Municipalities, advocates eye Hamilton as city becomes the first to create renoviction bylaw

The City of Hamilton is expected to become the first Ontario municipality to implement a bylaw around renovictions.

The City of Hamilton is expected to become the first Ontario municipality to implement a bylaw around renovictions.

City council will vote next week to bring the bylaw into effect starting in 2025.

A renoviction is when a landlord evicts their tenants, citing renovations as the reason. Whether they complete that work or not, they then find new tenants and increase the rent.

Hamilton city council directed staff in April to bring back a list of options to halt bad-faith renovictions. At a committee meeting Wednesday, councillors voted unanimously in favour of the plan.

“The proposed bylaw would require all landlords city-wide to obtain a renovation license from the city prior to commencing any renovation work that requires an N-13 notice to be issued to a tenant,” Monica Ciriello, the director of licensing and bylaw services for the City of Hamilton, said. “We recognize, as a local government, we can’t prohibit a landlord from issuing an N-13, but we can use it as a starting point to obtain a municipal renovation license.”

Over the past few years, Ciriello said there’s been calls for action from tenants across the city to do something about the increase in renovictions.

“The objective, or the goal, is certainly to decrease bad faith evictions,” Ciriello added. “We believe that our bylaw will be able to assist in doing so by requiring a landlord to take steps to secure the appropriate documents prior to getting a renovation license. Those include things like a building permit, a report from a qualified engineer indicating that vacant possession is in fact required, a copy of the N-13 and, if required, arrangements are made between the landlord and the tenant for the duration of the renovation.”