Parkdale tenants fear for their homes after receiving eviction notices from landlord previously fined $135,000 for ‘renovictions’

Tenants of a low-rent Parkdale apartment complex are raising concerns after receiving eviction-for-renovation notices from their landlord — a company run by a developer whose other operation was fined repeatedly in 2019 for refusing to allow tenants to return after repairs.

In January, numerous tenants of 12 Lansdowne Ave. say they were served with N13 notices, which indicate that a landlord wants to evict their tenants for repairs or renovations, with the caveat that renters can return once the renovations are finished at a comparable rent price .

Their landlord, since 2020, is 12 Lansdowne Inc. Through a spokesperson, the company said it was committed to preserving the Parkdale site as affordable housing and letting tenants return.

The sole director of that company listed in public records, as of January, was Neil Spiegel — one of the two directors of 795 College Inc. That company was fined twice in 2019 for a combined amount of $135,000 for failing to allow its original tenants to move back in after renovations, a move one adjudicator called a “blatant disregard” for Ontario’s tenancy law.

The other director of 795 College Inc. is Evan Johnsen — who was a director of 12 Lansdowne Inc. for part of 2020, though spokesperson Danny Roth said he gave up the post that August.

Kim Breland, one of the tenants at 12 Lansdowne, fears she and her neighbors could lose their deeply affordable homes like the tenants of 795 College. She pays $1,640 for a three-bedroom walk-up with a balcony over a tree-lined road, an amount well below the city’s market rate.

“I’ve been here for 12 years,” Breland said. “There’s nowhere (else) in the city I can afford.”

It’s a concern the company disputes. Roth, in a statement, acknowledged the approach taken with 795 College St. “may have created some reputation harm,” but said the company was “determined” to respect the rights of tenants at 12 Lansdowne Ave. who wanted to return.

“We, in fact, remain more committed than ever to the revitalization of aging rental housing stock in the urban core, to preserving affordable housing, and to protecting the tenure of legacy tenants following rental restorations,” Roth wrote.

Still, the specter of 795 College St. is looming over the Parkdale complex.

In the College Street case, tenants were served N13 notices and eventually evicted. Once the building was renovated, their units were put back on the market at much higher rates, rather than allowing the former tenants to return — a move housing advocates call a “renovic- tion.”

While Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board fined the company $75,000 — the maximum amount allowed at the time for three units — the adjudicator noted it was still “profiting enormously.” The old tenants paid $1,250 for three-bedroom units, and the new tenants between $4,150 and $4,200. Over a year, that was a difference of nearly $105,000.

The original tenants had initially asked the board to deny the eviction request, the Star reported, alleging the law was being used in bad faith; after their units were reoccupied by other renters, the board said it didn’t have the power to order those residents out of the units or return them to the old occupants.

Months later, the courts added another penalty — $48,000 plus a $12,000 victim surcharge — following a guilty plea to charges laid by Ontario’s Rental Housing Enforcement Unit. The ends did not compensate the tenants who’d lost their homes, the Star reported then.

At the time, 795 College Inc. acknowledged that it had “failed to meet (its) obligations” to some of its former tenants, but also pointed to costly repairs undertaken on-site to fix dozens of municipal work orders, update the heating system and “structural deficiencies.”

Since the case played out, the province has tweaked the rules, introducing legislation that — among changes — mean landlords can be ordered to compensate tenants who are refused the chance to move back in.

Under the old rules, a landlord could be ordered to pay their tenant the difference between their old rent and the rent they incurred for a year after being kicked out. Under the new rules, which came into effect in September, landlords can be ordered to compensate a tenant for an amount up to a year of their old rent, if the landlord was found to have acted in bad faith or did not provide a tenant with their right of first refusal. Tenants will have two years to make those applications.

Back at 12 Lansdowne, anxious tenants are drawing parallels between their home and the College Street building. Several tenants are paying below-market rent, and said the building’s age is apparent. Breland says their former landlords appeared to save money on repairs by having their friends or relatives chip in with do-it-yourself fixes.

(Emails from the Star to an address tenants used for their former landlord went unanswered by the time of publication.)

Tenant Matt Pilipiak, a short film producer, says he’s brushed off pests as a tradeoff for “remarkably cheap” rent. Cordelia Huxtable, who lives in another apartment with her sister and partner, said she did not expect much in terms of maintenance given their lower rent costs — replacing a stove on their own.

All three have worried about their new landlord’s plans, after staff at a legal clinic alerted them to the case at 795 College St.

Shortly before the sale of the Lansdowne building went through in mid-2020, Huxtable, her sister and her partner said a woman began offering existing tenants payouts if they were willing to leave. Their understanding of the reasons for those offers was that an interested buyer wanted to renovate the building.

The complex was sold to 12 Lansdowne Inc. for $6.2 million, records show. Asked about tenants’ reports about being offered a financial incentive to move out, Roth said he couldn’t comment on “what may — or may not — have occurred prior to our acquisition of the building.”

Roth described 12 Lansdowne Inc.’s renovation plans as “extensive repairs” to electrical, plumbing, heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems, as well as updates to “life safety systems,” structural renovations and “various improvements required” within common areas and the individual units.

“While essential, the work will also be intensive and disruptive, and as such, will require the temporary dislocation of residents under the N13 process,” Roth wrote.

The N13 notices can’t be enforced unless they’re approved at a Landlord and Tenant Board hearing. But several tenants are already worried about their prospects in the housing market.

“One of the things this apartment has afforded me is the ability to be an artist in the city,” said Pilipiak, who currently splits a three-bedroom for about $1,360 with his roommate and partner.

Huxtable, who works as a psychotherapist, says their affordable rent bills each month mean she, in turn, can afford to offer some low-cost and “sliding-scale” care in her therapy practice.

While Huxtable’s partner, Kevin Finn, believes the pair would likely find a new apartment in Toronto if they had to, he worries about other residents in the building with less financial security.

“We’ll probably be OK. We’ll manage to find other places to live,” he said. “But there are some people in the building that would be really out on the street, or really having to seek assistance.”

And as Toronto’s rental market has changed, Breland — who was born in Toronto, and has spent much of her life living in the city since — worries her place within it is disappearing.

“It becomes more and more difficult to find a new place as the stock of affordable housing dwindles down to nothing,” Breland told the Star. “There’s nowhere to go.”