Why landlords allow buildings to crumble
Le Devoir looks into why some landlords allow buildings to fall into decrepitude and how many get away with not paying fines. In any case, the city has only levied 24 fines while 800 buildings have been left to crumble by their owners.
bob 10:21 on 2024-08-08 Permalink
So, are these 800 vacant buildings counted as part of the vacancy rate? I suppose not. 2500 empty apartments that are known about, which doesn’t count empty apartments in buildings that are otherwise occupied. But remember – the housing crisis is caused by immigrants!
Ephraim 11:27 on 2024-08-08 Permalink
We need a law that taxes unoccupied apartments at the commercial rate. We also need a law to register all leases. In fact, leases should be registered with the city to get the residential rate of taxation.
Tim 11:29 on 2024-08-08 Permalink
Why aren’t we using liens instead of fines? A lien will eventually get paid.
Ian 12:38 on 2024-08-08 Permalink
Being a landlord should require a license, and there needs to be a vacancy tax.
Taxes and licensing are directly within the jurisdiction of the city, there is no excuse.
Chris 18:02 on 2024-08-08 Permalink
>But remember – the housing crisis is caused by immigrants!
Yeah, anti-immigration activists (of which I am not one) have lots of spin over this, but on the other hand they’re not totally wrong. It’s basic math that if the number of people is increased (by policy choice, birth rate, or whatever) and the number of homes does not increase correspondingly, well, of course that’s going to increase housing prices. The government decided to substantially increase immigration but they did not decide to substantially increase housing stock. That was not exactly genius on their part.
Ian 19:06 on 2024-08-08 Permalink
As others have pointed it out, it’s not the hardscrabble strawberry pickers driving up rents, it’s the well-heeled Francophone white upper middle class emigrés who think Montreal rents are hilariously low.
Of course the majority of immigrants are not well-heeled Francophone white upper middle class emigrés even though they disproportionately skew the stats.
This is the problem with “common sense” statistical observations. Immigration is not the cause of our housing crisis. Gentrification & speculation are.
Tim 21:01 on 2024-08-08 Permalink
Rents are being driven up because of the competition that is a result of low supply across the board. The well heeled Francophone competes against other well heeled folk. The poor strawberry workers also compete against each other. Ungentrified areas of Montreal have increased significantly too.
Ian 21:12 on 2024-08-08 Permalink
It wasn’t day labourers that made St Henri one of the most expensive rental markets in town.
Where are these ungentrifeid areas of which you speak? Even HoMa is fighting the gentrifiers.
Michael 11:29 on 2024-08-09 Permalink
White people are responsible for the run up in rents…. interesting.
Kate 14:39 on 2024-08-09 Permalink
Michael, please take your unsubtle passive-aggressive sniping elsewhere.
Michael 15:10 on 2024-08-09 Permalink
Everyone, white, black, asian are all part of the demand factor and you can’t single out 1 race for the reason why rents have been going up.
Am I allowed to say its racist for Ian to claim just rich white people are why rents have gone up?
There have been rich asians, africans, Indians that have been coming as well.
Ian 18:49 on 2024-08-09 Permalink
Michael’s not entirely wrong – but I didn’t blame white people generically.
I did blame rents going up on well-heeled Francophone white upper middle class emigrés who think Montreal rents are hilariously low. I know there are lots of rich people from all over the world coming to our fair city, but the majority of the gentrifiers I’m seeing in East Outremont, Mile End, and petit-Patrie are bougie white folks with Parisian accents. I admit it’s a huge generalization & I’m sure it’s a different demographic in different parts of town but I am 100% certain it’s not working class day labourers driving up the rents anywhere as Tim suggests.
This skips over the point that I was actually trying to make though, which is that it’s not a question of race, but class. Again, the majority of immigrants are not well-heeled Francophone white upper middle class emigrés even though they disproportionately skew the stats. Immigration is not the cause of our housing crisis. Gentrification & speculation are.
Chris 20:07 on 2024-08-09 Permalink
>Immigration is not the cause of our housing crisis. Gentrification & speculation are.
There is no “the” cause. Like most complex things, there are multiple causes.
Immigration is one cause. How on earth could letting in x people but building far less than x homes not be a contributing factor? Let’s not be silly.
Ian 00:14 on 2024-08-10 Permalink
Because it’s artificial scarcity. How many vacant apartments are there in Montreal? How many Airbnbs?