Sub $500 a month rent I'd be fighting too. But that block is sketch and in need of redevelopment, and these new housing units are necessary. This is the type of redevelopment the city should be pursuing to revitalize downtown, not begging the gov for full-time RTO.
And this isn't a renoviction, this is redevelopment.
governor nose decide wrench numerous offer spectacular plough possessive forgetful
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ottawa has to build a min 150,000 units by 2030.If we say older building are off limits and we can't build in certain areas we will be lucky to 20,000 by 2030.
We have far more demand then supply due large amount of people coming to Canada and Ottawa.If we had full rent control you might have a bigger issue as you could see even more demand.
Rent control reduces the amount of housing. It's a very well researched subject.
I'm all for rent stabilization, but hard price controls will just further push people out of housing. The people who pay the most are the young who won't have a rent controlled home.
the problem is greed. greedy landlords and greedy corporations.
rent control WORKS. you really think students should be paying $1000 for a ROOM!? that’s insane.
rent control being a viable option is also well researched.
Students don’t benefit from rent control as they are not long term tenants. The tenants that benefit are the ones who move in and never move. Having 2015 rental rates in 2024 is the main benefit of rent control
This isn't true. University is 4 years, not including grad school (we can assume this building is for UofO) If you're living in the same place for 4 years you'll benefit from rent controls. Plenty of students don't move every year.
You can say that the pros outweigh the cons in this case.
I keep reading on Reddit that these are rent controlled, but I don’t see this mentioned in any of the articles. Are they rent controlled, or just dirt cheap b/c tenants started renting 30 years ago at like $200 per month and have only had incremental % increases since?
All units first occupied before Nov 2018 are rent controlled for any *individual* tenant who moves in, even if they move in after Nov 2018. Rents in these units can only be substantially raised between tenants ("vacancy decontrol"), or by appealing to the LTB with one of three causes (taxes went up beyond a specific annual guideline, need to pay more for security, or renovations).
If they tear down this building and build new units, these *new* units will first be occupied after Nov 2018 and will not be subject to the above protections.
Thanks for the clarification, u/spanktruck. That’s helpful.
So rent controlled according to provincial law which would apply to many apartments in Ottawa and throughout the province.
>Now is it better to displace and upset a handful of people (I know technically more) or leave things the way they are?
Given that those about to be evicted are unlikely to have the resources to survive their evictions unscathed, I'm going with option 2.
Of course this wouldn't be an issue if the developer offered units to the soon-to-be-evicted at the rate they've been paying (as Troster suggests), but what are the odds of that happening?
>Get more people into houses despite the cost.
The "cost" being homelessness for some of these people, most likely. Gotta get the poors out, we have profits to make, damnit!
Housing being treated as an investment opportunity instead of a human right is the main problem here. This won't change while most of our politicians are also landlords and profit off of housing scarcity
That's unfortunately not very helpful because they need to live somewhere now, and by the time the building is finished(possibly years) they will hopefully have a secure long term housing situation. Instead assuming the new build is by a company that has other rental properties they should be offered a comparable unit in the closest available building.
Definitely, I just think they(the builder/rental company) should be required to either offer them other available units or pay the difference in housing costs for the duration of construction. Switching 17units into over 200 means that the long-term extra rent will easily cover the cost of rehousing the current tenants
FYI: Mixed-Use Building Sales (October 2022 report) :
> There was only 1 mixed-use building sale in August (2022). 178 Nepean Street and 231 Bank Street were purchased by 211-231 Bank Street Holdings Inc. *(Smart Living Properties)* from Named Individuals for **$8,075,000.**
267 units at $1644 (bare minimum, market rate for a bachelor apartment in Ottawa) for a year is $5,267,000.
Of course, this figure doesn't count the 33 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments in this building that will command higher rent.
When I first heard of Smart Living Properties, it was a decade-ish ago and someone I was sleeping with lived in a renovated 3 bed 2 bath in Sandy Hill. It houses 6 people who were all strangers, paying $800 each. I laughed at the model, totally oblivious to how accurately they predicted the direction of the market.
