Vancouver City Council voted unanimously in support of a motion aimed at protecting tenants from renovictions and aggressive buyouts.
Council unanimously passed Coun. Jean Swanson’s motion to huge cheers from the dozens of advocates at city hall on Tuesday night.
Landlords will be required to offer displaced tenants the chance to temporarily move out during a renovation without their lease ending or their rent increasing.
Staff will be coming back with a report on a few other items, including one that deals with compensation during a renovation.
Swanson says she’s disappointment some items were “wishy-washed down to a report.”
“It’s bad for people who are immediately facing renovictions. They can’t wait for three months for a report back and then not know what’s happening,” she said.
Another item getting a closer look calls on the province to implement effective vacancy controls that tie maximum rent increases to the unit and not the tenant.
In a letter to mayor and council written in November, Landlord BC CEO David Hutniak expressed his concern about the motion, saying “such policy would freeze anything beyond bare maintenance investment in our already very old rental housing stock.”