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editor
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 Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:20 pm Post subject: |
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... and a sample of the cryptic forces that seem to conspire against affordable housing:
This just in from the PokerPulse Roll & Shuffle:
A Nigeria 419-type fiction from Vancouver, B.C., Canada:
Here's the handbill a PokerPulse visitor received in his mail box recently in Canada's real estate fraud capital, Vancouver, B.C. - that's right! - home of Olympics 2010:
| Quote: | Sherolinnah Eang
Shanelle Properties Development Ltd. - VGI
Jericho Village
www.mtdanielwaterfrontresort.com
Mobile (604) 812-6613
Business: (604) 228-0688
June 4, 2008
Dear Homeowner:
My name is Sherolinnah Eang. I own my own investment and development company, Shanelle Properties Development Ltd., (which had no presence at Google when we searched June 19/08) which also owns a property on the Sunshine Coast, Mt. Daniel Waterfront Resort www.mtdanielwaterfrontresortcom.
I am recently divorced and am interested in moving to the West side of Vancouver (preferably in or around the UBC area) with my 9 year old (sic) daughter, who attends Westside Christian School at U-Chapel on University Blvd. It is a dream of mine to raise my daughter in your neighborhood.
If you have a home for rent or on a lease-to-purchase basis in the range of $5,000 per month, I would be very interested in hearing from you. I would also be willing to renovate your home. Kindly call me at my office, or on my mobile phone. Thank you very much.
Yours sincerely,
Cherolinnah Eang
Investor/developer |
| Quote: | | Note: Anyone in Vancouver these days with $5,000 a month to spend on housing is putting it toward a freehold purchase somewhere in the Left Coast's fluid - pardon the pun - leaky condo market. So what fresh hell is Eang hoping to ignite in this plum university neighborhood? Our visitor has agreed to monitor the local media and superior court websites for any 'news' of this bold, enterprising investor/developer. Please check back soon for updates. |
Has anyone else received this extraordinary, presumptuous handbill or others like it and/or followed it/them up? Please submit any info to editor@bccondos.ca. We'd be pleased to post it here. Check back soon for updates.
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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Realtor Bob Rennie - local 'hero':
BC Business
Magazine Subscription
Long walk home
Bob Rennie's knack for real estate has taken from lower-income East Van kid to millionaire condo king. But, as he tells Monte Paulsen during a stroll around his hunting grounds, he's heading back to where he came from.
March, 2008
| Quote: | The shadow now looming over Yaletown is cast by the simple fact that many of the working couples who might have been able to buy a home there in the spring of 2004 can no longer afford to do so. Real estate prices have roughly doubled in those four years; wages have not. As a result, one of Rennie's best-known marketing slogans - Live where you work, Work where you live - have become a mirage for many downtown workers. ...
Part of what makes Woodward's so striking is the ghost town from which it rises. In the spring of 2008, nearly every building that faces north across the 100 block of West Hastings Street remains shuttered.
"They've all been bought up," Rennie says as we stroll past the row of vacant storefronts. "A lot of the Downtown Eastside - and all of these properties - they've all changed hands."
This, too, is a consequence of the Woodward's sale, albeit an unintended one. ...
... City records show that among the buildings sold in 2006 were 22 residential hotels with a combined total of 1, 178 rooms. Hundreds of low-income tenants have since been evicted. Housing advocates warn that is such evictions continue, Vancouver will host more homeless people than athletes by the start of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. (emphasis added)
"I think the Downtown Eastside has a love-hate relationship with me," Rennie says with a sigh. (-- pgs. 44-45) |
More on that 'Yaletown shadow':
| Quote: | | Note in our photos of March 29/06 at various reconstruction rehabilitation renovation projects along W. 7th Avenue at Oak the familiar green tarps complete with white capping over several highrises - 431 Pacific and Parkview Towers - 289 Drake St. - across the sparkling blue Burrard Inlet. |
So what's the secret of Rennie's 'success'?
| Quote: | "If you look at *Concord Pacific (see below), they bought that, and they started by selling condos to offshore buyers who bought Vancouver for investment. ... (emphasis added)
Rennie helped (his pal, magnate Peter) Wall plan what is now Yaletown Park: three condo towers standing over a cobblestone plaza. ...
"Everybody said, 'The market is over! Bob's crazy! He's got people lining up to buy condos. ... The Vancouver Sun declared that the city's "condo-buying frenzy" had "hit an unprecedented fever pitch." (-- p. 44) |
So how come an estimated 18,000 units in all those 'red-hot' condo towers are EMPTY?
cbc.ca
Robertson picked as Vision Vancouver mayoral candidate
Higher taxes for owners of vacant condos, NDP MLA proposes
June 18/08
| Quote: | During his acceptance speech Robertson said he will focus his campaign on the issues of affordable housing and making Vancouver a more environmentally friendly city.
On Monday morning, Robertson said in an interview on CBC Radio that one way of tackling the housing problem might be to make the owners of Vancouver's 18,000 vacant condo units pay business property taxes, rather than residential property taxes. That would encourage them to rent the units, thereby increasing the number of rental units available in the city, he said.