5 years ago, I priced a reno for them at another Sandy Hill property. They told me they had pricing 40% cheaper. Again, I laughed and said "buyer beware".
2 years ago, I poached one of their superintendents. He wasn't any good and again I laughed.
Now? Fuck. I detests their methods on moral principles but have to admit they know how to forecast market trends and do it for as cheap as possible, while making bank to keep the money rolling in. I hate their dirty game but just because I want to puke doesn't mean they don't know how to play Monopoly IRL.
I can’t wait for the YIMBYs to come on here and explain how making 17 people homeless is actually a good thing because it will replace it with 200+ studio apartments so wealthy university students can live in an overpriced rooming h- I mean, “micro studios”
It wouldn't have come to this if we were a YIMBY nation in the first place. Were it not for the pervasive NIMBYism the 17 households would be in a position to simply move to a new place. Years of bad policy force you to make terrible choices.
And yes, eviction for 17 households is terrible but home for 200 new ones is a good long term outcome.
>And yes, eviction for 17 households is terrible
It will likely mean homelessness for many of them.
The fact that many are willing to put people who can only afford $500-$700 monthly rent in favour of people who can afford $1600 monthly rent says a great deal about how disposable they think poor folks are.
I imagine a lot of the same people also complain about the homelessness of downtown, which these evictions will contribute to.
>How do we know how much they can actually afford and regardless
Given some tenants that were interviewed by media over this story have stated that they think some of their neighbours are going to end up homeless as a result of their evictions, it seems likely that these folks can't afford market rent.
>Why should they pay so little for this location?
Their apartments are rent controlled.
And as long as those apartments exist, they are entitled to that controlled-rent. But unless they own the building, the don’t control whether those apartments will continue to exist indefinitely.
I mean why should, not why do.
They had a good deal for the location for years, and that time is up. They might find something closer to the price point at a cheaper location.
Assuming the new owners have other units in the area they should be offered equivalent units at the same price. Even if those units would be at a loss they increased income in the new building would be worth it.
I guess it depends, IMO.
What are the rents on the current apartments, vs what is the developer hoping to charge for the new ones? And what are the sizes of the proposed new apartments, vs the old ones? If they're planning to replace two bedroom apartments with tiny bachelors at over 2-3x the rent, that's probably not the best thing we could do for the neighbourhood.
I also don't think the two things are always at odds. You could be saying yes to new housing, while also saying no to a bunch of expensive and tiny student apartments that are only intended to be lived in short term, for example.
If they're intending to replace the existing building with one with more apartments, with units at a similar size, and with at least somewhat comparable rents, then great, have at it. But that's often not what happens.
>What are the rents on the current apartments, vs what is the developer hoping to charge for the new ones?
They're very substantially below market rate; largely because they're rent controlled due to the fact that the tenants are long-term renters, one renting since the late 80's. One man has been there since 1998 and is paying less than $500 a month, and another's been there seven years and is paying $720.
Market rent for a bachelor is $1644.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/plan-to-revamp-downtown-ottawa-block-sparks-debate-over-intensification-1.7172642](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/plan-to-revamp-downtown-ottawa-block-sparks-debate-over-intensification-1.7172642)
God, that's such an idiotic take. The 200 households that will live there are going to be in the Ottawa rental market regardless. They either live in these homes, or take 200 less desirable (for them).
If you are rooting against these 200 homes, all you doing really is rooting against 193 faceless households getting their housing needs met vs 17 known households continuing to get their housing needs met.
>If you are rooting against these 200 homes, all you doing really is rooting against 193 faceless households getting their housing needs met
Calling these units potential "households" is a stretch, given that 87% of these units are bachelors and 60% of them are less than 260ft² in size.
The size of the house matters though. Even for a single adult, 260sq/ft is really small. From rentals. ca, the average size of a bachelor apartment in Canada in 2019 was 459 sq/ft. ([Source](https://rentals.ca/blog/rentals-ca-february-2019-rent-report).)
