The city is creating a system of lease registry and landlord certification, at least for buildings of seven units and above.
Updates from February, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
Shots were fired at a passing car in St‑Léonard on Monday evening but nobody turned up injured. CTV emphasizes it was a pedestrian who did the shooting. You have to watch out for those pedestrians, loose cannons all of them. They don’t even have to have a walkers’ permit.
qatzelok
“A lot of these so-called ‘pedestrians’ are racist, misogynistic and homophobic. They hide behind their lack of license plates in order to commit unspeakable atrocities against democratic drivers.”
Leadership
CE
Cool quote bro.
-
Kate
A march was held Monday evening to commemorate missing and murdered indigenous women and press for more action on this matter.
-
Kate
Chantal Rouleau has softened her tone on the REM de l’Est a little, saying she remains optimistic the project will go ahead, a bit of a shift from ordering the ARTM to redo its homework, as she did last week. She also says, and this seems rather late in the game, that she will bend to allowing the city to have input.
ant6n
If the city gets to have some input now, maybe some public experts (not CDPQInfra) can study some options. For example, make a comparison with the Pink Line, or a combination of Pink Line and REM2.
ant6n
Now Rouleau is unhappy with the libs because they didn’t want a motion that rem2 is super important https://twitter.com/rouleauchantal/status/1493690542386987008
Faiz Imam
If the plan is to have an elevated line, the current route is about as good as you can get. Some small adjustments can be made, but on the whole there is no magic route that solves peoples critiques,
But that underlines the real point, which is that the much superior solution is to have a true underground heavy rail line, like the initial pink like proposals pushed for.
But the budgets don’t exist for that under the current government, and a heavy rail system cannot be compatible with the REMs existing stock and equipment.
I don’t know what the answer is, a ugly compromise that big business supports? or do we cancel it in favor of a superior plan that might never actually happen?
Speaking of not happening, whats up with the blue line extension these days?
Kate
Faiz Imam, good question about the progress of the blue line. I try to add updates on that story to this page, but the latest story I have is from last October on the progress of the Lacordaire station and I can’t find anything more recent.
ant6n
Not sure I get the point about “heavy rail” compatibility. That term has do many possible definitions that it’s effectively meaningless. Arguably the pink line proposal included “lighter” rolling stock than rem1 (by train width).
-
Kate
The city is planning to widen its right of first refusal on land and property as it strives to meet its promise of 60,000 new social housing units.
-
Kate
Shady business is alleged to have taken place around Ricova, the company to which the city has confided its recycling.
DeWolf
Considering how dangerously its trucks operate on the street I am not surprised at all.
walkerp
So gross.
Am I understanding the opening section, that the Quebec Superior Court literally defended Ricova’s argument that they aren’t the same Ricova as the one in Panama, both of whom have the same president and lawyer? How could they possibly have done that? And when it says “la Cour supérieure” and “le tribunal” can we not get some names? Who are the judges who could possibly come to such a conclusion? How is this not blatant evidence of corruption?
This province, man.steph
these jugements are public: http://citoyens.soquij.qc.ca/
(I just searched for “Ricova” and sorted by datethe february 7th 2022 jugement is file no. 505-17-010785-188 SOUS LA PRÉSIDENCE DE
L’HONORABLE CHANTAL MASSE, J.C.S
jugement link:
http://citoyens.soquij.qc.ca/php/decision.php?ID=692502383B3183218001C75739EEABC3&captchaToken=03AGdBq25Ea6iTAY04MGXUDP8P1kb5v5I6lyJni2JCEXt_Kb5z7Q-tzbrXDkRE7qIDp2XmyHFNv8oKLrTCA_WVJqIie4JCjHVy7eHf_W1LfPASz_aB9kjkn__N_sJBjDfHDW75oIQpEsW656H9Tts06O5QVWNj84naRkOTy9XvjCs2C5O1Lm5-KOiPLiH-22ldpgYs2TTrDrdAAaj4fHNEWQfeW5NYMwFQoOEywnHWhjP4Ktu9PeDCivCGF-ShG6kFX4PJQtQ_ld_hZsz_e0zi8y05WVd6D4Knj3WFXe2zMRNsWf2UFw-riUIIzDn4KP_UH18icN04VEMVy938HGs9bKg4nrff2yYCC04ej5GazunKW92f3RYB0fOCPqbPaA-ARBCi48G0u4NkBGjpGu_rFiiXL2U3k9cKzgCraEnPmHvyJ8aAULuM5vKKyBJz2wpNi97owX1TKwZdpGblUY930m_oSUWbx1V_3gH.John
walkerp. Ricova (both companies) and their lawyer sought to have the case dismissed.
