A Montreal landlord who wants to evict 16 tenants on the 1er July in a building where he plans to offer “hotel services” already manages at least three hotels approved by the Quebec government that do not comply with municipal regulations. They are rather disguised tourist residences, found The duty.
Real estate owner Steven Iacobo, at the head of Iacobo Capital, owns a dozen buildings located mainly in Montreal, but also in Laval and Salaberry-de-Valleyfield. They were the subject of cases opened at the Administrative Housing Tribunal (TAL) from 2018.
Of the lot, there is a three-storey building with ten apartments ideally located on Parc Avenue, in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough. In 2019, the TAL ruled in favor of three tenants who had united to oppose an eviction request from the owner, who wanted to use the building for something else. “At the hearing, the landlord specifies that the building will be converted into a hotel; the work has already begun, the city permit having been issued on 1er March 2019”, indicates a decision rendered on May 10, 2019 by administrative judge Marilyne Trudeau.
As the owner did not specify the new function of the projected building in his eviction notice, sent on December 27, 2018, it was deemed “null and void” by the TAL. The tenants then obtained the right to renew their lease.
Tourism residence
However, the situation has since evolved since the owner obtained a registration number from the Quebec Tourism Industry Corporation to administer a hotel on the second and third floors of this building, noted The duty. At least nine of the ten units in this building are also rented out on Airbnb and Booking.com for a sum ranging from a hundred dollars to more than 160 dollars a night.
However, this building, acquired in December 2017 by the company of Steven Iacobo, does not respect in any way the definition of a hotel adopted before the pandemic by the boroughs of Plateau-Mont-Royal, then of Ville-Marie. The purpose of this initiative was to prevent owners from obtaining a permit from the borough to manage a hotel for the simple purpose of having, in fact, a tourist residence outside the—very limited—sectors where this use is permitted in mainland France.
Thus, the municipal regulations in these two boroughs specify that a hotel must have a reception desk open 24 hours a day, a common entrance leading to all the rooms, in addition to offering sanitary facilities for employees. . Conversely, the building on Avenue du Parc offers an “autonomous entrance” to its customers, who must enter a code to enter this building, the ground floor of which is a real construction site.
This building is therefore not, by definition, a hotel, but rather a tourist residence, according to the regulations in force. However, this type of dwelling is not permitted in this sector of the Plateau-Mont-Royal.
Former city councilor Richard Ryan, who led the public meeting that led to the 2019 change in the definition of a hotel by the borough of Ville-Marie, notes that despite the efforts put in place by the city to tackling illegal short-term rentals, “the problem is continuing and getting more devious”. In this context, the former elected pleads for an outright ban on the conversion of rental buildings into hotels, in order to limit the possibility of “malicious owners” of maximizing their profits by evicting tenants.
The CEO of the Hotel Association of Greater Montreal, Jean-Sébastien Boudreault, blames, for his part, the lack of inspectors deployed by Revenu Québec and the City to ensure that short-term rented accommodation complies with all the rules. in force.
“It’s like in a row where there aren’t many people driving at the speed limit because there are no police. It’s a bit the same thing in the middle of tourist residences at the moment”, illustrates Mr. Boudreault, who describes as “scourge” the proliferation of hotels which are, in fact, tourist residences.
Contacted by telephone, Steven Iacobo refused to answer our questions.
loopholes
Steven Iacobo also sent last December an eviction notice to 16 tenants of a building on rue Saint-Louis, in Old Montreal, where he wishes to offer “hotel services”. Architects’ plans obtained by The duty indicate that the owner intends to set up a reception on the ground floor of the building. However, no changes are planned for 15 of the 16 units in the building, which leads tenant Sylvain Roy, who has been living there for 25 years, to believe that the owner does not want a real hotel in this building.
A situation that does not surprise the professor of urban planning at McGill University David Wachsmuth. He expects that “more and more loopholes of this type will be found” by landlords wishing to circumvent the rules surrounding short-term rentals, as these are tightened by the City and Quebec.
Steven Iacobo’s company also acquired a 27-room hotel on rue Berri in January 2022 in poor condition. This building also offers an autonomous entry process, and employees met on site confirmed to the Duty that all the rooms in the building “are rented out on Airbnb”. After being questioned by the Ville-Marie housing committee, the borough will send inspectors to this building “to verify the type of use made by the owner”, shows an exchange of emails obtained by The duty.
The City had not answered our questions at the time these lines were written, while Revenu Québec refused to comment on this file.