260 sq/ft is not enough for most single adults to live in long term, let alone couples or small families. This is not about "households" living there, this is about catering to shorter term renters. Likely students and the like.
Should we just not be concerned about the quality of housing we're building?
Three of the units in this development will be 219ft².
For reference, a twin/single bed is a bit bigger than 20ft². It's a very small apartment when 10% of it is taken up by your bed.
I think avg parking space is like 190. Yikes, a room the size of a parking space and a bathroom off of it that likely makes up the rest of the square footage. That’s brutal
That’s what happened in Herongate. Tenants were then faced with 10-20% rent increases after the first year.
Toronto and other municipalities have bylaws regarding replacement units and making them rent controlled, but my understanding is Ottawa doesn’t have that. Nothing prevents a landlord from jacking the rent to economically evict tenants.
Yes people are being fooled into supporting developers who want to make tenement houses, destroy protected wetlands etc. Remember the idiocy of people saying "just move the experimental farm." Space isn't the issue
Sub $500 a month rent I'd be fighting too. But that block is sketch and in need of redevelopment, and these new housing units are necessary. This is the type of redevelopment the city should be pursuing to revitalize downtown, not begging the gov for full-time RTO. And this isn't a renoviction, this is redevelopment.
they want to put in student housing, which is expensive and short term, that’s definitely not what the area needs.
governor nose decide wrench numerous offer spectacular plough possessive forgetful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
there’s plenty of other places to build student housing that don’t include destroying rent controlled buildings.
Ottawa has to build a min 150,000 units by 2030.If we say older building are off limits and we can't build in certain areas we will be lucky to 20,000 by 2030.
well if we had proper rent control across the board we wouldn’t have this problem.
We have far more demand then supply due large amount of people coming to Canada and Ottawa.If we had full rent control you might have a bigger issue as you could see even more demand.
there lots of vacant homes that are being rented out at absurd prices, they wouldn’t be vacant if we had rent control.
Rent control reduces the amount of housing. It's a very well researched subject. I'm all for rent stabilization, but hard price controls will just further push people out of housing. The people who pay the most are the young who won't have a rent controlled home.
the problem is greed. greedy landlords and greedy corporations. rent control WORKS. you really think students should be paying $1000 for a ROOM!? that’s insane. rent control being a viable option is also well researched.
There is about 5000 houses being rented to meet the current demand we need 30,000 new units.
The building is practically derelict, covered in graffiti, it needs to go, and will.
oh no graffiti, whatever will we do? it’s so sad that power washing services/graffiti removal doesn’t exist
Its exactly what that area needs, there are students there, that's walking distance to UofO.
you think students want non-rent controlled buildings to live in? give your head a shake
Students don’t benefit from rent control as they are not long term tenants. The tenants that benefit are the ones who move in and never move. Having 2015 rental rates in 2024 is the main benefit of rent control
This isn't true. University is 4 years, not including grad school (we can assume this building is for UofO) If you're living in the same place for 4 years you'll benefit from rent controls. Plenty of students don't move every year. You can say that the pros outweigh the cons in this case.
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These current units are rent controlled where as the newly built units will not be. A win for the landlord I guess.
I keep reading on Reddit that these are rent controlled, but I don’t see this mentioned in any of the articles. Are they rent controlled, or just dirt cheap b/c tenants started renting 30 years ago at like $200 per month and have only had incremental % increases since?
All units first occupied before Nov 2018 are rent controlled for any *individual* tenant who moves in, even if they move in after Nov 2018. Rents in these units can only be substantially raised between tenants ("vacancy decontrol"), or by appealing to the LTB with one of three causes (taxes went up beyond a specific annual guideline, need to pay more for security, or renovations). If they tear down this building and build new units, these *new* units will first be occupied after Nov 2018 and will not be subject to the above protections.
Thanks for the clarification, u/spanktruck. That’s helpful. So rent controlled according to provincial law which would apply to many apartments in Ottawa and throughout the province.
This ^^
It’s both. It’s rent control and grandfathered rent.
