Is there a place for rent control?

By Staff

January 31st, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Is there a place for rent control?

Residents who face significant rent increases want controls.

Politicians appear to be exploiting a difficult problem tjhat doesn’t have an easy answer

The conversation around rent control in Ontario is a loaded one. While tenants certainly benefit, some say that the protection disincentivizes rental construction and makes operating costs for some landlords unfeasible.

 

 

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4 comments to Is there a place for rent control?

  • Mississauga Resident

    Ancient rent controls caused crazy-low rents that existing tenants BASK in and they removed apartments from the market supply for decades. Rent controls created incredible rent disparity and STOPPED purpose-built apartment construction.

    Ontario’s apartment crisis was created from poor policies including rent control. Incompetent city pilot programs add to the unaffordable rental debacle.

    In Mississauga, Ward 7 councillor Dipika Damerla claims it was “her idea” for MARC mandatory proactive inspections of apartment buildings, however, this could cause RENT INCREASES from landlord capital-cost AGI’s!

    The Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) has no provision for city mandatory inspections of buildings to induce capital-costs leading to AGI’s. Perhaps the city should PAY for all proactive capital-costs incurred from the MARC program or MRSP Mississauga rental standards program.

    On February 2nd/2024, Canadian Justice Joyce DeWitt-Van Oosten wrote that a city is “PROHIBITED from using its delegated authority” to interfere with existing statutes.

    If the Ontario RTA enabled mandatory proactive city intervention of landlord and tenant matters or building management policies then the act would implicitly grant such power. City overreach and abuse of power comes to mind.

    Cities must focus on incentives for purpose-built affordable apartment construction and NOT adverse MRSP / MARC programs that could hike rents from AGI’s.

    • Bruce Leigh

      OK. What incentives do you have in mind? To make such a suggestion you must have some. Any incentive will have to be large enough to tempt developers to pass on high return on investment condo projects and sign up for low margin rental units. I’m convinced the only way forward to ensure rental units are built in for all three levels of government to build. Federal and Provincial governments would fund the projects and municipalities would build and manage (using an outside fee for service project manager and an outside fee for service property management company.

  • Cheryl Hall

    Do you see builders clamouring to get into building rental properties? I don’t! Condos priced out of first time buyers range, yes! “Affordable” rental units, nope!

  • Graham

    That will discourage builders from this market obviously.

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