Montreal still takes very little action against owners of buildings left vacant or poorly maintained, either through negligence or for speculative purposes. Is the Montreal administration using all the levers at its disposal to counter the deterioration of housing at a time when housing needs are becoming acute? Last of two texts.
Montreal property owners are racking up unpaid fines for dilapidated buildings without doing anything to correct the situation. The move allows them to resell their property at a profit without even having to invest in maintaining it. In the meantime, tenants are paying the price for a housing stock that is deteriorating, sometimes to the point of threatening their safety and health.
The City of Montreal says that last year, inspectors from the Housing Department visited nearly 2,500 homes as part of “sanitation” interventions. Some 70 fines were reportedly issued during these visits, compared to 35 in 2022. But are they effective?
31 violations, no renovations
$40,700: this is what the owners of two adjacent buildings, located at the corner of Grenet Street and Gouin Boulevard West, in the borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, have paid since 2019 for the accumulation of 31 tickets for violations of the Regulation respecting the health, maintenance and safety of dwellings. However, the violations pointed out have not been corrected, as evidenced by the accumulation of fines for the same reasons.
What are the criticisms of these buildings? In particular, the presence of insects and mold, a flagrant lack of maintenance and even problems with access to drinking water in some homes.
Anne Levac-Noiseux, a community organizer with the Ahuntsic-Cartierville housing committee, supported tenants affected by this situation. According to her, nothing has been done by the owners to improve the condition of these two buildings built in 1966, she tells the Duty. City data also shows that the last permits granted for work in these buildings date back to 2015.
“It got worse every day,” M recalls.me Levac-Noiseux. She specifies that the tenants of these dwellings were mainly very vulnerable people, at risk of falling into homelessness. The rent for their accommodation ranged from $400 to $800. “It’s one of the worst buildings I’ve visited,” says the woman who has nevertheless seen others. She remembers well, in this specific case, the infestations of mice and bedbugs.
Selling for profit
The balconies and staircases of these two buildings are in such poor condition that the tenants, Cécé Kolié and Gobou Sagno, parents of three children, had to fight last October before the Administrative Housing Tribunal (TAL) against the owners’ representative, Charly Taing, in order to press him to carry out the necessary repairs so that they could at least access their accommodation “and recover their personal belongings”.
The previous month, the tenants had been evacuated by the Montreal Fire Department. The firefighters were concerned for their safety due to the advanced state of deterioration of certain parts of the building, according to a decision by the TAL rendered on July 4. The two tenants who initiated this action then moved out at the request of the City, and claimed damages from the owner of the premises. The latter did not respond to the interview requests of the Duty.
“They were forced to evacuate their home with their family at the request of the City of Montreal, since the balconies and cursives posed a danger to their safety,” states the judgment, which awarded compensation of approximately $2,700 to the tenants, at the owner’s expense. The latter, for his part, “never undertook any work, even following a formal notice sent” by the tenants, specifies administrative judge Amélie Dion.
The tenants have since left the premises, like all the leaseholders in these buildings, summarizes Cécé Kolié in an interview with Duty“I was worried about my children,” recalls the father, who stayed with them in three hotels before finding an apartment big enough for his needs last month.
The two buildings at the heart of this dispute were sold last March to a company owned by real estate developer Henry Zavriyev. He acquired the buildings for $4,351,000. The previous owners had acquired the premises for $2.9 million in 2017; they thus realized a profit on resale of $1.45 million in 7 years.
Fines not very effective
“This shows that the city’s fines have no impact on the owner’s ability to sell the building and make a profit,” even when it comes to “slums,” says Anne Levac-Noiseux with a sigh. She deplores the fact that the fines imposed are not “dissuasive” for owners who neglect the maintenance of their buildings.
“Montrealers, the vast majority of whom are good landlords, should not have to pay for the carelessness and bad behaviour of a minority of bad landlords,” Mayor Valérie Plante’s office wrote in a statement. The latter claims to be deploying “unprecedented efforts” to ensure “the follow-up of problematic cases and to have a better understanding of the situation across its entire territory.”
Including housing inspections carried out locally by the boroughs, the number of these could approach 10,000 this year, estimates the City of Montreal. This number rose to 6,900 last year. The dozens of fines imposed annually can reach $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a legal entity.
However, “the income from renting out slums is so high that these fines are insignificant,” says Gérard Beaudet, professor of urban planning at the University of Montreal. Tenants who are often “in a very precarious situation” are thus affected by a system that “advantages owners” by not discouraging them from neglecting the maintenance of their buildings, the expert points out.
Deterioration notices with no effect
In 2019, these two buildings in the metropolis were issued with a notice of deterioration by the City. Work required for safety reasons had not been carried out. A notice of deterioration is a legal entry in the land register that, in theory, gives the municipal administration the possibility of forcing the owners — current and future — to carry out the work required to restore these premises to a habitable state.
If this notice has been registered in the land register for at least 60 days and the required work has not been done, the City can take possession of the building, according to the Land Use Planning and Development Act. This was not done for these two buildings. This situation is far from unique.
In an email, the City stated that it ensures “regular monitoring of all buildings subject to a notice of deterioration” on its territory so that the required repairs are carried out. It can also, in certain cases, carry out this work itself “to quickly correct a dangerous condition” in a building and avoid, for example, an “evacuation” of tenants. However, it rarely uses this lever.
“Although the City can act in its place in urgent cases where the building becomes dangerous, this practice cannot become the norm,” argues the office of Mayor Valérie Plante. “We must use our levers with discernment and use public funds wisely.”
Reviews dating back to 2012
In practice, there are only 28 notices of deterioration in force in Montreal for as many buildings located on the territory of the metropolis. Some date back to… 2012. And the situation has still not been corrected.
Of the notices of deterioration served by the municipality, 29% were served more than five years ago. The buildings targeted by these notices contain a total of 363 dwellings. For example, on January 7, 2012, Montreal registered a notice of deterioration for a building located at 2520-2530 Centre Street. Fourteen years later, the numbered company targeted by the notice, based in Ontario, has still not complied with the City’s requests.
In 39% of cases, these notices of non-compliance concern buildings with more than 10 dwellings, it was noted. The duty.
Asked about his plans for the two buildings he acquired in March in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Henry Zavriyev said that one of his company’s “niches” “is to acquire buildings that are in dire need of renovations and to start the process of carrying them out.” The developer said he was prepared to invest “millions of dollars” to renovate these buildings “in an advanced state of disrepair” in order to make them “a welcoming and safe space for future occupants.”