B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan says his government would fix loopholes in the Residential Tenancy Act that favour bad landlords and add supply to address the critical housing shortage for renters in the province.
“The Residential Tenancy Act is there to protect landlords and tenants. But it’s disproportionately protecting those that treat tenants badly,” said Horgan, who called “renovictions” — where landlords evict tenants to renovate and increase rents — a critical issue.
Horgan was speaking Tuesday at Kew Court in James Bay, a housing complex built in 1996 that offers subsidized housing geared to income.
Horgan called Kew Court the type of housing that builds community and allows modest-income people to live in the community that they want to and to work in the community they have to.
“This is the type of housing we should build right across B.C.,” he said, noting there are 3,500 people on the B.C. Housing waitlist in Victoria, where the rental vacancy rate is one of the lowest in the country at 0.5 per cent.
Horgan said housing is the No. 1 concern in the Lower Mainland and critical on the South Island.
The federal government is expected to release its national housing strategy in coming weeks, after consultations across the country in which affordability was identified as the most important issue.
The Capital Regional District will issue an update of the Regional Housing Affordability Strategy this week.
The goal is to update the region’s housing-affordability plan with input from advocates, the non-profit and private sectors, experts, housing providers and local governments.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps pitched a project Tuesday that could see homeowners billeting homeless people now living in cars and sheds.
It’s not clear what the B.C. Liberals have in store for housing. Rich Coleman was the housing minister for much of the past 15 years, but the portfolio was handed to rookie MLA Ellis Ross this week.
Horgan said he’s still committed to the NDP election promise of building 114,000 rental, co-op and social-housing units over 10 years, by working with municipalities, developers, organizations and First Nations.
He floated the idea of a rebate for renters and working with municipalities to rezone land for affordable-housing projects.
“We talked about a renters’ rebate of $400 so we can get them, as homeowners get, a bit of a break at this critical time when housing prices are off the charts,” Horgan said.
“I live in Langford, one of the fastest-growing communities in the South Island, where mayor and council make rapid decisions and work with the development community. … That’s the ethic I want to work with in government.”
Horgan was joined by Victoria MLAs Rob Fleming and Carole James, primed for Education Ministry and Finance Ministry roles, respectively.
James said she had two meetings this week with tenants who fear being evicted for renovations in James Bay and Fairfield.
She said it’s not fair for landlords to evict people for work that doesn’t amount to much more than “a coat of paint on the walls.”
The loophole in the residential Tenancy Act that allows landlords to evict, or threaten to evict, tenants to jack up rents needs to be addressed, she said.
“The one-year-lease loophole has to be closed. You can still have one-year leases, but would have to live within the existing rent controls,” James said, adding grounds for evictions would also be tightened up.