Robertson was also critical of the increasing level of homelessness in Vancouver and said the city should set a goal of ending homelessness in the next decade. |
Say, wasn't there a condo sales scandal involving Concord Pacific not long ago?
| Quote: | Vancouver Sun
Local Real Estate Industry's Friend with Occasional, Well-earned Pangs of Guilt and Shame
Sun alleges reporter's condo deal damaged his and newspaper's integrity
Jeff Lee
Jan. 22/05
| Quote: | Vancouver Sun reporter Wyng Chow destroyed his own integrity and put the newspaper's credibility in jeopardy by accepting a benefit from a developer he was covering as a real estate reporter, the Sun's lawyer said Friday.
In a final argument before arbitrator Rory McDonald, Donald Jordan said Chow, 56, crossed the line when mixed a personal dispute with Concord Pacific Ltd. with his job as a business reporter. And he said Chow's acceptance of a "deep discount" on a condominium he bought from the company in 2001 showed a "lack of a moral compass" that justified the newspaper firing him last month...
...(Chow's counsel Carolyn Askew) accused the newspaper of engaging in a selective attack on Chow, a 32-year employee, instead of addressing the basis of a telephone tip to editor-in-chief Patricia Graham that included an allegation that Chow had received a "sweetheart deal."
The anonymous tipster complained the newspaper was overly positive in reporting on real estate matters, and accused it of tailoring coverage to drive advertisers to its Homes section. The tipster named Chow as an example of what was wrong with the newspaper's business coverage (emphasis added) (-- p. H2) |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:08 am Post subject: |
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On housing and other social justice protests planned in conjunction with Vancouver Olympics 2010:
The Costco Connection
Magazine Freebie of Some Quality for Members
Do politics have a place at the Olympics?
The recent call by some countries to boycott the 2008 Olympics in China again serves notice that the Olympics serve not only as an arena where the best athletes in the world compete, but also as a place where international politics can collide. ... the Olympics are a natural venue for non-violent political protest. The Games are used to promote democracy and human rights around the world, so what better place to raise awareness of human rights infringements and other injustices? ...
July/August, 2008
| Quote: | The Olympic Games by definition are political: They involve citizens, they involve tax dollars, they involve politicians and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) demands financial commitment on the part of relevant government bodies as part of the bid process. Sporting competition is only the tip of the gigantic Olympic industry iceberg. Multinational sponsors, host broadcasters, developers and the high end of the hospitality and tourism industries win most of the gold medals.
All of this is political, and the folks who decry the "politicizing" of the Olympics are the ones who have the most to lose from a boycott. So we see the IOC president leading the chorus of people who claim that the athletes would suffer the most. Human interest stories and appeals to nationalism take top place in the mass media: moving accounts of innocent young athletes who have sacrificed their youth to training and bringing honour to their countries.
When politicians and Olympic boosters try to sell the idea of bidding for the Games, this isn't labelled "bringing politics into the Olympics." Nor is it called "political" when organizing committees lobby politicians to pour more and more tax dollars into the bottomless of Olympic spending. Or, in the case of Sydney 2000, when the head of the Olympic Organizing Committee happens to be the Olympics minister in the state parliament.
But when protesters take to the streets to get public attention focused on the misplaced spanding priorities int he host city/state/country, or to get world-media attention on local and global injustices, often with considerable success, they're accused of politicizing and contaminating something pure and holy, as if the Olympics are a religion or a social movement or an extended family. (emphasis added)
"They eyes of the world" argument pushed by Olympic boosters and politicians is equally useful for human rights organizations, anti-poverty groups, housing advocates, environmentalists and Indigenous peoples. As an activist involved in social justice protests in Canada and Australia over the last 10 years, I fully support their tireless efforts to make the Olympic industry accountable and socially responsible. (-- p. 13) |
| Quote: | Olympic Industry Resistance
Papberback
By Helen Jefferson Lenskyj
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editor
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| Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 1:51 pm Post subject: |
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From Streams of Justice:
SAVE SOCIAL HOUSING AT LITTLE MOUNTAIN
April 24/08
| Quote: | Little Mountain Housing, Vancouver’s oldest social housing complex with 224 homes, is slated for redevelopment. The publicly-owned, 15-acre site adjacent to Queen Elisabeth Park is being sold to the highest bidder, and density of expensive market housing will be increased dramatically. It was reported that the government even may renege on its commitment to replace the existing social housing at Little Mountain (Globe & Mail, 21/03/08). Construction will not start before 2010, but tenants are being pressured to move to provide the developer ‘vacant possession’. A well-functioning community, where people depend on each other for many kinds of support is being displaced, causing untold hardship.
At this time, over 170 habitable homes stand empty at Little Mountain, while thousands of people are homeless. Homeless people are dying on our streets. Hundreds of people in need of housing could be temporarily housed until construction begins. Instead, our governments have decided to demolish habitable buildings as they become vacant!
It is a scandal to leave habitable homes empty while thousands of people sleep on our streets.
Tell our governments:
Stop the needless displacement of families from Little Mountain and let the remaining families relocate on site while new homes are constructed.
Re-open vacant homes to families in need of housing - no bulldozing of homes until construction begins.
Increase low-income housing at Little Mountain, and keep all housing non-market.
Keep public land public – No sale of public land to private interests.
Implement a comprehensive public housing program – we need immediate action at all levels of government to build social and affordable housing.
Download the Little Mountain Rally poster here. |
Our e-mail to Streams of Justice:
| Quote: | From: editor
To: streamsofjustice@gmail.com
Cc: editor
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2008 2:20 PM
Subject: You're up at bccondos.ca!
