The Vancouver Tenants Union is planning to fight transit-oriented displacement after its recent survey showed some renters could face evictions and/or devastating rent hikes as the city’s Broadway corridor is redeveloped.
Justin Macalanda-Pascual lives steps away from the future Mount Pleasant subway station and considers himself fortunate to rent a studio along the Broadway corridor for $1,200 a month.
“Just rent, it’s hard to find a studio for a decent price right now,” Macalanda-Pascual told Global News.
“It’s so expensive in the city.”
According to the Vancouver Tenants Union (VTU), it could get even more expensive.
Over 10 weeks, the volunteer-led group surveyed people living in purpose-built rental buildings within 200 metres of planned Broadway subway stations – and identified nearly 1,000 rental households at significant risk of redevelopment.
“Simply put there’s a tremendous financial incentive to evict long-term tenants and replace them with new ones,” said Mazdak Gharibnavaz with the Vancouver Tenants Union.
Gharibnavaz said the average landlord could charge up to 20 per cent more if they’re able to find some pretense to evict current renters.
Data collected by the VTU revealed huge rent gaps – the difference between the median market rent and the median rent Broadway corridor tenants surveyed are currently paying – could mean an increase of $758 per month for a studio rental, $821 for a one-bedroom, and $1,315 for a two-bedroom apartment.
“I would probably have to move,” said Macalanda-Pascual.
“It would not be feasible for me to live for an extra 800 dollars.”
Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart said amendments will protect renters who are displaced by the Broadway Plan, which covers nearly 500 square city blocks and would allow towers up to 40 storeys along the new subway line.
“In the rare case any current renter must relocate, that person will have the choice of either being generously compensated for moving to a new home or be guaranteed the right to return to a replacement building at rents at or below what they currently pay,” Stewart said on May 12.
But SFU City Program director Andy Yan said delivering on that guarantee is problematic, and the Vancouver Tenants Union findings represent credible concerns based on “lived experience”.
“Without having the very clear aspects of accountability, transparency and really fulfillment of these promises I think a profound concern that this is just to really enter a level of mass evictions that we saw whether it be Little Mountain or in Metrotown,” Yan told Global News.
Yan said the Broadway Plan area is home to 81,000 people and 17 per cent of the entire city’s purpose-built rental stock.
Nearly 60 per cent of households are renters according to the Vancouver Tenants Union, which fears mass redevelopment could escalate land prices so sharply – even renters currently paying market rate will be on the chopping block in just a few years.
Vancouver city councillors are set to vote on the draft plan on May 18.