With 'renovictions' moratorium set to expire, advocates say new protections not enough

P.E.I.'s moratorium on so-called renovictions will no longer be in place starting next week, and housing advocates say new protections introduced last year don't go far enough.

The moratorium, which prevents landlords from evicting tenants while they do renovations on a unit, has been in effect for two years. The practice was sometimes used by landlords to skirt provincial rent controls by charging higher rents to the next tenants to take the unit.

The province's new Residential Tenancy Act contains safeguards against the practice. That includes a requirement for landlords to offer the unit to the original tenant once renovations are complete.

Tenants who decline the offer to return to the apartment are entitled to up to one month's rent in compensation.

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They can still be evicted if their building is deemed to be structurally unsafe. If an authority orders the renovations, compensation isn't required.

The new rules also say landlords must provide six months' notice before ending a rental agreement in order to carry out renovations. Some critics say that does give tenants more flexibility, but it's still hard to find a place to live.

"You're given more sort of leeway before you need to move out. But the issue is… a lot of people are families, low income. It's a very tight rental market," said Cory Pater with the P.E.I. Fight for Affordable Housing. 

"If you ask people what's a reasonable time frame to be kicked out of their home, the answer is none."

Pater said the safeguards don't do enough to prevent tenants from having to go through the trauma of being displaced, and they don't "put enough emphasis" on landlords' responsibility.

"If you unhoused somebody, especially in as tight and expensive a housing market as we have right now, it should be your responsibility to make sure that they're re-homed," he said.

Moratorium the way to go, former MLA says

Under the act, renovations must be so extensive that they require a building permit in order for a landlord to declare a unit must be vacated. That definition was missing in previous legislation.

Pater said that might prevent landlords from evicting people using "fraudulent renovations," but he still would prefer a moratorium.

"I think it's pretty predictable that this was going to bring back some of those issues once [the moratorium] goes away," he said.

Former Green MLA Hannah Bell pushed for the moratorium when she was in the legislature. Now a community advocate, she said she thinks it is still needed.

"The housing market is tighter now than it was in the fall of 2021. We're now below one per cent vacancy rate and obviously the prices that we're seeing for market rent [are up]," Bell said.

"Wages have not gone up. So if somebody is evicted, it becomes an absolute crisis in terms of them being able to find something else."