Hello Justice Streams,
Just a quick note to let you know we give you a link at our affordable housing riff http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1407#1407. It may not be too late to save Little Mountain from becoming yet another sacrifice to Gord's Failed Housing Economy - build, repair, restore, re-develop, repair ad infinitum, creating an illusion of full employment among hardhats while destroying the environment and the social fabric. Here's hoping you won't join the legion of environmental refugees!
Ed.
http://www.bccondos.ca
Tracking leaky, barrier-full, inaccessible, unaffordable multi-unit housing failures worldwide until those responsible are placed in stocks in the public square. |
Streams of Justice replies:
| Quote: | From: Streams of Justice
To: editor
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2008 6:25 PM
Subject: Re: You're up at bccondos.ca!
Hey, thanks for the connection. We are committed to joining those from Little Mountain in the fight for saving low-income housing there. On with the struggle for social housing ... and social justice.
in solidarity ... dave |
Some history on the struggle for affordable housing:
BC Business
Magazine Subscription
Hunted House
Searching for affordability in a real estate market gone mad
By Frances Bula
October, 2008
| Quote: | Little Mountain was built in 1954, the result of 50 years of agitation for affordable homes and the more immediate crisis of returning soldiers from the war, who were occupying buildings such as the Hotel Vancouver to protest the fact that they couldn't find anyplace to live. (emphasis added) The benchmark project, by the then-new Central and Mortgage Corp. (now Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.), launched four decades of energetic government-supported construction in Vancouver - all of which disappeared in 1993, when the federal government decided to get out the business of building subsidized housing. The problem of finding low-cost homes for those who can't quite get a handhold in the strictly private market would not, however, go away.
Fifty years ago, it was veterans for whom everybody worried about housing, but today it's teachers, nurses - and even, in this new century, double-income university professor households. (-- p. 62) |
Link to this entry
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2008 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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Why demolish good housing stock?
Essays in English Architectural History
Hardcover
By Howard Colvin, brilliant writer and story-teller who is HUGELY missed
| Quote: | So many country houses, great and small, have perished during the last sixty or seventy years that the 'demolition sale' may seem as regrettably characteristic of the twentieth century as the urbanisation of the countryside or the destruction of churchyard monuments. Yet the demolition of unwanted houses has been going on relentlessly throughout our history. In the Middle Ages royal houses in particular were constantly being abandoned or demolished at the whim of successive kings or queens. ...
... The houses of lesser men were just as expendable. ... No doubt some of these were long-standing casualties, but demolitions were still not uncommon in the 18th and early 19th centuries, when so many new mansions were being built. In Buckinghamshire alone, at least a dozen old family residences were pulled down between 1730 and 1830, not in order to rebuild, but because for one reason or another there was no further use for them. (From XVII, LEASE OR DEMOLISH? THE PROBLEM OF THE REDUNDANT COUNTRY HOUSE IN GEORGIAN ENGLAND, p. 276) |
| Quote: | The dissolution of the monasteries was arguably the greatest single act of architectural vandalism in English, perhaps even in European history. Though far more grievous, the destruction of ancient Rome as effected over many centuries and by many agencies. The damage done by warfare, from the sieges and sackings of the Middle Ages to the bombings and shellings of the 20th c., never resulted in the general destruction of any category of monument throughout an entire country. The French Revolution did indeed leave its mark on almost every church in France, but even there it was the symbols of the ancien regime rather than the buildings as such that were sought out for destruction, which varied in its thoroughness from one place to another.
But in England between 1536 and 1540 every monastery was dissolved in a country whose culture had for 500 years been largely embodied in its churches and religious houses, and the great majority of their buildings were (to use the contemporary expressions) 'plucked down' or 'defaced.' This was done by the authority of a grasping and tyrannical king, and effected by his minister, Thomas Cromwell, through subordinates who were for the most part ruthless, cynical and philistine men. That the monasteries, as institutions, deserved their fate, is of course a debatable question which it is not my purpose to discuss here. But the government that, rightly or wrongly, decided to extirpate what their detractors called those 'caterpillars', the monks and friars, felt no obligation whatever to preserve the garden that they had inhabited - or should one say infested? for so long. In all the mass of letters and papers relating to the dissolution it is hard to find any hint that either Thomas Cromwell or his agents recognised that there was any force in the rebel Aske's claim that 'the said Abbeys was one of the beauties of this realm to all men and to strangers passing through the same. The king's chaplain, Thomas Starkey, did indeed protest that it was a shame to destroy 'so much fair housing and goodly building,' as a result of which 'our country might appear to be defaced as [if] it had been lately overrun in time of war', but it was of no avail. Even to Starkey the problem was as much social as aesthetic, and to others the architectural loss was naturally secondary to the religious one. What outraged them was sacrilege rather than vandalism, the destruction of teh tgombs of their ancestors rather than the loss of outstanding works of sculpture, the disappearance of a source of employment and hospitality rather than of the complex of buildings on which it had been based. Too often it is not until it is already too late that men begin to appreciate the work of previous generations (emphasis added), and it needed the shock of the 'bare ruined choirs' to arouse in antiquaries such as Dugdale, Dodsworth, Erdeswicke and Aubrey that sense of the past that has been with us ever since. ... (From IV, RECYCLING THE MONASTERIES: DEMOLITION AND REUSE BY THE TUDOR GOVERNMENT, 1536-47, pgs. 52-53) |
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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Demolition isn't the norm everywhere, it seems ...
