New Westminster plans to take action to better support tenants who may be displaced from their homes.
At its June 10 meeting, city council unanimously approved a motion to have the City of New Westminster update its tenant protection and relocation policies, using Burnaby’s policy as a model, to provide support for tenants who may be displaced from their homes, including redevelopment.
The motion, submitted by councillors Ruby Campbell and Nadine Nakagawa, stated that new provincial housing legislation could result in redevelopment that impacts tenants living in older and more affordable rental units.
“Tenants are valuable members of our community, and they deserve the security of knowing that they'll be able to stay in the community where they or their families work, go to school, volunteer, and have built up important social networks,” Nakagawa said. “If their homes are redeveloped due to the new provincial legislation, we need to at the very least ensure that they can return it rates that are affordable, meaning what they were paying when they left, not at the level of market escalation.”
Nakagawa noted that some Burnaby tenants had recently returned to a building that replaced their former home. She said Burnaby introduced its tenant protections “after the horse had already left the barn” – a time when many tenants in the Metrotown neighbourhood were forced out of their homes by redevelopment.
“That's a great example of what we don't want to happen,” she said. “Burnaby enacted their current tenant protections long after approving all that development. So, it was little comfort to those, I think, thousands of renters, who were displaced from that area. But they do have it now, and it is already demonstrated that is working.”
The City of Burnaby’s tenant assistance policy includes several components: assistance for tenants in finding a new place to rent, if requested; financial compensation in the form of rent top-up payments or a lump sum payment, to bridge the gap between current rents and market rents; financial support for moving and help with making arrangements, if requested; and the right to return to the redeveloped building at the same rent (plus any Residential Tenancy Act rent increases) in a unit with the same number of bedrooms.
Nakagawa said the City of New Westminster has enacted policies that have protected many tenants from both renovictions and demovictions in New West.
“The best-case scenario is that tenants are not displaced in the first place,” she said. “The next best is … that they can return at the same rate under which they left.”
Mayor Patrick Johnstone said it’s a good time for New Westminster to review its policies and ensure it’s doing what it can to ensure people are as secure as they can be in their homes.
“It’s a complicated time right now for housing,” he said. “I do fear that one of the anticipated impacts to TOD regulations is going to be a loss of our ability to enforce the eviction protections that we have in the same way we have previously.”
New provincial legislation for “transit-oriented development (TOD) areas” requires cities to allow buildings of up to 20 storeys within 200 metres of a SkyTrain station, up to 12 storeys within 400 metres and up to eight storeys within 800 metres.
"I feel scared."
Several tenants attended the June 10 meeting to urge council to support the tenant protections motion.
Dustin Godfrey, a renter and a volunteer organizer with the New West Tenants Union, spoke of the need for a robust tenant protection policy in New Westminster.
“Our concern is that the housing prices have the potential to be used as an excuse to implement blunt measures that can perpetuate harms against people who are often the most impacted by the housing crisis in the first place,” they said. “And we're concerned that transit-oriented development has the potential to be one of those blunt measures.”
Godfrey said the tenants’ union is particularly concerned about people being displaced from their homes given today's high cost of housing. They said someone demovicted from their apartment today is looking at a 40 to 50 per cent increase in their rent.
“That's untenable for pretty much anybody,” they said.
Godfrey said those kinds of rent increase cannot be alleviated by any kind of lump sum payments, so the only answer is to re-house those tenants in the new development at the same rate they were paying prior to the demolition of the old building. Otherwise, said Godfrey, those tenants could find themselves being pushed out of the community, having to spend an increasing amount of their income on rent, or being pushed into homelessness.
“There's been a lot of discourse recently around things like public safety, around street disorder, around public drug use, around things like that, and I really, really want to impress upon you that if you're concerned about public safety, it's not safe to be spending 60 or 70 per cent of your income on rent. It's not safe to be forced into homelessness. And for a lot of people, it's not safe to be pushed out of a community where your support network may be,” they said.
“Similarly, if you're concerned about things like public drug use or street disorder, I think you really need to support a measure that would prevent more and more renters being pushed into situations where they really have no other options.”
David Hendry, an organizer with the New West Tenants Union, said the group is concerned the transit-oriented development areas legislation poses the potential for a mass displacement of tenants, particularly in low-rise apartment buildings.
“As the increasing development pressure occurs, those buildings will be more desirable to developers to purchase and to redevelop,” he told council.
Having surveyed and spoken to tenants in buildings potentially impacted by the TOD areas, Hendry said people who become displaced now would be looking at a $900 to $1,500 increase in their rent if they had to relocate, which most of them cannot afford. Some said they would not be able to afford to stay in New West and would have to Surrey Langley, Alberta, while others said they “have no idea” what they would do.
