A victory for this rent law in BC has an Ontario politician calling for the same rules

VANCOUVER — A British Columbia city charter rezoning property as rental-only has withstood another court challenge, upholding legislation introduced by the province to protect tenants.

It’s a legal victory that has had Ontario housing advocates refocusing their eyes on West Coast developments.

The city of New Westminster, a Vancouver suburb of about 70,000 people, won a provincial appeals court decision Monday, upholding a zoning statute that prevents landlords from living on their properties in areas designated for rental use only. The goal is to protect rental units by not allowing individual owners to move out or demolish them to build condominiums.

“The statute is not inconsistent with the Residential Tenancy Act,” Judge Harvey Groberman wrote in his summary of the ruling, upholding a previous court’s verdict. “In addition, the Local Government Law, reasonably interpreted, gave the municipality authority to enact it.”

The case centered on the owners of the units. in six buildings that had been built as rental housing but were “tiered”, allowing the units to be sold to individual owners if they so desired. Moving to a condominium building, called strata buildings in BC, could, under provincial law, expose tenants to eviction if the building’s owners wanted to move themselves.

However, New Westminster rezoned the buildings to rental-only in 2019, after the province passed a law allowing cities to do so. (Building owners could still live in suites if they had been living in them before the city made the zoning change.)

The owners’ legal offer was meant to strike down the statute, but the BC Court of Appeals rejected them Monday, rejecting the argument that the rezoning was vague and outside the city’s jurisdiction. (According to the ruling, the owners were all “corporate owners” with no intention of occupying the units themselves.)

Mayor Patrick Johnstone said the victory shows the British Columbia law could help every city in the province preserve rental stock, and also proved those who criticized the rezoning when it passed wrong.

“We heard two things: we heard that we would lose in court and they also told us that the rental investment would end up in New Westminster,” Johnstone said. “Both have turned out to be false.”

He said rental units in the city are now being built at a faster rate than anywhere else in the region. Monday’s decision “sends the message” that the courts will protect the right of cities to rezoning for rent only, she added.

“You don’t often hear good news about cities acting boldly to protect vulnerable renters,” Johnstone said. “It’s a good day for renters in New West and across the province.”

Howard Shapray, a lawyer for the owners, said he believes their clients had strong arguments, but added that it’s too early to tell if they intend to take the case to a higher court.

“We are still considering the issue,” he said. “We have to identify an issue of national importance, something that will attract the attention of the Supreme Court of Canada.”

Some would like to see similar laws introduced in Ontario.

Ontario NDP housing critic Rosedale University MPP Jessica Bell said such rezoning protections are necessary in her province. Bell said rental housing has been in increasing jeopardy, particularly across the GTA.

“We’ve seen developers continue to prioritize condo construction over purpose-built rentals because they turn a profit faster,” Bell said. “A purpose-built rental is a long-term investment.”

He said some 3,000 rental units in Toronto are at risk of being demolished and converted to condominiums. Municipalities “need more tools” to protect that rental stock, she said.

It’s not the first time that New Westminster, a historic city on the Fraser River that was the province’s first capital, has caused a stir with its rent laws. The city also won a court challenge in 2021 of regulations intended to stop so-called “renovations,” when a landlord kicks out a tenant, ostensibly to do renovations, but then puts the property up for sale.

Those regulations require purpose-built rental owners to provide temporary housing for tenants who are forced to evict due to renovations. Landlords must also send the tenant a written offer to move in again, at the same rental price, when the renovations are complete.

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