Rooming houses protected in six boroughs
Six boroughs have moved to protect rooming houses, a residential format that’s been in decline for decades but which offers accessible living space for people with minimal incomes.
In other rental-type news, the city had to remove Airbnb renters from a condemned building on Centre Street in the Point. WTF? I thought Airbnb was largely on hold because of Covid-19, but where do you send people to live in the middle of a pandemic?
City hall had proposed for new projects the requirement of 20% social housing, 20% “affordable” housing and 20% units large enough for families, but a report from the OCPM has shot this down as insufficiently worked out. The OCPM recommended keeping only the social housing part, and the city’s already rethinking its plans. Is there a textbook definition of “affordable” for housing?
Ephraim 10:40 on 2020-05-16 Permalink
We definitely need rooming houses, but the landlord needs much more leeway than with normal tenants. I’ve lived next to one… once with a hands-off landlord and one with a pro-active landlord. No police needed with the pro-active landlord.
AirBnBs should now be required to post a licence number on their listings. That started the 1st of May.
CE 16:44 on 2020-05-16 Permalink
Hasn’t that Pointe St-Charles Airbnb been in the news before?
Kate 17:05 on 2020-05-16 Permalink
Yes, it has. It was condemned and the regular tenants marched out not long ago.
The building was reported in November as having been converted to an Airbnb even though it had been condemned in February 2018 as risky to human life. It doesn’t sound like the building either changed hands or was noticeably cleaned up in the meantime.