Toronto tenants concerned about facing ‘demoviction’ for new condo building

Tenants of a downtown building are sounding the alarm over its planned demolition, which will temporarily take hundreds of affordable apartments off the market and displace current residents in the middle of a housing crisis.

The purpose-built rental building at 25 St. Mary Street was approved for demolition by city council earlier this year to be replaced with a massive condo redevelopment.

While tenants have the right to return to their units at comparable prices when construction is complete, there is agonizing uncertainty around the prospect of uprooting their lives in a competitive rental market.

“I have no intention of moving, they’ll have to carry me out in a basket,” said Terry who has lived in a two-bedroom apartment at the building near Bay and Bloor Streets for 45 years.

Its prime location means Terry can walk two blocks to the Manulife Centre, where she goes for her groceries, banking and other shopping. At 93 years old, widowed and with no family in Toronto, Terry told CityNews she wants to age peacefully in the place she’s called home for almost half her life.

“We don’t need this stress at our age, we just want to go quietly into the sunshine.”

Approximately half of the tenants at 25 St. Mary Street are seniors, many on fixed incomes.  

“It’s absolutely shameful that they would send someone like Terry who is 93 out into a housing crisis,” said Annette Gasher, another tenant at 25 St. Mary and an organizer with the advocacy group No Demovictions.

According to the city’s data portal, 83 applications to demolish purpose-built rentals have been approved since 2017. That includes more than 20 approvals last year alone that propose demolishing 867 existing rental units. The latest census data shows in the past five years, the GTA has lost 27 per cent of its private, affordable apartments.

Matti Siemiatycki, director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto, said the city allowing the demolition of any rental stock when it’s already rapidly depleting is partly due to wanting to increase the overall number of units.

“Part of the reason we’re in the housing crisis that we’re in is because we haven’t kept up with the pace of building over generations,” said Siemiatycki. “This is a crisis that has emerged year after year, decade after decade of not keeping pace with construction with our inflow and growing populations.”

Councillor Chris Moise, who represents the neighbourhood, said the city’s ability to control demolition and conversion of private properties is limited. He added rejecting the proposal for 25 St. Mary would have likely meant an appeal at the tribunal level and put tenants at risk of losing the protections being offered. They include rent gap payments, compensation for the loss of parking spots, and access to a realtor.

Moise called the deal secured for tenants the “gold standard.”

“It’s an ongoing issue across the city. I know that talking to my colleagues, they have some serious challenges as well,” he told CityNews. “But even they’re using the 25 St. Mary’s situation going forward as a benchmark as to how to protect tenants.”

The tenant association however told CityNews it was responsible for securing the amendments in the developer’s proposal and feel Councillor Moise lack meaningful involvement in the process.

Gasher contends the compensation tenants are entitled to isn’t enough to survive in a city where average rents are now almost $3,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment.

Most will be forced to rent a condo that is not rent-controlled and therefore “could go up thousands of dollars in one year,” she said. “That would use up all of our gap rent payment.”

Many of the tenants fear being priced out of the Bay Corridor, one of the most desirable neighbourhoods, when redevelopment is complete. Gasher pointed out others will be re-established in new neighbourhoods, with their children enrolled in new schools, as tenants face displacement for three to five years.

“It really makes it seem like they’re going to eliminate a lot of rent-controlled units,” she said. “I don’t think the city should be patting itself on the back at all.”

Gasher would like to see the city relocate tenants.

“They should be found a home, not just access to the leasing agent.”

For Gasher herself, the threat of losing her home is about more than having to move.

“I am personally not working at the moment and going through a cancer resurgence, and I will likely not qualify for a building in my community,” Gasher shared. “I have to remain in my community in order to stay in the catchment area for Princess Margaret Hospital. If I move from here, I could lose my doctor.”

As of right now, there are no changes for the tenants. The developer still doesn’t have all the necessary approvals to begin construction.