Mayor denounced for tiling
Mayor Plante was denounced by a lawyer after she posted some photos showing herself and her husband doing some renovation work on their Rosemont triplex. The lawyer claimed that landlords are not allowed to do any work at all on properties they intend to rent out, but the Journal looked up the rules and found she’s in the clear.
Ian 08:48 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
Not a triplex but a 4 plex.
“Valérie Plante est propriétaire avec son mari d’un quintuplex qui a été transformé en quadruplex en 2020, dans l’arrondissement de Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie. Elle y habite avec sa famille. Le couple, considéré comme propriétaire-occupant, a trois locataires.”
Interesting that the building Plante & her husband own used to be a 5 plex but they converted it to a 4 plex, implying the renoviction of at least one renter… Also interesting to note that 4 plexes won’t be included in the proposed rental registry.
Kate 09:00 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
See my note from yesterday about triplexes.
Ian, it’s possible the building was transformed to a quadruplex before she took possession, but admittedly it’s more likely she chose to do that to the building.
YUL514 09:07 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
I wonder what our mayor charges for rent. Hmmm
Blork 09:32 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
“…used to be a 5 plex but they converted it to a 4 plex, implying the renoviction of at least one renter.”
It’s more accurate to say it implies the POSSIBILITY of a renoviction. People change apartments all the time. There’s as much (or greater) chance that the tenant simply ran out their lease and left. Maybe they found a cheaper or better apartment elsewhere. Maybe they were students and they graduated and moved on. Maybe it was a couple who split up. Maybe they found a better job and moved to Chicoutimi.
Kate 09:33 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
YUL514, I also wondered. It would be interesting to be her tenant. If you felt she was charging too much, you could take the story to the media…
Ephraim 09:46 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
Some also have a single bachelor apartment in the basement that doesn’t always rent and is sometimes used as inter-generational, with a door to the rest of the basement on the inside. A separate unit, but it may not have been rented and incorporated into the rest of the home. There are many such cases.
Joey 09:47 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
I too am surprised the journalists working on this story were more interested in the manufactured issue of landlords doing some reno work on their own (go find a contractor who’s available) rather than the more significant quetsion of how the mayor and her husband wound up in a quadruplex that as of 2020 was a quintuplex. Whether the tenant left or was renovitced (willingly or grudgingly) is germane, but the more interesting question is whether a mayor who decries the lack of housing was responsible for removing a dwelling from the already-tight supply. I’m not a huge fan of personal hypocrisy stories involving politicians, if only because they tend to be cheap shots (like this nonsense about the tiles) and discourage good people from public service, but the Projet gang are all about virtue signalling and tsk-tsking everybody else about everything all the time. Wouldn’t surprise me if some enterprising journalist is spending the day exploring a little more.
Kate 09:48 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
Ephraim, yes, I’ve seen a lot of those, but not in 1920s-era triplex/quad/quint buildings, but in the more recent duplexes, usually clad in white brick, with a garage underneath. The door to the bachelor apartment is typically beside the garage door. There are scads of these buildings in Anjou, St‑Léonard, eastern Villeray, Lasalle and indeed any neighbourhood built up from the mid 1950s to mid 1960s.
ant6n 14:26 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
If u buy an apartment and kick out a tenant to use the unit as a residence for yourself or close relative like child, that’s totally fair and not a renoviction. it’s not immoral to combine two units to make a family apartment. Problem is when people kick out tenants for “their own use”, but don’t actually use it, then renovate it and rent it out for much more.
Joey 14:44 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
@ant6n I wonder what proportion of the PM membership as well as PM-elected officials would agree that “it’s not immoral to combine two units to make a family apartment.”
ant6n 18:49 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
A lot of the traditional housing stock in Montreal has apartments in the 50-60sqm range. Its hard to find apartments with 100-120sqm. Back in Berlin I grew up in a 6 person household right in the city center with 140sqm, thats not something you can easily find in Montreal. So youll have a lot of 1 or 2 person households in those small apartments, 4 person households (like the Plante family) will get pushed to the suburbs, which is not something you want. If these families find a way to have a larger apartment in the city, than this can bind the family to the city generationally. Given that the density is about the same, even in the long term (2-4 people in 2 apartments vs 1-2 in 1 apartment over, say, thirty years), I’d say merging two units can be a net benefit to the city.
Or put in another way, as Enrique Peñalosa (Former Mayor of Bogota) said: “children are a kind of indicator species, if we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for everyone.”
Ian 18:58 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
I have somehow miraculously managed to raise 2 children in Montreal apartments without depleting the rental stock. Many of my friends have also managed this. I suspect that this one of those “where there is a will there is a way” situations especially from someone who should serve as an example, like, say, the frickin’ mayor.
Faiz Imam 21:09 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
Ian , raising a child in 600sqft is very much doable, but then again so is using a cargobike to transport a mattress across town.
Certain types of people can manage it, and I respect the hell out of them for it, but its clearly harder and not for everyone.
Ian 23:00 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
Plante’s original unit was 600 Sq. Ft? Funny I didn’t see that number in the article or any other sources, and I have my doubts this was a 5 plex of 3 and a halfs. I do think the mayor of the party constantly claiming to be very concerned about gentrification and dimnishing housing stock should be held if not to a higher standard, at leastthe party line.
