasing rents! And landlords had no profit for renovations!
Stop outsourcing!
Nope wrong ! MORE doews not mean accessible ! You have the devilish AIRNBNB in many cities, even touristical smaller cities.
Enough with the SUPPLY-DEMAND myth !
This is the shit created by bankers-investors.
The ‘small players” just profit from the facilitation mecanism created by the governements, so that powerful segment of societies profit from the situation and continue to dominate politics at the expense of the majority.
because you fool… when you rebuild something, you have to follow code. That is why there are rules to be followed. It does matter about revitalizing, b.c you have to keep updating to code. Things age with time, and you cannot live in filth , garbage or in a building without proper living conditions. Think about it!Long term affect is the affordabilty will happen. You cannot just expect affordability to happen, like right away, its called a “Trickle affect” some lanlords or owners expect chnage to be immediate. Nope, Sorry Charlie!!!!!
How is anyone encouraged anyone to spend a significant amount of money to revitalize something if they receive no benefit? It doesn’t matter whether you’re revitalizing/restoring an antique car, pocket watch, painting or property. If there’s no return on the investment, why would anyone invest their money to do it? Where do people come up with this nonsense? BUILD … MORE … HOUSING. Affordability will take care of itself.