Evictions increase in Park Extension
Evictions are on the rise in Park Extension and another saga of a neglectful landlord there is being told this weekend.
Those first two links are to the same CP story in French; the Gazette has it in English as does Global.
david100 02:39 on 2019-09-02 Permalink
No surprise that evictions are on the rise in Parc Ex as the artificial land shortage on the Plateau and elsewhere pushes up prices across the city, and landlords look to capitalize by booting the old tenants and bringing in those who couldn’t get in elsewhere.
It’s darkly comical that, aside from trying to get rental laws enforced, the most certain responses to these moves is to stoke even further anti-growth activism, with the view of growth as gentrification, when in reality anti-growth activism in the current environment of booming demand for housing in the inner neighborhoods is possibly the single greatest contributing factor to the affordability crisis.
If PM holds the line with their 30% affordable requirement and successfully tanks development in Ville Marie, it will get even worse, of course.
Kate 13:51 on 2019-09-02 Permalink
david100, you’re getting close to idée-fixe territory with your “build bigger and higher” stuff.
Ian 18:09 on 2019-09-02 Permalink
david100, you’ve never heard the realtor adage, “location, location, location”?
Let’s not forget that there are no shortages of housing in Parc Ex. There are lots of vacancies for poor working class types in those vertical slums lining the east side of Acadie all the way to the 40, for instance. Down by Beaumont though, landlords figure all those rich UdeM students will be willing to pay a lot more for a lot less than, say, working class families, and they are eager to cash in. This is rather typical gentrification through renoviction that has nothing to do with anything more than simple avarice as the perceived cachet of a neighbourhood increases. The entire Plateau could be flattened for highrises from Iberville to Parc and this would still be happening, it’s the new campus driving the renovictions, not a lack of places to live in other parts of town.
SMD 12:43 on 2019-09-03 Permalink
@Ian, even in the Acadie towers there are illegal evictions and renovictions as the landlords await the UdeM students with open arms. The price for those units has almost doubled in the last 5 years, although the quality remains the same.