Parkdale rent strike ends in tenants’ favour
Landlord agrees to keep rental increase to 1.5 per cent following months-long uproar
There was a pop of a champagne cork Saturday morning in the lobby of the Parkdale apartment building Barb Livesay has called home for years.
Livesay — and, she says, about 20 other tenants from Parkdale buildings, plus supporters — had good reason for an early tipple and a “little toast.”
Late Friday, an agreement had been reached between MetCap Living Management Inc. and tenants — from 12 of its Parkdale buildings — who had been on a “rent strike” since May 1.
“It’s a happy day in Parkdale, I can tell you that,” said Livesay, 58, who has lived in an apartment at 135 Tyndall Ave., for more than three years and was one of hundreds of renters who withheld rent payments in protest of building conditions and claims of repeated and unfair rent hikes.
What she couldn’t share, exactly, were details of the confidential agreement, but Parkdale Community Legal Services said in a Saturday press release that rent increases will be “scaled back significantly.”
Livesay, who lives off of disability payments due to an injury, said she can now afford to stay in her home and so will others who saw increases. She believes the agreement is rare and will extend to other MetCapmanaged buildings in Parkdale, home to many low-income tenants.
Tenants had claimed their units in 12 Parkdale MetCap buildings were badly in need of repairs and the hikes were intended to force out lowincome tenants. Many tenants had withheld their rent payments in response.
MetCap president and chief executive officer Brent Merrill has maintained throughout that many efforts were made to address tenant concerns at all the buildings, including setting up special hotlines for tenants to report repair issues. He also says he reached out personally to tenants who complained about unfulfilled work orders. Merrill could not be immediately reached Saturday for comment on the deal.
Withholding rent was just one of several actions taken by tenants. There were several rallies and marches through Parkdale, the brief occupation of a lobby and stairwell outside a MetCap office and the short-term shutdown of a hearing at the Landlord and Tenant Board.
“We won this strike because we refused to play by the rules,” Bryan Daley, who lives at a seven-storey building at 90 Jameson Ave., said in the Saturday press release. “Parkdale came together as a community and organized to defend our homes and we came out on top.”
Another celebration will take place 6:30 p.m., Tuesday at the Parkdale Public Library on Queen St. W.
“Finally, finally,” it’s over, said Livesay, who has been involved in the push to challenge the rent since March. Livesay said rent for her bachelor unit was increased to $787 per month, and expects it to be significantly lower. She also said building management has plans to establish “some type of a relief fund for low-income tenants” for further rent increase reductions.
“I think that’s probably a first for any landlord to do,” Livesay said. “They offered that. It wasn’t something we asked for.” She intends to apply to the fund.
The number of people who participated in the actual strike was never entirely clear. Parkdale Community Services said as many as 200 tenants withheld rent in May and up to 300 in June, across the 12 buildings. The head count was an estimate, based on public meetings and information from tenant representatives.
“The organizing of hundreds of working class people in Parkdale, including us and our neighbours, has shifted the balance of power between landlords and tenants in Parkdale in our favour,” said a statement on the Parkdale Organize website from the Rent Strikers’ Negotiating Committee.
In early February, MetCap applied to the Landlord and Tenant Board to raise rent 3 per cent above provincial guidelines, each year for three years, due to renovation costs.
This is legal, though an above guideline rent increase must be approved by the Landlord and Tenant Board.
A 1.5-per-cent rent increase has already been approved for 2017.
The dispute took a frightening turn at the end of May, when a supporter stepped in front of Merrill’s moving truck and was forced to back-peddle, then jump to the side. Merrill told the Star he did a rolling stop to pick up a building manager who had been chased by tenant supporters.
Merrill confirmed that in June, several hundred tenants in buildings across Parkdale were sent notices warning them to pay rent, or potentially face a hearing before the Landlord Tenant Board. But, Merrill said, there was no way to know how many were participating in the strike and that volume of notices was not unusual for Parkdale.
Vic Natola, a community legal worker with Parkdale legal services, said MetCap staff reached out at the end of June “to talk about tenant demands and what needs to happen to end the rent strike,” and negotiations began shortly after.
“The demands have been constant and consistent through the entire negotiations and the strike,” Natola said. “It was pretty much all hands on deck to help support the tenants through that. “We continued to provide legal support because tenants don’t know the law inside and out, and we do.”
The meetings included tenant representatives from several buildings taking part in the rent strike, MetCap staff and staff from Alberta Investment Management Corp (a key investor in MetCap) and Parkdale Community Legal Services. All sides agreed to not talk about the details until a resolution was reached.
“Nobody had any interest of putting the negotiations at risk,” Natola said.
“The organizing of hundreds of working class people in Parkdale has shifted the balance of power between landlords and tenants.” PARKDALE TENANTS’ WEBSITE