Today, COPE City Council candidates announced their Renters Platform for the 2022 Vancouver municipal election. 

COPE’s Renters Platform includes expanding rent control (‘vacancy control’) from Single Room Occupancy hotels (SROs) to all apartment buildings in Vancouver with three or more units. The Renters Platform also includes legalizing tenant unions, as well as bridge funding for demovicted tenants.

COPE's Renters Platform can be found here.

Image: Jean Swanson takes the 'infinite rent increase mallet' from landlords and developers, offering them instead a much smaller 'Hello Kitty inflatable inflation-rate rent increase mallet, with bells'. Photo credit: Michael Tseng.

Here follows remarks that were delivered by COPE’s four City Council candidates — Jean Swanson, Breen Ouellette, Nancy Trigueros, and Tanya Webking — at today’s press conference.

Remarks by COPE City Councillor Jean Swanson: COPE’s Renters Platform

“Today the COPE Vancouver City Council candidates are here to announce our renters platform.

The platform includes rent control, stopping demovictions, legalizing tenant unions, and more. In particular, we’re going to talk about rent control, how the city will expand it to all apartments, and why that’s so important.

Right now, when a rental apartment becomes vacant, the landlord can jack the rent as high as they want.

Over the past four years, the average tenant in Vancouver was paying $1,560 in monthly rent, but if they had to move they found that the average rent for available apartments was $1,820. Any tenant who had to move by necessity or force faced a 17% rent increase. 

But with rent control, when a landlord rents out an apartment, the rent has to be the same as it was for the previous tenant.

Rent control will make a huge difference in tenants’ lives:

1. It eliminates the economic incentive for landlords to evict long-time tenants.
2. If you have to move, you’ll find that rents for available apartments will be much lower than they are today.
3. Citywide rent control will stop rents from spiraling out of control over the long term, saving governments billions of dollars compared to building replacement social housing units.
4. Reduced rents will put money back in the pockets of tenants, allowing you to shop at local businesses and support local arts and culture."

Remarks by COPE City Council candidate Breen Ouellette: how rent control works, and the legal battle

How rent control works

“In the fall 2019, COPE City Councilor Jean Swanson put forward a motion entitled ‘Slowing the loss of the last low income SROs in Vancouver’, which led to the creation of Vancouver’s SRO vacancy control bylaw in December of 2021.

Under this local complimentary rent control model, owners of SRO hotels have submitted rent rolls annually every January 31st. Between tenancies, rents are only allowed to increase by inflation for units with rents at $500 per month or more. The by-law set penalties for violations of the vacancy control by-law, including for illegal rent increases or failures to report rent rolls. 

Importantly, under this complimentary model, the onus isn’t on vulnerable tenants to challenge landlords at the RTB. The City conducts proactive inspections, and tenants can simply contact the City to report potential violations. City Council has budgeted $500,000 for annual ongoing administrative costs.

Today, we’re announcing that COPE will expand this vacancy control bylaw to all 70,000 purpose-built rental apartments in Vancouver. It will apply to all buildings with existing business licenses, which means buildings with three or more units.

Currently, landlords who rent out less than three units do not require an annual business license. Given that rent control will be legally tied to a landlord’s business license, small landlords will be excluded from the city’s bylaw.

The annual business license fee for a rental apartment is already $74, and the cost of administering citywide rent control would likely be covered by less than half of these existing fees, assuming an administrative cost of $3 million.”

SRO ‘vacancy control’ lawsuit

“The current approach is dependent on the upcoming BC Court of Appeal ruling on whether the City’s business license power includes the regulation of rental businesses in this manner.

A recent lower court decision implies that the province intends its largest city to have fewer powers than other cities, and thus struck down the vacancy control by-law. Most people would assume the opposite, that the province enacted the Vancouver Charter to enable its largest city to utilize greater powers to address correspondingly larger and more complex challenges. I have yet to hear anyone argue that the City of Vancouver should be more restricted in addressing rising rents or homelessness than other B.C. municipalities.

In the event that the court decision is upheld, it will become urgently incumbent upon the province to clarify its true intention. More than vacancy control is at stake; dozens of assumed City of Vancouver powers could be overturned in subsequent litigation. If the decision stands the the province must revise the Vancouver Charter to eliminate any possibility that Vancouver should be hamstrung where other cities are not.

COPE believes that the lower court’s ruling was incorrect, and COPE will use every available channel to reinstate Vancouver’s SRO vacancy control bylaw.”

Remarks by COPE City Council candidate Nancy Trigueros: Why rent control is important

Rent control removes the financial incentive to force tenants out of their homes, including though renovictions, harassment, and aggressive buy-outs 

“Currently, landlords can only raise the rent on a tenant by the allowable rent increase, which is 2% next year. But if the unit becomes vacant, landlords are allowed to raise the rent as much as they want — the average has been 17%. 

This is a financial incentive to pressure long-term tenants to leave.

Many tenants feel like they have a target on their backs.

But with rent control, landlords can only increase the rent by the annual allowable amount even if a tenant leaves. 

This eliminates the incentive for landlords to pressure tenants out of their housing and puts an end to the REIT business model in Vancouver.”

With rent control, you can find an affordable apartment if you have to move

“Rent control also helps tenants who move by choice or because of other life circumstances. 

Now, anytime a tenant moves, the landlord can raise the rent as high as they want. 

That’s why there are so few affordable apartments on the market, and why the viewing line ups are so long for the few affordable units that are available. 

Since 2010, the average rent in Vancouver increased by 52%. 

But if rent control had been in place since 2010, and half of landlords applied the maximum increase every year, rents would have increased by only 18% to $1,250. 

Imagine if today you could look on Craigslist and see that the average apartment in Vancouver was $1,250.”

Remarks by COPE City Council candidate Tanya Webking: Why rent control is important, continued

Preserve the affordability that we have which would cost billions to replace with new social housing

“Rent control is also the cheapest way for governments to address the housing crisis. 

As mentioned by Nancy, over the past four years in Vancouver, when a unit was re-rented the rent jumped by an average of 17%.

That means we’re losing up to 18,000 affordable rentals every year to huge rent hikes. 

If we’re thinking of replacing this-low rent housing with social housing, recall that it costs about $500,000 to build one unit of social housing now. 

To build 18,000 affordable units, it would cost $9 billion dollars per year.

Or we could implement vacancy control for a nominal cost – only half of existing rental business license fees.”

Rent control will help the economy

“Rent control will reduce the rents for the up to 18,000 renter households who move each year in Vancouver. 

If Vancouver had had rent control in place since 2018, the average renter household who moved would have saved over $3,000 per year or $12,000 over four years. 

With citywide rent control, all the renters who moved would have saved $56 million per year or $224 million over four years. 

This is money that renters could have used to shop in local stores and restaurants or to support local arts and culture. 

Also, keeping rents under control would help address other reported economic challenges in Vancouver such as brain drain.”

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