Winter Hours
Hardcover
By Mary Oliver
| Quote: | When anything is built in our town, it is more importantly a foundation than a structure. Nothing - be it ugly, nonconforming, in violation of bylaws or neighbors' rights - nothing, once up, has ever been torn down. And almost nothing exists as it was originally constructed. On our narrow strip of land we are a build-up, add-on society. My house today, crooked as it is, stands. It has an undeniable value: it exists. It may therefore be enlarged eventually, even unto rentable proportions. The present owners of the property would not dream of discarding it. I can see from the road, they have given it a new roof and straightened out some doubtful portions of the peaked section. To one end of the peak, they have attached a metal rod that holds, in the air above the house, a statue of a heron, inm the attitude of easy flight. My little house, looking upward, must be astonished. ...
Whatever a house is to the heart and body of man - refuge, comfort, luxury - surely it is as much or more to the spirit. ... (From PART ONE, Building the House, pgs. 6-7) |
Link to this entry
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 9:37 am Post subject: |
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cbc.ca/bc/GoPublic
Fake landlord takes cash from international students
Convict David Messina sublets condos while not paying rent to owners
By Kathy Tomlinson
Jan. 6/09
| Quote: | A B.C. condo owner is fighting to get her downtown Vancouver property out of the hands of a convicted criminal who posed as a tenant and leased her suite, then turned around and rented it out to several students from Japan and Korea — while not paying rent to her.
"He rents it to like five people at a time," owner Elisabeth Fox said. "He puts two people in the den, two people in the bedroom and one person in the living room. And he's not living there. "It's a terrible situation," she added. "I don't get paid. I have to pay a mortgage out of my pocket, and these young students ... live like rabbits in this place. He keeps on showing it to other people, and he keeps on stuffing people in there."
RTB records show that earlier last year he was evicted from two other downtown condo units for not paying rent — where he had also been subletting to several people. The two other condos are owned by Su Hua Lee, who lives in China.
'Why would I pay her? She's tried to kick me out. I never started this.'
Messina has a criminal record of fraud and other convictions. He boasted to CBC News that his sublet "operation" is lucrative, netting as much as $1.2 million a year, and that he treats the foreign students well. "I supply the services," he said. "I give people what they want. The students, they get everything that they want." However, surveillance video from the lobby of Fox's building on Dec. 14 shows Messina arguing with a young East Asian woman. Another tenant called police, and Messina was charged on allegations he threatened and assaulted the woman, who was trying to get money back from him. Messina was to appear in court Tuesday.
"The police were called four times already," Fox said. "Everybody's really scared of him."
Messina said he doesn't pay rent on suites when landlords like Fox hassle him.
"I've been doing this for years," Messina said. "The landlords, they are getting a little bit too aggressive," he added. "Do you understand? They are getting too aggressive." When asked why he hasn't paid the $1,500 rent to Fox for several months, he answered, "Why would I pay her? She's tried to kick me out. I never started this. She brought this all upon herself … by renting to me." (emphasis added)
"Great for international students," one of Messina's ads read. He allowed a CBC News camera into the suite owned by Fox. There were mattresses in the living room and one in the small den. Four tenants were living in the 570-square-foot, one-bedroom unit, including student Hyojin Jang, who said he came to Canada from Korea in October.
"We are international students and we are not good at English," Jang said. "We are not strong in this city.... We don't know about our rights in this city, and so this is a little bit hard." Jang said he worries that if he has to leave, Messina won't give his deposit back. He said has no other money and nowhere else to go. "I have no choice, because I already paid him," Jang said. Twenty-one-year-old Kazuki Tsukahara of Japan also rented a room in Fox's condo from Messina in November, along with three other ESL students. He said Messina kicked them out before the end of that month and kept the $560 they each paid for rent, plus their $350-per-person deposits. "I didn't have any money and I couldn't find a new apartment," said Tsukahara, whose mother sends him money from Japan. He said he had to move in with a friend.
"I didn't go to the police because they can't do anything," he added. (emphasis added)
"I just couldn't believe that somebody would be so mean to other people," said Fox, who lives in Lions Bay, northwest of Vancouver. "You know what? I would almost like to bring [the international students] up to my house. If I lived in Vancouver, I would actually have them in my house." Fox said she tried to get the Vancouver police to investigate Messina's operation, but said they told her it is a civil matter, and that she must go through the RTB to evict him. That process has taken four months so far, and he's still not out — and still renting the rooms. (emphasis added)
"You get a letter and then you are being served or you are being phoned or you have to call in for a conference call," she said. "It is all time which allows him to make money. He knows he is going to be evicted." Messina "is an artist at working the system," she added.
"It took us six months to get rid of him and cost the owner $30,000," said Brian Lee, who represented Chinese landlord Su Hua Lee, who rented her two suites to Messina last year. "The problem lies mainly with our justice system," Lee said. "Terrible. There should be a faster method to deal with people like this. It left a really bad taste."
