HERON GATE LANDLORD NO VILLAIN
To listen to some people, the eviction of 105 families from Ottawa’s Heron Gate development is a simple tale of a greedy corporate landlord victimizing low-income tenants, most of whom are visible minorities. Indeed, Leilani Farha, an Ottawa resident and UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, has accused landlord Timbercreek of “unscrupulous demographic engineering in search of profits: replacing poor and vulnerable people with those who possess greater purchasing power.”
The facts tell a rather different story. When Timbercreek bought the 1,665-unit Heron Gate rental development six years ago, some of the buildings badly needed repairs. The company has spent $45 million upgrading Heron Gate, but some rental units aren’t worth saving. One group of buildings has already been torn down and is being replaced. Now, the company is going to demolish 150 townhouses, 45 of which were already vacant. This is a rational economic decision. The units are so dilapidated that it makes more sense to rebuild than to repair. The challenge is to find other affordable housing for the 105 families who are losing their homes. Timbercreek, the city and private landlords have been working together on this, and have had success despite a tight rental market. By the end of the week, it’s expected that 90 per cent of residents will have found new homes and everyone will have received an offer of alternative accommodation. Most will be moving within five kilometres of Heron Gate, and for rents less than $10 more a month than they pay now. It’s fair to call that effort at relocation a success, and
The units are so dilapidated that it makes more sense to rebuild than to repair.
the parties deserve credit for it, not disdain. Still, what happens next? That’s less clear.
The city is developing a secondary plan for the neighbourhood, to guide redevelopment and assess what can be done to improve parks, transit and cycling. The plan is expected by the middle of next year, and the developer won’t reveal its intentions for the demolition site until the big picture is clear. However, Timbercreek apparently intends to maintain Heron Gate primarily as a rental community with different levels of affordability.
Current ward Coun. Jean Cloutier concedes that the city could do more to improve Heron Gate, especially by upgrading city-owned Sandalwood Park. And Timbercreek executives, as well as city politicians, could have done a much better job of explaining what’s happening at Heron Gate rather than remaining aloof. Their weakness at communications has handed several candidates for municipal office a hearttugging issue on which to campaign for the next two months. To be sure, the demolition is both inconvenient and upsetting for the families affected, but it’s a necessary step in upgrading this neighbourhood. The city did not do enough in the past to make sure building standards were maintained. The landlord simply had to act.
We should cheer the renewal of Heron Gate, but the evictions coincide with an effort by Farha and other affordable-housing advocates to have the federal government declare housing a fundamental human right. Heron Gate offers a convenient, if inaccurate, illustration of the problem they want to solve.
It’s easy to criticize landlords for wanting to make a profit, but if they didn’t, there would be much less rental housing, including affordable units. Ottawa’s perpetual 10,000-household waiting list for social housing is evidence that tax dollars alone can’t meet everyone’s housing needs. Private landlords are a big part of the equation, and we should note it when they act responsibly.