Dear Glen Andrew residents:
On July 14th City Council came very close to passing By-laws that would allow any house in Glen Andrew to be converted to a rooming house.
“What’s a rooming house?”
Mayor Tory thinks this is a great idea. He pulled it off the agenda when a storm of protest rained down on Council from neighbourhoods like Glen Andrew.
The Councillors he appointed to his Planning and Housing Committee think it’s a great idea. They voted 5 to zero in favour of it back on June 28th. All 5 of them represent ‘downtown’ Wards shown in yellow below:
- Not one of them comes from Scarborough.
- None of them come from North York or Etobicoke.
- Every one of them is confident that if they give Property Standards staff an extra $4.5 million a year they will take care of any/every property standards problem that may arise when absentee landlords convert the house next to you to a rooming house.
- Every one of them is confident if they give our Fire Department an extra $1.8 million a year they will make sure every absentee landlord does a great job rewiring the house next to you and putting in smoke alarms.
These 5 think rooming houses are such a great idea they want to waive Building Permit fees for absentee landlords when they break up the house next t you into 6 rooming house units. You pay Building Permit fees. I pay Building Permit fees. Absentee landlords won’t.
We Are So Rich - Free Money Number One: You and I are charged fees for Building Permits when we want to improve our homes. But hey, that would be pretty hard on some guy who wants to buy the house next door to you and convert it to a rooming house. So he will get his Building Permit free of charge!
We Are So Rich - Free Money Number Two: These 5 Councillors believe the city has so much cash sitting around we should give absentee landlords grants to buy and convert the house next door to you. They want to call it the “Multi-Tenant Housing Renovation and Retrofit Program.”
We Are So Rich - Free Money Number Three: These 5 Councillors represent Ward where rooming houses have been permitted for some time. The owners pay a fee between $100 and $300 a year. It helps cover the costs of enforcing basic property standards.
But charging absentee landlords annual fees just makes these rooms less ‘affordable’… so no way. They want to drop the annual license fee to $25 per room AND no charge at all for ‘non-profit’ absentee landlords.
Worried About Fire Safety: No Problem! Toronto Fire Department told these 5 Councillors that 11 rooming houses caught fire over the last five years because of faulty wiring.
But these 5 Councillors believe it’s just too expensive for absentee landlords to do a thorough electrical inspection. I mean we can trust these guys to run all the new wires and plug them into the old fuse box in the basement all by themselves, right? So no inspection for their home wiring job.
Security Deposit: One of our Councillors from Scarborough asked Staff to think about maybe charging rooming house operators a security deposit to get their license. If the absentee landlord failed to meet minimum property maintenance standards (including things like grass cutting, snow clearing, garbage removal, wildlife control), the security deposit could be cashed in and used to pay for remediation.
Staff response was: No! We can’t do that! “It would be a challenge to calculate and charge a security deposit…” and “, it would put an additional financial burden on operators…”
So forget that!
Fraternity/Sorority Homes: Absentee landlords can break up the house next to you and call it a fraternity or sorority house. The people who move in just have to be members of “…an active chapter of a bona fide national or international student fraternity or sorority.”
Sure! Property Standards staff are all trained and ready to check out the ‘bonafides’ of every fraternity run out of any one of the 194 countries around the world. No problem reading documents in any of the worlds’ dozens and dozens of scripts!
Another Layer of Bureaucracy Will Solve Everything
The old City of Toronto has a ‘Rooming Housing Licensing Commission’.
It has the power to issue, suspend, renew, or revoke a rooming house license.
It can place conditions on the owner of the rooming house in doing so.
The 5 Councillors who think this is a great idea want to give it a new name and expand it to cover the whole city. They will call it the ‘Multi-Tenant Licensing Tribunal’.
It’ll cost just $422 thousand a year. Well…that’s actually only a ‘preliminary estimate’. That doesn’t include the buildings they have to rent and fit-out, interpreter costs, Tribunal remuneration, and legal support costs. No problem! We’ll hear about those costs later.
Block Busting and Speculators Rejoice!
If this thing passes there will be no limit on where they can go. No limit on how many can go on the same street.
No doubt there are some well-meaning, well-financed rooming house operators who are interested in maintaining their properties. It’s the ones who don’t that concern Glen Andrew homeowners.
If this thing passes our Councillors will have handed every small-time property speculator just exactly what they need to start buying up and running down homes anywhere in Glen Andrew.
Property Standards Officers have an awful job. They only get called in when people run out of all patience with a neighbour who is supremely disinterested in maintaining their property. They try their best to persuade people to maintain their property. If that fails they have to resort to inspections, issuing citations, waiting for court dates, lawyers, evidence, appeals, etc. By the time they get a conviction, IF they can persuade a Judge to take it seriously… the fines are trivial. With no security deposit and a $26 annual license fee, the speculators will look at court costs as just the cost of doing business.
When enough of the homes on a street are broken up and run down, it gets easier to buy up more homes on the street. The process continues until everyone is so fed up the City might as well look at the speculators’ plans to knock them down and build apartments and townhouses.
When Scarborough decided it wanted its own high-density mixed-use ‘downtown’ north of Ellesmere in Scarborough Centre, the promise was made to the people living in Glen Andrew that their stable, family-oriented neighbourhood would be protected from speculators. That promise has been kept for 40 years.
If these five downtown Councillors and Mayor Tory pass this rooming house by-law It will be ‘open-season’ on Glen Andrew’s family-oriented housing. All along Ellesmere. All along Brimley Road. All along McCowan. Anywhere near our local plazas.
Where Does Our Councillor, Michael Thompson Stand?
When the 5 Councillors on Planning and Housing Committee discussed the Rooming House By-law back on June 28th every other member of Council was allowed to attend the meeting and ask questions.
You can watch the video of the meeting by going to: http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/video.do?id=19740 and clicking on the tab for PH25.10.
Councillor Cynthia Lai for the Agincourt area of Scarborough attended the meeting.
- She spoke up.
- She asked questions on behalf of her residents.
- She spoke up.
- She asked questions on behalf of her residents.
Councillor Thompson did not show up.
Which way will Michael Thompson vote when Mayor Tory and the 5 downtown Councillors bring this back to Council in September?
You can tell Councillor Thompson which way you would like him to vote by emailing his office at: councillor_thompson@toronto.ca
Lorne Ross for the Glen Andrew Community Association.
You can read the 71 page report from City Staff at: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/ph/bgrd/backgroundfile-168253.pdf
You can read a news story about how this all started in Parkdale at:
https://nowtoronto.com/news/fighting-parkdale-s-housing-crisis-parkdale-neighbourhood-land-trust
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