Colleen Hardwick's TEAM vows new vacancy control on rentals between tenancies

Multi-family residential buildings in Vancouver's Kitsilano neighbourhood. (Google Maps)

If elected, TEAM For A Livable Vancouver would enact vacancy control on rental housing to slow down escalating rent increases when vacancies occur.

This would apply to multi-family apartment buildings, under the scenario where landlords increase rents substantially after a tenant leaves.

“When some landlords jack the rent by $1,000 or more per month when a renter moves out and the unit goes on the market, it devastates affordable housing in Vancouver – that has to stop,” said TEAM city councillor and mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick in a statement today.

“There is a huge gap between median rental rates and the median market rates for available housing in Vancouver – this is causing significant hikes in rental rates and a huge drop in affordable housing in our city – it has to stop and we will take strong measures to do so.”

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TEAM’s vacancy control policy would have an initial term of two years before it undergoes a full review on its results and recommendations for the future.

It would apply to multi-family apartment buildings with more than six units — not smaller rentals.

An appeal board would be created for landlords whose properties have required necessary repairs and renovations to allow for the “appropriate rental increases” to cover the costs of undergoing the construction work.

Although there are well-documented scenarios of rents growing significantly between tenancies, this also comes on the backdrop of the provincial government’s consecutive low increases to rent caps, despite high inflation.

The allowable rent increase for existing tenants in 2023 is 2%, followed by 2022’s cap of 1.5%, 2021’s cap of 0%, 2020’s cap of 2.6% before the March onset of the pandemic, and 2019’s cap of 2.5%.

Due to severe competition for rental listings, a growing proportion of renters are staying in place in their existing rented homes.

Builders of rental housing have also stated that there are now unfavourable conditions to pursue new rental housing, with the ability to recover costs well below the pace of inflation.

More importantly, such a policy is well within provincial jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court of British Columbia recently overturned the City of Vancouver’s bylaws limiting rent increases between the tenancies of SROs.

Other major Vancouver municipal parties have also promised various forms of new or enhanced rental tenant protections.

Forward Together, the party of incumbent mayoral candidate Kennedy Stewart, has promised to expand the “toughest renter protections in Canada” passed under the Broadway Plan as a city-wide policy. Any renter who must locate will have a choice of being generously compensated for having to move or have the right to return to a replacement unit at rents set at or below what they currently pay. There would also be new permanent vacancy control for new rental units.

Ken Sim’s ABC Vancouver states they will “champion the role of non-profits in the delivery of housing and strengthen protections and supports for Vancouver’s existing market and non-market housing rental stock.”

Mark Marissen’s Progress Vancouver would require tenants to be offered the right of first refusal to return to the new or renovated unit at the lesser of the rent they were paying or 20% below-market rents. Additionally, there would be a requirement that tenants be compensated for expenses relating to finding new housing when their unit is under renovation or when their building is being redeveloped. New developments that do not displace existing renters would also be prioritized.

OneCity Vancouver is promising to protect existing rental housing by prioritizing development applications that do not displace renters, ending all incentives to displace renters, and providing a rental top-up to ensure that tenants are able to maintain housing. They would also increase the use of the City’s new Renters’ Office for advocacy purposes.

The Green Party of Vancouver has vowed to tie affordability to renter income, protect tenants against renovictions, demovictions, displacements, and guarantee the right of refusal, and stabilize rents by limiting rent increases for units — not just tenants.

In June 2019, Vancouver City Council approved various measures to improve renter protections, including increasing their compensation from relocation.

The civic election is scheduled for Saturday, October 2022.

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