Some tenants in Little Burgundy are fighting to stay in their homes after their building was sold.
The tenants in a six-unit building on Notre-Dame St. W recently learned they’re being evicted and their apartments will be turned into short-term rental units.
Known as an apartment-hotel, the building will become the type of unit that rents out on sites like Airbnb.
“I was gutted,” said Katherine O’Leary, who has been living there for four years. “They're forcing families out of their neighbourhoods, their communities, that some people rely on heavily for social reasons.”
It's happening all over Montreal, said tenants’ rights group POPIR. Developers buy up rental units, evict tenants – sometimes compensating them – and then rent out the units for top dollar.
“It's a new phenomenon to have buildings converted to do Airbnb,” said lawyer Antoine Morneau-Senechal, who works with POPIR.
In this case, the new buyer is permitted to turn the building into a hotel because it's already zoned commercial.
“We can't change zoning after the fact,” explained city councillor Craig Sauve. “When a project is submitted to the city, the zoning in place is the zoning that's going to count. So you can't change the zoning and then rescind the certificate after the fact.”
That means the 13 people living in the six units have no legal recourse – although they're asking the rental board to grant them extra time, alleging the owner didn't give some tenants sufficient notice.
“Where are we supposed to go? Urbanization plans for Montreal state that they're supposed to favour low- and medium-income families so that we can have affordable housing, but in contrast to what they're saying, the opposite is happening,” said O’Leary.
The company who bought the building refused to be interviewed.
The Southwest borough said it's working on measures to lessen the impact of gentrification, such as increasing the supply of low-income housing and is considering banning Airbnb-type rentals.
The changes, if any, will come too late for the tenants on Notre-Dame St. W.
