Advocates for renters will hold a rally at Burnaby City Hall on Monday – just hours before council is to vote on whether to direct city staff to develop a citywide housing strategy incorporating the recommendations of the ambitious Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing final report released on Friday.
Burnaby’s housing task force compiled its work into a final report with 18 recommendations for the future of affordable housing in the city.
The group ACORN, the Vancouver Tenants Union and the BC Government Employees Union,will be holding a rally at the city hall at 5:30 p.m. to push Burnaby politicians to support the recommendations proposed in the final report.
“This report indicates a turning point in the fight against demovictions and the crowning achievement the longstanding commitment of ACORN to stand for the rights of low and moderate income tenants against corporate profits,” said a news release. “Housing advocates across B.C., have called on to the city to provide regulations that will truly protect Burnaby citizens from demovictions and displacement.”
With this report, ACORN said it aims to stop:
- Tenant Buyouts: Tenant buyouts create an economic incentive to pay out (and pressure) desperate tenants into abandoning their homes and community’s de-facto displacing the most vulnerable of our citizens for the profit of the most powerful.
- Demovictions: Low income units are being replaced by luxury rentals condos, forcing working families of Burnaby to pay higher rents and have longer commute times.
Item #10 in the report recommends the city “adopt a robust tenant relocation policy.”
According to NOW reporter Kelvin Gawley’s wrap-up of the report, (read the full story here) "this is perhaps the most hotly anticipated recommendation in the report.
“Hurley campaigned on a promise to take better care of tenants displaced by renovations and demolitions. He is widely believed to have defeated longtime incumbent Derek Corrigan in large part due to the spate of demovictions that displaced thousands of Metrotown renters in recent years. Eight months after Hurley assumed office, the city now has a framework for a new set of tenant relocation bylaws.The proposed policy would allow tenants in buildings with six or more units displaced for a renovation to return to their units at the same rent. It would also give tenants displaced by demolitions the chance to move into replacement units. The relocation policy would also provide ‘swing sites’ to tenants as they wait for their unit to be renovated or built. The sites could be built via public-private partnerships or could come from the existing private market, with developers topping up tenants’ rent if necessary, the report says. The recommendation also suggests developers should have to help pay their tenants’ moving costs.
You can read more about the proposed policy on page 51 of the final report.”
