Who's behind Ontario's above guideline rent increases

This apartment has been home for Michael Quadra and his parents for more than two decades, but living here on their tight budget is becoming more challenging. The building owner recently notified the family their rent could be going up more than $65 a month. That’s $25 more than they were expecting. With food prices also going up. With everything else getting more expensive, that is just more ways that our budget is getting squeezed out of us. This building is rent controlled. Landlords can only raise the rent a certain amount each year. This year, it’s set at 2.5%, but landlords in Ontario can apply to raise the rent above that guideline in certain cases, including to help cover major capital costs. In Quadra’s case, the work at his building included elevator modernization and roof repair. They want to repair something that they neglected and then pass on the charges to us. Tenants and their advocates have organized protests and rent strikes because of above guideline rent increases or AGI’s. Now we’re learning more about which companies are applying for AGI’s most often. CBC analyzed data from the first eight months of 2022 from the Landlord and Tenant Board. There were 470 AGI applications. More than 1/4 came from 5 landlords. Well ahead of the pack was Quadra’s landlord, Starlight Investments, which alone accounted for nearly 10% with 46 applications. Next there was Realstar with 25, BCIMC which has properties managed by Quadrille with 22, Homestead with 15 and Hazelview with 14. This lawyer works with low income clients. She says she’s not surprised by the data. They reflect the fact that rental housing is being concentrated in fewer hands and in the hands of financial investors who have the stated and admitted purpose of generating a profit and generating a maximum profit for their investors. Tenants can dispute AGI’s at the Landlord and Tenant Board, but our analysis found most of the applications are approved. We asked for interviews with the top five landlords. None provided interviews, but most provided written statements. Starlight Investment says it only applies for AGI’s for essential capital projects and says it works hard to keep residents informed and updated. Three of the other companies said they comply with provincial rules when applying for AGI’s and several directed us to the Federation of Rental Housing Providers of Ontario. The CEO of that group says many large landlords have bought up buildings that require a lot of work. These are really old buildings often and they do need a lot done to modernize them, to bring them up to a better standard. And so this is 1 mechanism to help with that. But this housing advocate says it’s time to get rid of AG is the question is not whether buildings need to be upgraded or maintained. The question is, you should be paying for this work. We asked the Ministry of Housing if it’s considering any changes to AGI rules and if it’s concerned that large corporate landlords are responsible for a significant portion of applications. The ministry did not answer those questions. Sarah McMillan, CBC News, Toronto.