East Van apartment tenants hope for 11th-hour reprieve
Only a handful of tenants from two East Vancouver apartment buildings remain.
On Aug. 24 last year, tenants of neighbouring buildings at 533 Woodland Dr. and 1552 East Pender St. received two-month eviction notices. Property records list the buyer as a numbered company whose director is Dinesh Chand. The sale was completed on Aug. 31 for $5.888 million.
Last month, the tenants received their fourth eviction notices, after two were defeated in arbitration because of objections to their content.
“But not before we lost more tenants,” said 17-year tenant Sue Robinet, who spoke at a rally Saturday outside the buildings.
“Some of our neighbours couldn’t bear the stress of potentially having to move out on New Year’s Eve, if the hearing had not gone in our favour.”
Last month, they received their fourth eviction notices, and now only eight tenants remain, down from 26 who had joined the battle to keep their homes last summer.
Robinet said they believe the landlord wants those left to clear out the buildings so that he may charge significantly higher rents.
“Even though it is illegal in B.C. for a landlord to evict tenants for the purpose of charging higher rents, the current system is toothless and full of loopholes,” she said.
Michael Drouillard, a lawyer with Harper Grey LLP representing the building’s new landlord, East Van Rentals Ltd., said that when his client bought the buildings they “had quite a number of significant, deferred maintenance issues” due to the lack of upkeep by the previous landlord.
Drouillard said the work proposed is substantial — mostly structural but some cosmetic — and includes replacing the plumbing and electrical, as well as installing a new roof.
Robinet and the remaining tenants have asked the landlord to let them all move into one building while the other is renovated.
Drouillard said that proposal is a “strong point of contention” between his client and the tenants, and not possible because the buildings share a plumbing system. As well, some work is already underway, he added.
He said the landlord has offered compensation packages in excess of what is legally required. Most recently, those packages have mirrored the city’s tenant-relocation policy for when a building is razed for development, he said.
Tenants’ rent will be subsidized while the renovations are done and their move-out costs will be paid. They can rent back their previous suites for 20 per cent below-market.
“It goes beyond even what the current government is proposing to do when they’re going to change the residential tenancy act,” he said. “That was our offer but it wasn’t accepted and so we do need a vacant building and that’s why, yes, we’re proceeding to arbitration.”
They described some of their hardest-hit neighbours, including an 85-year-old tenant of 22 years, who recently suffered a stroke and worries about becoming homeless, and a former building caretaker who now lives in a van.
“Meanwhile, the landlord’s men were overheard in her suite gleefully discussing how much more rent they’ll be able to charge because of the great view from her window,” Robinet said. This comment brought cries of “Shame!” from the two-dozen who had gathered.
She said the tenants are pleased the provincial government is launching a new rental task force, headed by NDP MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert.
“But the tenants of Pender Woodland need relief right now,” she said.