The Montreal School Services Center (CSSDM) will evict at least two early childhood centers (CPE) by the end of June 2023. The directors general of the two CPEs had refused, in recent years, increases rent of more than 360%.
Posted at 8:42
The Idée Fixe childcare centre, established in the Centre-Sud district for more than 40 years, will be forced to leave its current premises within a year. Owner of the building, the CSSDM is also claiming rent arrears for the past four years, an amount approaching $304,000.
When the old lease expires in June 2018, the CSSDM is proposing a new five-year lease to Idée Fixe, which would come into effect retroactively on 1er January 2018 and which would end on June 30, 2023. The CSSDM notes that the deadline could not exceed this date given the major work that must be carried out in the building.
However, the CPE also wishes to negotiate certain clauses of the lease before its signature, in particular an increase of some 360% in the rent. Counter-proposal after counter-proposal, four years later, no agreement has been reached between the parties, and the CPE still occupies the rented premises although no lease has been signed. According to the director general, Normand Richardson, the increase of more than $30,000 per year in his rent is nonsense.
“We wouldn’t even have the money to buy modeling clay,” illustrates Sophie Richard, deputy general manager of Idée Fixe. According to her, the very survival of the CPE is at stake.
In order to demonstrate his good faith, even without a lease, Mr. Richardson nevertheless proceeded “to increase the rent each year, according to the average rate of inflation”, he underlines.
Photo David Boily, LA PRESSE
Norman Richardson
Last April, Normand Richardson learned by email that the CPE would be permanently evicted by June 2023. The CSSDM also calculates that the CPE must pay the outstanding rent, which amounts to a sum of 272,268.93 $, interest amounting to $31,637.70 as well as invoices for work totaling $6,797.33.
Idée Fixe is not the only CPE in this situation. Alexis le Trotteur, located in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough, received a similar letter from the CSSDM. Arrears have also been claimed from him since 2018 for a total, dated 1er last April, of $140,620.41. His relocation linked to work, initially planned for two years, is finally announced to be final. “The financial aspect is less of a concern than the evictions, because we assume that we should end up coming to an agreement with the CSSDM,” puts its director general, Guy Arseneault, into perspective.
In an email addressed to The Press, the CSSDM wrote that it does not wish to deal with specific files in the public square. He notes, however, that there is no question of “unilateral eviction or homelessness” and ensures that he is “in constant discussion with [ses] partners”.
Difficult relocation
The complex task of finding a new location that meets Ministry of Family standards – size of windows and yard, lighting, uncontaminated land, number of square feet per child, etc. – belongs to the general managers.
If these two CPEs do not find a location to relocate to, 160 places will be withdrawn from the network, when the waiting lists for them get longer. Last April, The Press wrote that the Ministry of the Family had largely missed its target in creating places in CPEs for the 2021-2022 financial year.
“I am angry for my children, but also for all of Quebec. CPEs are not a privilege; it is a right ! The children in the neighborhood have specific needs. If the CPE is relocated, it is all the daily facilitators who are taken away from us,” says indignant Cindy Zisa, mother of three children who attend or have attended the CPE Idée Fixe.
Cindy Zisa wonders “what needs are more important in a society than a CPE, whose mission is however in the same line as that of the CSSDM”.
Justification
The CSSDM is not required to justify the reason for the eviction or to rule on the future vocation of the building.
A resolution adopted in March 2017 allows it to increase the rates per square foot under a new rate schedule and increase the total square footage by 25% for tenants who share common areas. However, the CPE Idée Fixe has neither corridors nor shared toilets with the Garneau elementary school, which is adjacent to it. Idée Fixe therefore retains the same surface area, but sees its rent drop from $3.25 to $15 per square foot, the highest rate in the new grid, that of the “private businesses, institutional and commercial organizations” category.
For his part, Alexis le Trotteur noted that the CSSDM had recalculated the area invoiced, although it remained the same. “Considering the increase in surface area billed and the increase in the cost per square foot, the CSSDM’s proposal represents an increase of 57%,” laments Guy Arseneault.
Its housing stock being a valuable source of funding, the CSSDM undertook a major clean-up in the mid-2010s in its buildings qualified as “surplus” – those that housed community organizations, for example.
Largely in deficit, the former Montreal School Board, which became the CSSDM in June 2020, was placed under guardianship by Quebec last year.