A Metro Vancouver business owner has launched a petition calling for the province to cap how much commercial landlords can hike rents at the end of a lease.
Ben Christy owns Precision Design Group, a garment factory that’s been located in Richmond for more than 30 years.
That could change early next year, however. With company’s lease expiring, Christy said the company will have to move because it can’t afford the rent increase the building’s owner is imposing.
“We’re facing a rent increase upon lease renewal with our existing landlord of about 74 per cent,” he told Global News.
“We want to be here, we love being here. The price of moving this facility and the costs associated with moving into another one, it’s not cheap.”
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Christy said the company does have a potential new location lined up, but that every option they’ve investigated has come with major trade-offs.
Given the current state of rent and what the company can afford, they’ll either have to downsize or adjust their business model to cut back what they’re producing in order to find an available space, he said.
Residential landlords in B.C. are limited by law in how much they can increase an existing tenant’s rent, even when a lease expires.
That’s not the case for commercial properties, where rent and occupancy are renegotiated when a lease expires.
Christy believes that’s unfair, and is calling on the province to implement a rent increase cap for businesses in the manufacturing sector.
He’s started a petition to press the issue, which had attracted close to 2,300 signatures as of Friday.
“Commercial real estate is just getting completely out of control,” he said, adding that businesses are simply being forced to pass costs on to customers.
“It’s not helping our inflation problem at all.”
Despite the support he’s received, any change to the law will likely be an uphill battle.
A spokesperson for the Building Owners and Managers Association of B.C. told Global News the best mechanism for determining fair rent remains the free market, not a government edict.
That’s cold comfort to Christy, who remains focused on trying to find a new space within his company’s budget.
“It’s do or die for us,” he said.