Rally held ahead of planning committee after city recommends against renoviction bylaw

Concerned citizens in Ottawa rallied Tuesday to call on councillors to push forward with a proposed bylaw to stop renovictions. CTV's Katelyn Wilson reports.

Tenants and advocates rallied outside city hall on Tuesday ahead of a report set to come to Ottawa’s planning and housing committee that won’t be recommending a renoviction bylaw.

The term “renoviction” is used when landlords evict tenants with the intent of doing renovations to charge a higher rent.

“We’ve been fighting for this for a really long time. It has passed in several other big cities across Ontario, but for some reason the city of Ottawa is recommending against implementing this bylaw,” said Sara Laviolette, chair of the Vanier chapter of ACORN.

City of Ottawa staff are recommending the city temporarily shelve plans for an anti-renoviction bylaw to allow time to monitor new bylaws in other Ontario cities and review provincial legislation to address bad faith evictions.

The committee approved a motion from Coun. Ariel Troster last April to direct staff to study the possibility of the bylaw, including cost estimates and possible enforcement for any new law.

“Because the province has failed to act to protect tenants in this way, that’s why cities like ours are looking at what we can do as a city to make a difference,” Troster said.

“As a city right now, homelessness is at an all time high. The most recent point-in-time count showed more than 3,000 people experiencing homelessness and if there’s a way to turn off the tap on unfair evictions that will end one source of homelessness in our city.”

It’s an all to familiar story for tenants like Dave, who asked CTV News not to use his last name.

“I live in a west end apartment and all of the tenants received an N13 and they were given a compensation of $5,000,” he said.

“They were going to replace the countertops and some of the windows and a lot of the people left unfortunately but when they moved the people out, they jacked up the rent.”

Under the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act, landlords have the right to evict tenants if there are plans for major renovations, but the landlord must give the tenant the opportunity to return to the unit at the same rent. Advocates say that’s not always what happens.

“We want landlords to be held accountable. They’ll have to prove that renovations require the tenant to leave we want tenants to be able to move back into the unit at the same rent,” said Laviolette.

The City of Ottawa has seen an increase in eviction notices handed out to tenants between 2010 and 2023, including a 29 per cent increase in N12 applications and a 107 per cent increase in N13 applications. There were 505 N12 notices or applications in Ottawa in 2023 and 104 N13 notices.

An N13 form is a notice to end a tenancy because the landlord wants to demolish the rental unit, repair it or convert it to another use, while an N12 end a tenancy because the landlord, purchaser or a family member wants to move into the unit.

Troster says she plans to introduce two motions at the next committee meeting to move the bylaw forward.

“One is to push the province, and the other one is to say okay if the province doesn’t act, we should consider acting ourselves,” Troster said.

It’s a bylaw that tenants like Dave say can’t come soon enough.

“Given the housing crisis that’s going on now, I would say it’s very urgent,” he said.

If council decides to go forward with a full bylaw review, according to the report, it will take a year just to draft regulations and the city would need to hire up to 15 new employees at a cost of more than $2 million.

The committee will meet on Wednesday morning.