Vancouver police media liaison Const. Jana McGuinness confirmed police generally don't take on cases like this, because proving intent is difficult. "It will come down to proving that a fraud occurred, proving that there was intent there to defraud," McGuinness said. "It's fairly complicated. These can be lengthy investigations." (emphasis added) When asked by CBC News whether he feared the police would look into what he is doing, Messina answered, "Why would the police get involved? It's a civil matter. They say every block has a dope operation," he added. "I think that sounds like it's a little bit worse than what I'm doing."
Messina later said his biggest concern about publicity is that others will learn how his business operates, and he'll get unwanted competition from copycats. (emphasis added) |
What the six-page Residential Tenancy Agreement has to say about the 'arrangement':
| Quote: | 9. ASSIGN OR SUBLET
1) The tenant may assign or sublet the rental unit to another person with the written consent of the landlord. (emphasis added) If this tenancy agreement is for a fixed length of 6 months or more, the landlord must not unreasonably withhold consent. Under an
assignment a new tenant must assume all of the rights and obligations under the existing tenancy agreement, at the same rent. The landlord must not charge a fee or receive a benefit, directly or indirectly, for giving this consent. ...
3. RENT (please fill in the information in the spaces provided)
a) Payment of Rent:
The tenant will pay the rent of $ each (check one) �� day �� week �� month to the landlord on the first day of the rental period which falls on the (due date, e.g., 1st, 2nd, 3rd, .... 31st) day of each (check one) �� day �� week �� month subject to rent increases given in accordance with the RTA.
The tenant must pay the rent on time. If the rent is late, the landlord may issue a Notice to End Tenancy to the tenant, which may take effect not earlier than 10 days after the date the notice is given. (emphasis added) |
... Something smells here, doesn't it? Have landlords somehow been complicit in the scheme, one wonders? We anxiously await an update. Please check back soon for more on the story.
About fraud/false pretence under the Criminal Code:
| Quote: | SUMMARY - FRAUD & FALSE PRETENCE
False pretence - definition
Sub-section 361(1): representation of fact past or present by word or otherwise known to be false with fraudulent intent to induce someone to act.
Paragraph 362(1)(a) - elements
by false pretence obtains anything for which a theft may be committed
or causes to be delivered to another person
Sub-section 362(2)- punishments
over $5000.00 - indictable - maximum ten years.
under $5000.00 - dual procedure. Indictable - maximum two years.
summary conviction - general penalty.
Paragraph 362(1)(b) - obtain credit by fraud or false pretence.
Paragraph 362(1)(c) - making false statement in writing.
Paragraph 362(1)(d) - knowing a false statement in writing was made.
Sub-section 362(3) - punishments
indictable - maximum ten years.
Sub-section 362(4) - nsf cheques/reverse onus
Sub-section 380(1) - fraud
by deceit, falsehood or other fraudulent means,
whether or not a false pretence,
defrauds the public or any person
of property, money or valuable securities.
Paragraph 380(1)(a) - over $5000.00
indictable - maximum ten years
Paragraph 380(1)(b) - under $5000.00
dual procedure - indictable - maximum two years.
summary conviction - general penalty Section 787 C.C.
Sub-section 364(1)
fraudulently obtaining food and lodging.
summary conviction - general penalty
Sub-section 366(1) forgery
Sub-section 366(2) making false document
Sub-section 367(1) - punishment
indictable - maximum 14 years
Sub-section 368 uttering a forged document.
dual procedure offence - maximum 10 years. |
Link to this entry
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:41 am Post subject: |
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From Welcoming the World to Winter Olympics 2010:
'BILLY landlords threaten to cash in on Winter Games:
'I'm worried about an outrageous Olympics 2010 rent increase!'
From the always helpful B.C. Residential Tenancy Branch:
| Quote: | 1.3.1 How much can rent be increased for a residential tenancy?
Residential tenancy landlords can increase rent annually by a percentage equal to the inflation rate plus two percent without tenants disputing the increase. The total allowable rent increase for each calendar year is available on the Residential Tenancy Branch website in September of the previous year, under the heading “News”.
If the landlord charges an amount in excess of the inflation rate plus two percent, the tenant does not have to pay the excess rent unless the tenant has been served with a dispute resolution officer's order allowing the rent increase.
See also:
Form RTB-7: Notice of Rent Increase - Residential Rental Units (PDF) Policy Guideline 37: Rent Increases (PDF) |
From the News link:
| Quote: | Allowable Rent Increases for 2009
September 2, 2008
Conventional Residential Tenancies:
For a conventional residential tenancy rent increase that takes effect in 2009, the allowable increase is 3.7 per cent. ...
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and:
| Quote: | 1.3.3 Can a landlord request a larger rent increase than the allowable amount?
Residential tenancy landlords can ask a dispute resolution officer to allow a larger increase, using the Application for Additional Rent Increase form, if the landlord has completed significant repairs or renovations that could not reasonably have been foreseen and are not recurring with a reasonable time period, incurred a financial loss from an extraordinary increase in operating expenses, or incurred a financial loss from an increase in financing costs that could not have been reasonably foreseen.
A landlord seeking an additional rent increase under the above grounds must make a single application to increase the rent for all units in the building.