The judge wrote (original in French) “In light of the elements currently on file […], a reasonable and prudent person cannot conclude that there is no basis for claiming tort liability or abuse of process by Colubriale and Ricova Int. [of Quebec],..”
She agreed with the Italian company suing, and allowed the case to continue.
-
Kate
Loew’s cinema, which stood on Ste‑Catherine since 1917, has been demolished to make space for a condo tower.
-
Kate
The 2012 protests here, the printemps érable, got a lot of press, but did they achieve their initial goal of holding down university tuition? La Presse’s Francis Vailles says no. Since that time, tuition has risen twice as fast as inflation, but a larger percentage of the typical age group is now going to university than ever. Not surprising, given that even the meanest office job now requires a BA.
ant6n
Meanest office job?
Also, international tuition more than doubled…Kate
Mean in the sense of “Of a common or low origin, grade, or quality; common; humble.”
Joey
I don’t understand the framing/headline/lede. The article explains in extreme detail how the evolution of tuition, ancillary fees, financial aid and university participation have all trended in the direction students wanted since 2012 – students achieved their goal of killing the Charest tuition hikes (and, ultimately, the Charest government) yet it’s a “partie nulle” because tution is rising at the rate of individual revenue, somewhat faster than inflation (let’s check back in a year)? This is a shining example of how economics reporters can be out-clever themselves. A more honest approach would have been to look at different types of students and compare now to 2012 to the proposed Charest hikes. As ant6n points out, there’s hardly an even distribution of outcomes – low-income students? Better off. Kids of the middle class? Probably about the same, though that depends on whether they rely more on tax credits (worse off) or financial aid (better off). Rich Bahrainis? “Worse” off, technically speaking. GND? Much better off.
ant6n
I came as an international student, close to 20 years ago. I was a middle class German, not a rich Bahraini. With the hikes as they instituted them after 2012, I would´ve never been able to come to Canada and wouldn’t be a Canadian now. Framing international students as a bunch of rich folks from autocratic countries ignores that there are also plenty who aren’t rich (aren’t from France), and who may come from arguably more democratic countries.
(Btw, Canadians and Americans going to Germany pay the same low tuition as everybode else, so more and more North Americans are going there, as there are more and more programs in English. I feel somewhat ambivalent about that)
Joey
Fair enough, though the trend to treat international students solely as cash cows began well before 2012, and is certainly not limited to Quebec. Around that time universities could charge international students whatever they wanted in certain programs (science, engineering, business, etc.) and not those with whom the province had an agreement (Francophonie, chiefly) – those students paid QC-student fees. So you had scenarios where Acadians from across the NB border were paying more than students from France. Anyway, that’s a digression. I think the deregulated tuition for international students has been expanded to more if not all programs of study. When I was a student and then working in higher ed the student associations spent a huge amount of energy trying to maintain low tuition fees for international students, which really spoke to the global class solidarity angle – though, you know, the wealthy Bahrainis benefited as much as the middle-class Germans.
-
Kate
An SNC-Lavalin vice-president arrested last year on charges of corruption says that paying out big bribes in certain situations is how things get done.
-
Kate
Metro reports that the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine house is for sale for just shy of $6 million, and that Heritage Montreal would like it to become a museum or at least be bought by a conscientious owner.
JaneyB
It needs to become a museum or some other history-centric function. That man was, together with Baldwin, basically modelled the Eng-Fr political tolerance that made this country possible… I guess the museum will need federal money.
Kate
It should, but the option’s been there for some time and nobody has bit. The hope for a conscientious owner is an empty one, because we know that when you own a property, you can do what you like, within zoning regulations.
-
Kate
It’s been some time that Linda Gyulai has been investigating a circumstance in which the city reclaimed some lots in the east end, more or less on the sly. Even though the Gazette fronts this story with clickbaity headlines, in the text we see that a report says the city made errors and didn’t keep records but there’s no evidence showing a lack of integrity.
-
Kate
The Canadiens have now lost 10 matches in a row. It’s the second time this has happened – and the last time was in the 1925‑1926 season.
-
Kate
Some fire halls around town have the extra responsibility of doing water rescue or ice rescue. This piece in Metro says that the SIM has carried out eleven rescues on the icy river so far this year.
-
Kate
A man fell 30 storeys from a condo tower near the Bell Centre on Sunday morning. It’s not being investigated as a criminal matter.
-
Kate
Sunday’s Centre des mémoires montréalaises piece looks at mère Judith de Brésoles, one of the strong‑minded Frenchwomen who built Quebec. She came to Montreal to work at Hôtel‑Dieu as the pharmacist, which in that time largely meant growing and processing medicinal plants.
