A group of Parkdale tenants say they are now facing eviction after launching a rent strike earlier this month.
On May 1, approximately 200 tenants of six Parkdale apartment buildings refused to pay their rent until owners agreed to carry out repairs and withdraw their application to impose a rent hike above what the Landlord and Tenant Board typically allows.
The maximum rental increase a landlord can impose without gaining special approval from the board is 1.5 per cent but Cole Webber, a spokesperson for the tenants and an employee of Parkdale Community Legal Services, said the owners of the buildings are seeking approval to raise rents by approximately 15 per cent over a three-year period, an increase some say is unreasonable given the poor condition of their units.
The application has not yet been approved by the board.
Webber said that AIMCo and MetCap Living, the two companies that own and operate the six apartment buildings, have handed out eviction notices to the majority of tenants who refused to pay their rent this month.
"Their (the tenants’) position is that the landlord is using these rental increases to actually push them out of their homes because there is no rent control on vacant units. So the landlord has a financial incentive to get these tenants out so that they can jack the rents up even higher," Webber said.
"AIMCo, the Alberta Investment Management Corporation, is a Crown corporation of the government of Alberta. They manage among other things, the pension plans of Alberta government workers... We don’t believe that Alberta workers have any interest in pushing low-income and immigrant tenants out of their homes in Parkdale. That just doesn’t make sense. Everybody needs a place to live."
AIMCo has not yet commented publicly on the notices sent to tenants.
MetCap Living CEO Brent Merill said that actual evictions would be far down the road as each case must go through a hearing at a Landlord and Tenant Board tribunal.
He said the notices that were sent to tenants were a Form N4, which he says is not an eviction notice.
Merill added that the company is following all provincial landlord/ tenant laws and work orders at units in the buildings are being completed.
The application for the rental increase, he said, is mainly to cover the cost of repairing balconies and railings.
Tory says the 2 sides should 'sit down and talk'
Mayor John Tory weighed in on the issue Wednesday, telling reporters that he doesn't believe a rent strike is the answer.
"When it comes to the state of repair of the buildings, I would say there the initiative rests with the landlord to perhaps convene some type of a meeting or a town hall meeting with those tenants and discuss what some of their concerns are because in return for those rent increases, tenants have the right to expect they are going to be living in accommodation that is reasonably maintained," Tory said.
"I don’t think that a rent strike per se is going to answer those questions. It won’t get a unit repaired faster and it won’t necessarily change what the legal proceedings do in terms of the allowable rent increase. I think the best thing they can do, just like unions and management, is to sit down and talk to each other."