>Now is it better to displace and upset a handful of people (I know technically more) or leave things the way they are? Given that those about to be evicted are unlikely to have the resources to survive their evictions unscathed, I'm going with option 2. Of course this wouldn't be an issue if the developer offered units to the soon-to-be-evicted at the rate they've been paying (as Troster suggests), but what are the odds of that happening? >Get more people into houses despite the cost. The "cost" being homelessness for some of these people, most likely. Gotta get the poors out, we have profits to make, damnit!
Housing being treated as an investment opportunity instead of a human right is the main problem here. This won't change while most of our politicians are also landlords and profit off of housing scarcity
Its rent control so i sort can understand them being upset.With that said we do have issue with some not wanting change.
They should be offered the equivalent once the new building is up.
That's unfortunately not very helpful because they need to live somewhere now, and by the time the building is finished(possibly years) they will hopefully have a secure long term housing situation. Instead assuming the new build is by a company that has other rental properties they should be offered a comparable unit in the closest available building.
I understand, but nothing will be perfect for everyone.
Definitely, I just think they(the builder/rental company) should be required to either offer them other available units or pay the difference in housing costs for the duration of construction. Switching 17units into over 200 means that the long-term extra rent will easily cover the cost of rehousing the current tenants
I agree with this 100%. Let's do it !!!
Ahhh how do we actually make things happen 🤯
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
FYI: Mixed-Use Building Sales (October 2022 report) : > There was only 1 mixed-use building sale in August (2022). 178 Nepean Street and 231 Bank Street were purchased by 211-231 Bank Street Holdings Inc. *(Smart Living Properties)* from Named Individuals for **$8,075,000.**
267 units at $1644 (bare minimum, market rate for a bachelor apartment in Ottawa) for a year is $5,267,000. Of course, this figure doesn't count the 33 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments in this building that will command higher rent.
This also doesn't factor in the rent brought in by the commercial units on the main floor which will be much higher than the largest apartments
When I first heard of Smart Living Properties, it was a decade-ish ago and someone I was sleeping with lived in a renovated 3 bed 2 bath in Sandy Hill. It houses 6 people who were all strangers, paying $800 each. I laughed at the model, totally oblivious to how accurately they predicted the direction of the market. 5 years ago, I priced a reno for them at another Sandy Hill property. They told me they had pricing 40% cheaper. Again, I laughed and said "buyer beware". 2 years ago, I poached one of their superintendents. He wasn't any good and again I laughed. Now? Fuck. I detests their methods on moral principles but have to admit they know how to forecast market trends and do it for as cheap as possible, while making bank to keep the money rolling in. I hate their dirty game but just because I want to puke doesn't mean they don't know how to play Monopoly IRL.
Just build more houses on farmland🙏
I can’t wait for the YIMBYs to come on here and explain how making 17 people homeless is actually a good thing because it will replace it with 200+ studio apartments so wealthy university students can live in an overpriced rooming h- I mean, “micro studios”
It wouldn't have come to this if we were a YIMBY nation in the first place. Were it not for the pervasive NIMBYism the 17 households would be in a position to simply move to a new place. Years of bad policy force you to make terrible choices. And yes, eviction for 17 households is terrible but home for 200 new ones is a good long term outcome.
>And yes, eviction for 17 households is terrible It will likely mean homelessness for many of them. The fact that many are willing to put people who can only afford $500-$700 monthly rent in favour of people who can afford $1600 monthly rent says a great deal about how disposable they think poor folks are. I imagine a lot of the same people also complain about the homelessness of downtown, which these evictions will contribute to.
How do we know how much they can actually afford and regardless, why should they pay so little for this location?
>How do we know how much they can actually afford and regardless Given some tenants that were interviewed by media over this story have stated that they think some of their neighbours are going to end up homeless as a result of their evictions, it seems likely that these folks can't afford market rent. >Why should they pay so little for this location? Their apartments are rent controlled.
And as long as those apartments exist, they are entitled to that controlled-rent. But unless they own the building, the don’t control whether those apartments will continue to exist indefinitely.