When I took a tour of the Hôtel‑Dieu garden a couple of summers ago, they added a piece of information not mentioned in the article: the nuns also learned about the medicinal properties of native plants by talking to indigenous experts. Their physic garden included both plants brought from France and plants native to Quebec.
In more recent history, La Presse has a piece on how the basic division of schools changed here, 25 years ago. Shifting the focus of school boards from religion to language was not easy, the provision of Catholic education having been guaranteed in the Canadian constitution.
If you’re feeling elegiac, CBC has a very brief archive piece about the demise of the Montreal Star and Radio‑Canada has archival stuff about the end of the Expos.
PatrickC
Yes, I feel a little elegiac, since I’m old enough to remember how the Star of the post-Expo 67 years had shaken off its problematic heritage (it was said that name of Frank Scott, the lawyer won some landmark civil rights cases, was a founder of the CCF (predecessor of the NDP), and leading poet, was never to appear in the paper). The 1960s Star developed a lively arts section, with the young Juan Rodriguez, for example, writing about rock music, and a good number of book reviews and other pieces in a special weekend section. Of course, Montreal by the late 70s probably didn’t have room any longer for two English dailies, and one wonders if these days the Gazette even qualifies as a wholly Montreal daily at all.
Orr
When I was a kid we were a Montreal Star family, which was an afternoon-delivery paper IIRC?
As for today’s gazette, when we finally cancelled it a couple of years back it had morphed into what most days felt like a real-estate sales brochure and postmedia-oil-industry PR channel had a baby and called it the Gazette.
EmilyG 13:20 on 2022-02-15 Permalink
But buildings with less than 7 units, which is many of them in Montreal, won’t need to register?
Joey 13:37 on 2022-02-15 Permalink
@EmilyG indeed. And why does it take five years to demand, collect and publish this information?
DeWolf 13:58 on 2022-02-15 Permalink
It’s being phased in over five years. Radio-Canada has a graphic explaining the rollout here:
https://twitter.com/B_Chapdelaine/status/1493617406836723714
My worry is that because landlords are only required to update their registry every five years, the whole system will be too slow-moving to really prevent the kind of rent hikes we’ve been seeing recently.
EmilyG 18:22 on 2022-02-15 Permalink
I used to live in a 6-unit building. The landlord got away with a lot of stuff he shoudn’t have. Though the rent hikes weren’t that bad compared to all the other stuff he pulled.
Ian 08:43 on 2022-02-16 Permalink
What a joke. In Mile End, mostly duplexes and triplexes, rents have effectively doubled in the last 5 years.
For that matter, I know that several Projet folks are landlords & it’s politically relevant that none of their properties (to the best of my knowledge) will fall within this new “system”.
steph 09:57 on 2022-02-16 Permalink
I’m surprised at the breakdown of how many units exist in each buitding type.
65000 total apartments in buidings with100+ units;
28000 total apartments in buidings with 60-99 units;
68000 total apartments in buidings with 24-59 units;
53000 total apartments in buidings with 12-23 units;
41000 total apartments in buidings with 8-11 units;
They say montreal has ~600,000 rental units… so 345,000 total apartments in buildings with 1-7 units.
ant6n 10:19 on 2022-02-16 Permalink
If they want to exclude owner-landlords, why not allow only individuals who own less than 5 (should really be 2) rental units, if they live at same building as those units to be excluded. But really y exclude them at all?
Joey 10:52 on 2022-02-16 Permalink
I am less convinced by Ian’s assertion (it’s because several PM honchos own plexes) and more by the notion that many PM voters are Plateau plex-owners, and many more are aspiring Plateau plex-owners. Developing an affordable housing policy toolkit that conveniently excludes from observation the many PM voters who, conceivably, are contrbuting to the housing crisis must seem to the mayor and her gang of leaders like a stroke of political genius. As steph points out, though, for ostensibly political reasons Mayor Plante has decided that only half the rental stock is worth studying and protecting. Now, it stands to reason that you ought to start with the biggest fish – hedge-fund backed multinational property management companies that own and operate huge quantities of rental units. So by all means focus rental rule enforcement on those units first and with extreme prejudice – but to pre-emptively exclude half of all tenants from even potential protection is ludicrous.
ant6n 11:00 on 2022-02-16 Permalink
@Joey
I get what you’re saying. But they arent completely “excluded” “from potential protection” – theres stillt he regie, you know.
mare 12:23 on 2022-02-16 Permalink
Despite being a landlord, I also think that *all* rental units should be part of this registry. My guess of why there is this ‘minimum 7 unit’ requirement is that it has an administrative and legal reason. Owners of bigger rental buildings need to be companies (you need commercial building insurance if there are more that 6 units) and they already have to file more extensive balance sheets and other forms each year. Some of those numbers might already be available to the city. There’s probably also already a law/bylaw that allows the city to conduct safety / fire inspections because the owners are businesses. Something like that.
