Opening the Door to…

Opening the Door to Displacement of Lower-Income Tenants

Just as Schedule 1’s amendments to the City of Toronto Act, attack rental replacement policies in Toronto, Schedule 4 amendments to the Municipal Act, 2001 would empower the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to unilaterally limit – and even dismantle – rental replacement policies of other Ontario municipalities.

As mentioned above, these policies ensure that when rental apartments are demolished to make way for new development, the tenants are entitled to a replacement unit of roughly the same size and type in the new development, at the same rent as before – as well as temporary accommodation at the interim.

In the absence of the rental replacement policies, construction of much-needed new housing will frequently result in the displacement of existing tenants who currently pay lower rents, and will require them to enter new leases at rents that will almost always be much higher