On March 27, 2024, the Planning and Housing Committee received a report entitled “Loss of Affordable Rental Housing” (The Report). Along with The Report came a document written and researched by Steve Pomeroy, specifically focusing on the loss of affordable rental housing stock in Ottawa. This report maintains that the City of Ottawa is currently losing 31 affordable units for every 1 unit built.
The Report recommends “the implementation of a rental replacement bylaw to protect and/or replace existing older stock, which is vulnerable as the city seeks to manage growth through intensification and redevelopment (especially along LRT corridors)”.
Given the City’s 10 Year Housing and Homelessness Plan, the declared state of a housing and homelessness emergency, and the efforts from all levels of government to promote new infill development, the city has an increased responsibility to introduce policy regarding rental replacement and demovictions. This is to ensure that the supply side of the housing market is not at odds with the intention of our 10-year Housing and Homelessness Plan goal to ensure everyone has a home.
It is more important than ever that we revisit the directions to staff regarding a rental replacement bylaw. A strong rental replacement bylaw could allow a future acquisition strategy in the city to be more strategic with its investments, as well as dovetail with any anti-renoviction and licensing bylaws the city may implement.
Prior to The Report of March 2024, city council passed the following items on June 22, 2022:
- Direct Planning, Real Estate and Economic Development (PRED) and Community and Social Services (CSSD) Staff to, as a joint-departmental work plan item, explore the feasibility and identify potential resource implications to the adoption and implementation of a By-law under Section 99.1 of the Municipal Act, to prohibit without replacement the full or partial demolition or conversion of residential and rental housing of six or more units without a permit issued by the City, possibly by amending the Demolition Control By-law, and report back by Q2 2023.
- Direct the City’s legal department to review the submitted Legal Opinion RE: Municipal Powers to Regulate Against Renovictions to see if further action outlined in the opinion can be taken by the City of Ottawa to protect Tenants Rights and issue a memo to City Council prior to the report Review of Tools to Prohibit or Prevent “Renovictions” be presented at Council for consideration.
- Approve that City staff in Legal Services, in the context of the study of a adoption and implementation of a By-law under Section 99.1 of the Municipal Act discussed in Recommendation 2, assess the legality and feasibility of the City imposing tools to give specific relief to tenants, such as: a. Having a requirement of a 1:1 ratio replacement of affordable rental units in the new developmentb. Providing tenants temporary accommodations or a rental top up in a similar unit with the same number of bedrooms during the construction of the new development so tenants are not temporarily displacedc. Offering existing tenants the right of first refusal to the new units at the same rent and number of bedroomsd. Offering moving cost assistance above and beyond what is required under the Residential Tenancies Act to the actual cost of the move at the best prices available in the community.
After the passing of The Report, but prior to the report back date of Q2 2023, the province weakened the potential development of a rental replacement bylaw by removing Section 4.2.3 of the new Official Plan. Section 4.2.3 provided the city with language to enable proceeding with a rental replacement bylaw. The removal of such language halted progress on the joint-departmental workplan item. However, in Q4 of 2023, the province implemented Bill 150, which then re-instated Section 4.2.3 to the City’s Official Plan. As a result, the language has returned to the Official Plan.
Any uncertainty regarding a rental replacement bylaw pertains to Schedule 4 of Bill 23, which grants the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs the authority to impose restrictions and conditions on municipal powers outlined in Section 99.1 of the Municipal Act.
While the Minister could use this authority to hinder the work of a municipality in establishing its own rental replacement bylaw, it does not seem to be the intention or anticipated outcome of the new regulation-making authority.
The province announced its intention to conduct consultations to guide potential future regulations aimed at standardizing rental replacement policies. Nevertheless, the province's indications imply that existing municipal rental replacement bylaws would serve as valuable references for this standardization effort. It has been nearly two years since this provincial announcement, yet many municipalities have persisted in developing, or are currently in the process of drafting, rental replacement bylaws.
Could staff please answer the following questions:
According to The Report, “between 2011 and 2021, Ottawa lost a total of 30,215 private rental units with rents below $1,000 - a number greater than the entire community housing stock in Ottawa.”
Considering the rapid depletion of affordable housing stock and recognizing that certain policies the City has in place may unintentionally contribute to the trend by promoting infill development, do staff intend to recommence the joint-departmental workplan item regarding rental replacement that was previously put on hold?
What changes, if any, to the Bylaw Review Workplan might be needed to resume work on this file?
Could staff resume work on the rental replacement bylaw in conjunction with the potential review of renoviction permissions?