A residential tenancy landlord can also seek an additional rent increase if the rent for a rental unit is significantly lower than that of similar units in the area. A landlord who, as the head tenant of a rental unit, receives an additional rent increase can also apply for dispute resolution for an additional rent increase on that basis to increase the rent to a subtenant. |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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On the need for a national housing program involving all three levels of government - federal, provincial and municipal:
Many thanks to a Wandering Watchdog, who provided the following alert:
| Quote: | Canada urgently needs a “comprehensive and coordinated national housing policy” to meet its international housing rights obligations, according to a powerful new report from Miloon Kothari, United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing that is being tabled at the United Nations’ Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday. The report, available here, is based on Mr. Kothari’s recent fact-finding mission to Canada.
“Canada is the only major country in the world without a national housing plan – and that leaves local communities to cope with deep and persistent housing insecurity and homelessness on their own,” says Michael Shapcott, Senior Policy Fellow at the Wellesley Institute. “As a leading and well-respected global expert on housing and homelessness, Mr. Kothari is telling Canada that it is failing to meet its fundamental obligations in international law. This is the latest in a series of damning reports from the United Nations – and should be a clear warning that Canada needs to adopt the practical recommendations set out by Mr. Kothari.” (emphasis added) For instance, in May 2006, the United Nations’ Committee on Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights concluded its review of Canada by calling housing insecurity and homelessness “a national emergency” and noted that “most of its 1993 and 1998 recommendations have not been implemented”.
The Wellesley Institute, a research and policy institute celebrating its first decade of advancing urban health, worked with Mr. Kothari and United Nations’ officials to help organize his meetings with community and academic experts across Canada. In his report, Mr. Kothari reviewed general housing and homelessness concerns, examined issues facing women and Aboriginal people, and studied the housing impact of the Vancouver Olympics.
“The recent federal budget includes an additional $2 billion for affordable housing, and the new investments are welcome,” says Mr. Shapcott. “However, it’s one-time only dollars and won’t repair the fraying patchwork of federal programs and investments that have been condemned by Mr. Kothari. Federal affordable housing investments have been eroding in recent years and are set to fall to their lowest level in more than a quarter century.” |
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 10:48 am Post subject: |
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BC Business
Magazine Subscription
Hunted House
Searching for affordability in a real estate market gone mad
By Frances Bula
October, 2008
| Quote: | What does affordable housing for middle-income people really mean? It's both very mathematical (for those who study it) and pretty simple (for those who live it). The mathematically inclined housing wonks define affordability by looking at the median household income for an area: in the Lower Mainland, the median income is $55,000. Experts will tell you that there are two levels of housing problems linked to that number. People who make less than 80 per cent of that $55,000 are typically too poor to buy in any market. They need to find places they can rent that cost no more than about 30 per cent of their gross income. That means rents from $500 for those coffee-shop clerks making $10 an hour, up to $1,125 a month for the police officers just out of training school making about $45,000 a year. (emphasis added)
In the next layer up, the people who make 80 to 120 per cent of the median should be starting to buy their first homes, so there needs to be something available in their range. That means they should be spending $1,100 to $1,650 on their mortgage, property tax and house insurance combined, which pretty much caps that group at paying no more than about $235,000 for a place to live. (That assumes a 10 per cent down payment of $23,500 with a mortgage on the rest). In the Lower Mainland, that doesn't get you much - unless you're willing to move to Maple Ridge or cram into a postage stamp in the bad part of Mount Pleasant. A few people will even say that Vancouver's housing problem is so severe that the affordability squeeze extends up to households with 200 per cent of the median income. Even though $110,000 a year seems like a lot, it's not that much when a fixer-upper crack house on Vancouver's eastside starts at $500,000 and the average single-family house price in Vancouver now hovers around $765,000.
It used to be that it was mainly those living in Vancouver proper who fretted about affordability - and historically the problem was moving to the cheaper suburbs or other cities in the province. But then the affordability crisis spread, with Whistler next to feel the pinch. As it developed into the province's first resort town, Whistler found itself, as other resorts around North America had, struggling with the question of housing its service workers and ensuring that regular people who live there year-round have a place to call home. ... (-- p. 64) |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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From Rent - DON"T buy a B.C. leaky condo!
Red Roses for Me
Audio CD
The Pogues
Featuring The Boys From the County Hell
| Quote: | Boys From the County Hell
... At the time I was working for a landlord
And he was the meanest bastard that you have ever seen
And to lose a single penny would grieve him awful sore
And he was a miserable bollocks and a bitch's bastard's whore
And it's lend me ten pounds, I'll buy you a drink
And mother wake me early in the morning
I recall we took care of him one Sunday
We got him out the back and we broke his fucking balls
And maybe that was dreaming and maybe that was real
But all I know is I left that place without a penny or fuck all
And it's lend me ten pounds, I'll buy you a drink
And mother wake me early in the morning |
The Hook
Market catches up to long-term tenants
Rents to rise 38 per cent
By Jackie Wong
April 24/09
| Quote: | An eight-month tenant-landlord battle in Vancouver’s West End came to a head this week following the public release of an April 2 decision from the Residential Tenancy Office (RTO) that allows the new landlords of the Seafield apartments to issue 38 per cent rent increases to nine of the 14 units in the 77-year-old heritage building. The hikes are lower than the 73 per cent increases originally requested by new landlords Jason Gordon and Chris Nelson, brothers-in-law and former internet gaming executives who bought the building last summer and have since been trying to bring rents up to what they see as market rates.