New West resident Dave Sadoway is an instructor at Kwantlen Polytech University, where he teaches urban geography and urban planning. While it is important to have housing near transit – particularly rentals, public housing, and non-profit housing – he’s concerned the province is not fully aware of some of the “unintended consequences” that may result from its housing legislation.
Sadoway said his low-rise rental apartment building is home to pensioners, new migrants, and families.
“If Victoria is unwittingly going to launch policy that displaces these people, and then it's sort of put on your table as municipal councillors,” he said.
Moira Movanna, a renter in New West, asked council to take action to protect tenants. She fears being “thrown to the dogs” and forced out of her longtime home because of redevelopment.
“I feel scared,” she said.
Scott Ostertag, who lives and works in New West, told council about the “precarious position” faced by the student renter population in New Westminter, including those attending the Justice institute of BC.
He said financial aid currently available to post-secondary students who are living away from home provides $997 for shelter, $320 for food, $392 for miscellaneous, and $123 for local transportation – in a city where the average rent in April was $2,322 for a one-bedroom unit was $2,322 and $2,920 for a two-bedroom apartment.
Amendments rejected
While council unanimously approved the motion presented by Nakagawa and Campbell, Coun. Daniel Fontaine expressed concerns about some aspects of the motion. Based on those concerns, he put forward amendments for council’s consideration, in lieu of the original motion:
- The City of New Westminster use an evidence-based approach to prioritize the updating of its tenant protection and relocation policies to strengthen current supports for tenants who may be displaced from their homes, including by redevelopment.
- Staff conduct a best practice review of other cities in British Columbia to determine which may best serve as a model for implementation in New Westminster.
- Staff report back to council on how any proposed enhanced tenant protection policies will impact both tenants and property owners, prior to the implementation of any updated policies.
Fontaine expressed concern that Campbell and Nakagawa’s motion refers to the City of Burnaby's model. Rather than “cherry picking one community over another” he said he’d prefer that staff report back on the best model for New Westminster.
“I just don't consider Burnaby as a poster child for anything when it comes to housing,” he said. “Their track record is abysmal in terms of what they did to tenants in the Metrotown area. … I had a front row seat watching four-storey walk-up after four-storey walk-up being torn down by former mayor Derek Corrigan and the council there.”
(Corrigan, a five-term mayor in Burnaby, was defeated in the 2018 mayoral race by Mike Hurley. The 2018 election result was seen by many to be a response to Corrigan’s inaction to address rental “demovictions” and Hurley’s commitment to address housing and demovictions. Following his election, Hurley struck a Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing, which recommended Burnaby develop a robust tenant assistance policy.)
Fontaine said he think it's important that staff report back to council about potential unintended consequences of tenant protections – for both for tenants and for private property owners.
Johnstone said he’s confident the city will hear from landowners and property owners as it goes through this process, as that’s something that’s occurred each time the city has brought in new tenant protections.”
Only Coun. Paul Minhas supported the proposed amendments. Other council members wanted to focus on tenants, not property owners.
“The intent of this motion is to centre how it impacts tenants,” Campbell said.
Nakagawa said the motion stated New West would use Burnaby’s policy as a model, not implement it verbatim.
“We’ve heard from a number of people stating Burnaby's is the best practice,” she said. “I think we can stick with what we know to be great. If staff find other great options, nothing in the original motion precludes them from doing that.”
Despite his concerns, Fontaine supported the motion.
“It's better than nothing,” he said.
Coun. Tasha Henderson said people working in the field of housing view Burnaby’s policy is being “the most progressive policy in the country” on this issue.
“I'm excited to support this,” she said. “I think that we can do better in terms of protection. And this is a great opportunity for us to put our money where our mouth is.”
Burnaby But Better
Following the meeting, the New West Tenants Union issued a press release supporting the New Westminster city council's decision.
At the same time, it is proposing a “Burnaby But Better” bylaw that would provide tenants with a unit in the new building at the same rent they were paying in the demolished building, along with annual rent increases allowed by the province. The tenants’ union seeks to improve upon the Burnaby model in a few ways, including:
- Extending the interim rent support to cover the entire time of development, regardless of how long it takes
- An independent third party, not hired by the developer, to oversee the relocation process and inform tenants of their rights and options
- Ensuring affordable and market units aren’t segregated, and that amenities available to market units are equally available to affordable units
- Requiring market units and affordable units to be the same size
- Tenant consultation throughout the process, including shaping the development