It might be impossible for the city to change those laws to also apply to private landlords. And they certainly won’t get access to private landlord’s income tax records without changing the tax code province wide.
The total number of rental units in [x]plex-es owned by private landlords is smaller than @steph’s estimate when you look at the total population of Montreal of 2 million. A lot of people own their house, don’t live in the core boroughs, and don’t have tenants. That 600,000 is more likely the number of *renters*, and I guess that the average occupation per unit is in the 1.5 to 1.7 range. Using the lower number and subtracting the units in bigger buildings would mean that there are only 150,000 units in smaller buildings. Further guesstimating that an average plex has around 2 rental units, will yield a total of between 75,000 and 100,000 private owners.
(We can all agree that the commenters on this blog are not at all representative of the Montreal population, if only because they read an English language blog 😉 )
DeWolf 12:46 on 2022-02-16 Permalink
It seems obvious that all rental units should be covered by this new system, and I’m disappointed nobody in the media seems to be asking Projet for a clear explanation on why that is. But I’m inclined to agree with mare that the reason is probably bureaucratic more than anything else, and with Joey that the priority should be on the buildings owned by massive REITs and developers that have been very aggressively flouting the law in recent years.
Faiz Imam 13:10 on 2022-02-16 Permalink
I agree with Mare. I don’t think the reason for 7+ is a mustache twirling scheme to make sure small landlords are not implicated in the registry.
Starting a new database like this is hard enough as it is, im sure most owners will not want to participate and will have to be pushed (the legal maximium fine is small enough as it is) but if they have to spend all their time running after small building owners who probably dont have the right data, be even more ineffective.
I think this is a good place to start and get the ball rolling, but in a few years I would be dissapointed in the system were not expanded. At least to 4+
steph 13:33 on 2022-02-16 Permalink
I always imagined a system where tenants would submit the lease information to the registry, and landlords would be informed to validate or contest – counter submit. The responsibility goes both ways.
Haven’t landlords also been asking for a tenent registry to vet future renters? It’s too easy to dishonestly use a friend as a fake landlord: “Of course he’s a good tenant, always pays on time, never a complaint. I’m sad to see him leave”
EmilyG 14:26 on 2022-02-16 Permalink
If landlords have a tenant registry, I’d be screwed. My last landlord hated me so much that he revoked his promise to give me a good reference, and sent me a text saying he’s counting the days until I leave.
If you’re wondering why he considered me such a bad tenant – my landlord lived below me and was a light sleeper, in a very non-soundproof building. He hated it when I woke him up by walking on the floor after 9:30 PM or before 7:30 AM. (Including getting up in the middle of the night when I had to walk to the bathroom.) He really, really hated my typing on my computer, enough so that he yelled and swore at me through my door when I did it in the middle of the day (thinking that it wouldn’t bother him as long as it wasn’t late at night.)
He often sent me angry texts, yet when I dared express any bad feelings towards him (such as trying to remind him that he hadn’t yet fixed the things in my apartment that were supposed to have been fixed a while ago,) he called me rude, said I shouldn’t get so angry, and said that I complain more than any other tenant.
I can’t do much about how he treated me, other than to warn others never to rent from him.
Joey 15:24 on 2022-02-16 Permalink
So I think we’re losing sight of what the city is proposing. There’s no chance of the city creating any kind of tenant or landlord rating system. There are two concrete proposals: First, a program to certify properties as being secure and sanity, with property owners having to declare that their buildings are in the appropriate state every five years. I imagine this is the rental building equivalent of a co-property syndicate’s reserve fund and maintenance plan, which is also a recent (though provincially-created) obligation. I could see how it would be overzealous to apply this to, say, triplexes, especially if the city is supposed to do something beyond collecting this information.
Second, the city is requiring landlords of buildings with eight or more units (nice loophole, I think, for those who own more than eight units spread out across several buildings) to publish their lease amounts every five years. The idea is that tenants will have access to accurate, complete information on their unit’s historical lease amount – making it impossible for landlords to raise the rent beyond an acceptable amount (do leases still include the box for the previous rent? Do landlords still not fill it out or just outright lie?). It seems to me the benefit of every residential lease amount being published far exceeds the cost of spot-checking submissions to ensure accuracy. Landlords could also be required to submit a signed electronic copy of the lease, to help them resist the temptation to lie. I can’t imagine this would be an administrative nightmare to set up and manage, and I would expect that the $5,000/unit/day (Faiz: that’s small?) fine would generate enough revenue to make the whole thing basically cost-neutral.