Seafield tenants, the oldest of whom have lived in the building for nearly 50 years, have been fighting what first seemed like evictions for renovations (what they called ‘renovictions’) and then the 73 per cent rent increases disputed during a March 11 conference-call hearing between 18 tenants, Gordon Nelson Investments, and a dispute resolution officer. Tenants are currently unable to comment further as they are seeking legal advice and a potential judicial review of the decision, but advocates say the decision marks the effective end of rent control in the province.
“I have spent the last three years of my life asking the BC Liberal government to review the [Residential Tenancy] Act, to remove sections that are causing evictions and $500-a-month rent increases. They will not do it,” Sharon Isaak told reporters yesterday. Isaak co-founded Renters at Risk, a local tenant rights advocacy group, when she and her neighbours were served floor-by-floor eviction notices in their West End apartment building in 2006. Isaak and her neighbours fought the case at the Residential Tenancy Office and, after a lengthy battle, won. “I encourage every renter in this province to wake up…this decision signals the end of rent control as we know it.” (emphasis added)
Vancover-Burrard MLA and Vancouver-West End NDP candidate Spencer Herbert has been lending support to Seafield tenants through their struggle and, in efforts to provide better security to long-term renters, introduced a private members’ bill in the legislature last fall called the Long-Term Renters Protection Act. “Basically, the floodgates are open now for big landlords to seek massive rent increases for tenants province-wide,” he said. “We’re calling for a balanced Residential Tenancy Act between landlords and tenants. Obviously, landlords need to be able to make money. We’re not against yearly rent increases. We just think they need to be balanced.”
Despite the 38 per cent increases that have some Seafield tenants paying up to $500.00 on top of their regular monthly rent, Gordon Nelson Investments partner Chris Nelson says the new rents are still not up to market rates. “In the case of the two-bedroom units, we’ve rented a unit for $1850 a month. So it’s still $400 less [than market rates], so still a big subsidy to the tenants,” he told the Tyee. He called the Seafield case a “messy battle” that involved tough dealings with the tenants.
... The Seafield decision document from the Residential Tenancy Office suggested that tenants were making a good-faith argument that is not part of the Residential Tenancy Act. “There is nothing in the Act which prohibits landlords from working to maximize their profits,” the arbitrator wrote in the decision.
Christine Ackermann, Renters at Risk member and founder of political tenants’ rights website Renters Fight Back, says her efforts to call on B.C. housing minister Rich Coleman to change the Residential Tenancy Act have fallen flat. “When we asked them to make simple legislative changes, [Coleman] refused…He doesn’t want this to happen,” she said. “Well, parents, listen up: your kids will never be able to leave home. They will never be able to afford the high rents in this province. And while you’re at it, you better get your basements ready, because your grandparents are moving in, too. The seniors can’t afford this rent. This is a sham.” |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 9:08 am Post subject: |
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The Early Edition
Third-Rate Radio One News Program Post-CBC Purge '08
Interview by host as usual never followed up
May 19/09
| Quote: | According to the unfortunately brief interview with an articulate spokeswoman for the 'hood, the Renfrew-Collingwood Community Association was planning a rally that night about 7 p.m. at Vancouver City Hall to protest typical B.C. 'BILLY-style circular politics, in which voters appear to have been consulted on how they want their neighborhoods to grow, though, in fact, planners have been somehow free to ignore those views in favor of paving the way for STILL MORE unaffordable, inaccessible, barrier-full condo boxes predictably designed and constructed to fail within a few short years. More on city planners, those celebrated local visionaries.
Sadly but perhaps not surprisingly, by May 21, CBC 'reporters' were too busy jacking on behalf of B.C.'s failed housing deity, Arthur Erickson, whose infamous law courts building on Howe Street has been a toxic, leaky disaster almost from its inception. Erickson's brain-dead fan club trawled at length for his obit may want to keep their views to themselves if they have the misfortune to go up before the local judiciary, all of whom have in some way suffered from Erickson's ill-conceived scheme to incorporate a rooftop garden, an architectural conceit far too complex for 'BILLY to construct and maintain safely. That's certainly the view of insurance providers, anyway. |
We'll try to find out the outcome of the protest. Please check back soon for updates.
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editor
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| Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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Vanc-'Hooverville' - déja vu all over again?
New York Exposed
Photographs from the Daily News
Hardcover
Edited by Shawn O'Sullivan
Captions by Richard Slovak
| Quote: | | A steady stream of visitors tour a small Hooverville, built on the site of the mostly drained old Central Park Lower Reservoir by unemployed workers, in early January, 1933. Named for President Herbert Hoover, whom many blamed for the state of the economy, these shantytowns which sprang up across America in the early 1930s housed citizens had lost everything during the Great Depression. Given its proximity to galamorous apartment buildings on either side of the park, this one seemed to many commentators to symbolize the disastrous impact of bad times. Leroy Jacob (-- p. 70) |
| Quote: | | It's late September, 1932, and winter is not far off as Dorothy Muller, twenty-eight, helps her thirty-year-old husband, James, unemployed for two years, add a roof to the home he has built of discarded lumber and other materials at the foot of East 37th Street in Brooklyn, in the swamplands off Jamaica Bay. That's their son, James, looking on (from his baby carriage). The Mullers were just one of many homeless families putting up their own rough homes here and in similar places. Most of the victims of the Great Depression, then at its nadir, were essentially left to fend for themselves during the presidency of Herbert Hoover. (-- p. 71) |
Vanc-Hooverville update pre-Olympics 2010:
The Tyee
Vancouver plays Whack-a-Mole with homeless campers
By Monte Paulson
Oct. 28/08
| Quote: | A quiet Vancouver homeless camp turned defiant on Thursday, in reaction the city’s attempt to evict its residents earlier this week.