I know one 9f the main reasons the city doesn’t go after rapacious developers is a fear of big money lawsuits but as I learn more I realize it’s simply because they are not just had in glove but peas in a pod.
Ian 23:02 on 2022-02-09 Permalink
*typing on a phone, apologies for the many typos
Kevin 10:09 on 2022-02-10 Permalink
We need a convoy protesting to build more 7 1/2s in Montreal.
Blork 11:54 on 2022-02-10 Permalink
The most sensible comments in this thread come from Ant6n. If you want your urban neighbourhoods to be intergenerational and sustainable, and not just something to grow up and escape from, you need to offer a variety of living options. Just because someone can or has raised a family in a tiny apartment, that doesn’t make it the benchmark for everyone.
Kate 15:10 on 2022-02-10 Permalink
That’s one of the issues we have. People really did raise families in tiny spaces. My Plateau apartment, 1880s vintage, felt like about enough room for me, the cat, some books and a computer. But one day the doorbell rang and it was a crowd of people: three generations of a family. The two old ladies were sisters and had grown up in my apartment, along with their parents, and probably other siblings and a grandparent or two. It boggled my mind, but that’s how it was. (The son and grandson were a little abashed by the ebullient old ladies. It was a funny scene.) (Also, cultural footnote, they were Jewish, from a time when that part of town had a working synagogue and a lot of Jewish residents, a long time ago.)
My present apartment is about the same square footage, although laid out differently. I doubt when this building was put up 100 years ago that the units were intended for single people or childless couples. But the landlady certainly doesn’t expect whole families to move in. In a story surprisingly like the previous, one day I heard people outside, and there was an old man pointing to my apartment. He had known the man who lived here, whose name I recognized after a curious rummage through the Lovell directories one day. He remembered correctly that the man had been a security guard, and that he had been impressed by his gun. His whole family had lived in the apartment next to mine, which is a mirror image of my place – which has, in my estimation, about enough room for me, the cat, some books and a computer.
I suppose, given this, adapting more than one unit into a family house makes sense, but then we have to deal with the loss of dwellings involved in the process. I saw a few adaptations of this kind (viewed from the front porch only) when doing census work around Villeray last summer, and suspect it’s a trend that will continue. But something else has to come along and make up for the lost living spaces if it does.
ant6n 15:47 on 2022-02-10 Permalink
Arguably, there’s a bigger “loss” of dwellings with singles occupying one unit, than a family of four occupying two (implied: the increase in the number of single person households puts more pressure on the rental market than families occupying two units).
But one has to be careful with this sort of blame game here. We need to increase the number of residential apartments in urban settings.
Ian 17:34 on 2022-02-10 Permalink
Haha what? Your apologia gymnastics are getting pretty vigorous here – a single person taking up a large unit doesn’t take that apartment off the market – when they eventually vacate the apartment is still there. If a couple merges two apartments into one, there is one less apartment available as rental stock.
People that merge 2 units are taking a unit off the market, permanently. It’s as simple as that. This is not some kind of “blame game” with which “one has to be careful”. We do indeed need to increase the number of residential apartments in urban settings, and part of that is not taking units off the market because someone with the money feels like converting two units into one. This is no different than someone buying a duplex and converting it into a single family dwelling.
More to my point, however, Plante appears to have renovicted someone by converting her 5 plex into a 4 plex, despite talking the anti-gentrification talk for many years. That makes her a hypocrite, and I wonder how many other elected Projet officials are doing the same, playing both sides of the fence.
ant6n 18:18 on 2022-02-10 Permalink
Well I’m sorry it’s beyond your mental gymnastics ability that the variables affecting the rental market doesn’t just consist of the number of rental units (e.g. demographics, home ownership rate and occupancy/sqm play a big role), but if u accuse everyone of being a hypocrite or apologist or whatever, then people won’t try to help you in your understanding, or agree with u, or engage with u, for that matter. But perhaps u can look up the term renoviction on your own time, so that perhaps in the future u can use the term correctly.
Ian 18:29 on 2022-02-10 Permalink
Simply saying “it’s not immoral to combine two units to make a family apartment.” doesn’t make it true, but if using the term “renoviction” to describe this (which I maintain is still a renoviction, legal or not) upsets you, then I will rephrase my statement:
Plante appears to have taken a rental unit off the market by converting her 5 plex into a 4 plex, despite talking the anti-gentrification talk for many years. That makes her a hypocrite, and I wonder how many other elected Projet officials are doing the same, playing both sides of the fence.
Note that I didn’t call YOU a hypocrite, just Plante – though you seem to have taken it that way. Unless of course you personally have converted multiple units into a single family dwelling, in which case then yeah, you’re a hypocrite too – but that’s not my concern here. Plante is our mayor, and should be held to a higher standard.
This is not a matter of mental gymnastics. If you take a unit off the market to make a “nicer” place that’s one less place people can live. Like I said, we do indeed need to increase the number of residential apartments in urban settings, and part of that is not taking units off the market because someone with the money feels like converting two units into one. This is no different than someone buying a duplex and converting it into a single family dwelling – even if it’s not illegal, it is immoral in the midst of a housing crisis.