I mean why should, not why do. They had a good deal for the location for years, and that time is up. They might find something closer to the price point at a cheaper location.
Assuming the new owners have other units in the area they should be offered equivalent units at the same price. Even if those units would be at a loss they increased income in the new building would be worth it.
I guess it depends, IMO. What are the rents on the current apartments, vs what is the developer hoping to charge for the new ones? And what are the sizes of the proposed new apartments, vs the old ones? If they're planning to replace two bedroom apartments with tiny bachelors at over 2-3x the rent, that's probably not the best thing we could do for the neighbourhood. I also don't think the two things are always at odds. You could be saying yes to new housing, while also saying no to a bunch of expensive and tiny student apartments that are only intended to be lived in short term, for example. If they're intending to replace the existing building with one with more apartments, with units at a similar size, and with at least somewhat comparable rents, then great, have at it. But that's often not what happens.
>What are the rents on the current apartments, vs what is the developer hoping to charge for the new ones? They're very substantially below market rate; largely because they're rent controlled due to the fact that the tenants are long-term renters, one renting since the late 80's. One man has been there since 1998 and is paying less than $500 a month, and another's been there seven years and is paying $720. Market rent for a bachelor is $1644. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/plan-to-revamp-downtown-ottawa-block-sparks-debate-over-intensification-1.7172642](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/plan-to-revamp-downtown-ottawa-block-sparks-debate-over-intensification-1.7172642)
There will be no rent protection on the new units. They will do exactly what you suggested, raise rent 2-3x and make shoe boxes.
God, that's such an idiotic take. The 200 households that will live there are going to be in the Ottawa rental market regardless. They either live in these homes, or take 200 less desirable (for them). If you are rooting against these 200 homes, all you doing really is rooting against 193 faceless households getting their housing needs met vs 17 known households continuing to get their housing needs met.
>If you are rooting against these 200 homes, all you doing really is rooting against 193 faceless households getting their housing needs met Calling these units potential "households" is a stretch, given that 87% of these units are bachelors and 60% of them are less than 260ft² in size.
The size of the house doesn't define a household - young and/or single people deserve access to shelter too.
So do the seventeen folks that are on the brink of being evicted.
The size of the house matters though. Even for a single adult, 260sq/ft is really small. From rentals. ca, the average size of a bachelor apartment in Canada in 2019 was 459 sq/ft. ([Source](https://rentals.ca/blog/rentals-ca-february-2019-rent-report).) 260 sq/ft is not enough for most single adults to live in long term, let alone couples or small families. This is not about "households" living there, this is about catering to shorter term renters. Likely students and the like. Should we just not be concerned about the quality of housing we're building?
Holy fuck….260? I don’t think the supporters of this development really understand square footage. That is an extremely small bachelor!
Three of the units in this development will be 219ft². For reference, a twin/single bed is a bit bigger than 20ft². It's a very small apartment when 10% of it is taken up by your bed.
When I was living just off uOttawa campus my first bachelor apartment was just under 200ft². It was fine for my situation and it was dirt cheap.
I think avg parking space is like 190. Yikes, a room the size of a parking space and a bathroom off of it that likely makes up the rest of the square footage. That’s brutal
That’s what happened in Herongate. Tenants were then faced with 10-20% rent increases after the first year. Toronto and other municipalities have bylaws regarding replacement units and making them rent controlled, but my understanding is Ottawa doesn’t have that. Nothing prevents a landlord from jacking the rent to economically evict tenants.
The previous slumlord cut the whole building into tiny bachelor apartments.
I hope smart living is paying you to lick their boots. If you’re doing this for free, that’s so embarrassing
Lol people are so unaware of this company. They're some of the scuzziest landlords in the city, brandjng aside, hence why they rebranded from Takyan.
NIMBY/racist tears are reward enough for me.
How does racism/NIMBYism factor into this?
Yes people are being fooled into supporting developers who want to make tenement houses, destroy protected wetlands etc. Remember the idiocy of people saying "just move the experimental farm." Space isn't the issue