Valerie Nicholson was one of roughly a dozen homeless individuals who have squatted on a patch of undeveloped industrial land below the Grandview Viaduct since August. Vancouver police evicted Nicholson and her camping companions from the city-owned property on Monday. But after three days of looking for housing – and three nights of sleeping on the floor of a Downtown Eastside apartment building – Nicholson and her neighbours moved back to the empty lot at 1480 Glen Dr. on Thursday afternoon.
“I’d rather be living inside, not out here in the mud,” Nicholson told The Tyee. “But we had nowhere else to go.”
In what now resembles a game of homeless camper Whack-a-Mole, the city plans to evict Nicholson yet again.
“We will be working with police to have the tents taken down,” city spokesperson Jennifer Young told The Tyee late Thursday afternoon. Young did not say when the city will act.
“The camp is in violation of the city’s land regulation bylaw,” Young said. “We will continue to enforce out bylaws.”
Young said the recent B.C. Supreme Court decision, which found it unconstitutional to prevent homeless people from sleeping on public property when there are not enough shelter beds available, does not apply to Vancouver.
“The decision in Victoria is related to the Victoria bylaws, not to our bylaws,” Young said.
Nicholson, who is 53, said she’s been homeless since the city demolished her former home, the troubled Marie Gomez Place, early this year. She said she’s been camping at various sites across the False Creek flats since spring.
“I’m on a lot of waiting lists,” Nicholson said. “I’m on waiting lists all over town."
Nicholson and her camp-mates were under the impression that a city outreach worker had given them permission to camp on the site. Young denied that the city has ever made such an offer. (Young also alleged that the city is building 3,800 units of new housing by 2010.) |
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:50 am Post subject: |
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No affordable housing in Britain either, it seems:
COUNTRY LIFE
Magazine Subscription
Help the postmistress's daughter find a home
May 6/09
| Quote: | ... Take second homes out of the equation and local workers could still not afford to buy houses. Although prices have fallen, it is no easier for this group to access the market than it was before. Mortgages have got tighter, deposit requirements bigger. Job losses are as bad in rural areas as anywhere.
Yet villages need a diversity of population. Without full-time residents, without gardeners, shopkeepers, garage attendants, waiters and tradesmen of all kinds, they would cease to function. What is needed is targeted housing that families on local incomes can afford. This is hardly an original insight. The need has been recognised, and growing, for years. Looking back, the desperate of village housing was a theme of the 20th century. In the 1920s, many cottages after nearly half a century of agricultural depression, were rotten, perishingly cold and leaking. The building of council houses ushered in a new Jerusalem, but many of them were sold in the 1980s. Also, the assumption grew up that anyone who was not on his or her way to buying a property was losing out on the great bull-market bonanza, in which home was also an appreciating capital asset. It is now commonplace for affordable housing to be created as a result of iniquitous 'planning gain' - a kind of blackmail on developers (councils won't give planning permission unless a social element is provided), which inevitably means that the provision of low-cost homes makes all the others more expensive. Generally, villages do not want these large-scale developments, however much planning gain is attached. (-- p. 43) |
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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... anything but a well-reasoned push for social housing in 'Vanc-Hooverville'.
cbc.ca
Vancouver considers mini-suite zoning law
June 15/09
| Quote: | The City of Vancouver's latest push to increase the city's housing stock has some critics complaining of densification gone wild. A staff report to be debated by city council on Tuesday recommends allowing secondary suites as small as 205 square feet to be built within existing apartments. (emphasis added)
Coun. Raymond Louie told CBC News the suites-within-suites could be rented out to help pay off a mortgage, or used by extended family members. "The concept is that we provide people of different economic circumstance the ability to live and work in our city at the same time," said Louie.
But the idea isn't sitting well with Alicia Barsallo, the leader of the Coalition Against EcoDensity and For Livability, who accused city hall of working to turn spacious Vancouver into a cramped city like Tokyo. "An apartment is already a small living space. It is not fair to renters to subdivide this little box," said Barsallo.
The secondary suites are only proposed for some areas of the city, including southeast False Creek and the residential areas of downtown. But the proposal won't likely be the only zoning proposal to draw the ire of some residents.
City hall is also working on changes to the zoning regulations to promote other ways to increase density including laneway housing and legalizing more basement suites.
Later this week, the city will host an open house about a developer's plan to put 36 townhouses on three residential lots at Granville Street and 51st Avenue. |
Join the grift-free Coalition Against 'Eco-Density' and For Livability:
| Quote: | | Editor's Note: Poverty Update - CBC's Early Edition featured a report June16/09 at 7:30 a.m. on the rise of poor, unemployed but clean and sober Vancouver residents now living illegally roadside in their cars, preferring the risk of bylaw enforcement over cheap hotels on the nefarious Downtown Eastside. If there was ever a time for a NATIONAL HOUSING POLICY - as Canada once had - as other CIVILIZED NATIONS have - this is it! |
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