COPE's policy

COPE will close the vacancy loophole in province-wide rent control with a Municipal Rent Control (Vacancy Control) program to regulate rent increases between tenancies, thereby removing the financial incentive to evict tenants and increasing affordability of rental options for people who need to move.

COPE will create a Landowner and Landlord Registry program (learning from Montreal and other municipalities) that will:

  • Register and License Landowners and Landlords;
  • Gather all building rent rolls;
  • List all rental units, rents, and rent increases;
  • Assist in the implementation of municipal Vacancy Control;
  • Proactively monitor Vacancy Control across the rental stock through spot inspections;
  • Track all health, safety, maintenance, and tenancy disputes;
  • Be funded, in full or part, by Registration and Licensing fees;
  • Monitor and apply penalties for vacant or underutilized properties.

This policy was approved by COPE members in August 2022. COPE is a democratic, grassroots, member-led party. Become a COPE member today.


Why rent control is important

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

Over the past four years, the average tenant in Vancouver was paying $1,560 in monthly rent (CMHC, 2021), 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. 

Table. Average rent for tenanted vs. vacant apartments in the City of Vancouver, 2018-2021. Source: Updated Rental Market Data from CMHC for 2021

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 spiralling 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.

COPE City Council candidate Nancy Trigueros

 

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 (2%). But if the unit becomes vacant, landlords are allowed to raise the rent as much as they want (17% average from 2018-2021). This is a financial incentive to pressure long-term tenants to leave.

As Councillor Jean Swanson wrote in her motion Protecting Tenants from Renovictions and Aggressive Buyouts: “A profit motive exists to displace existing long-term residents in order to increase rental revenues. Tenants are being approached by their new landlords, sometimes harassed and pressured to accept buy-outs without being fully informed of their rights.” 

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

The ability for landlords to profit from economic eviction has spawned a new industry, called Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which are simply corporations whose duty is to make profits for shareholders by buying up rental buildings and jacking the rents.

But with rent control, landlords can only increase the rent by the annual allowable amount even if a tenant leaves. This eliminates the economic incentive for landlords to pressure tenants out of their housing and puts an end to the REIT business model in Vancouver.

Security of tenure is important for tenants’ social, mental, and even physical well being. A majority of residents in Vancouver are tenants – let’s fight for our collective well being with rent control.

COPE City Council candidate Tanya Webking

 

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

In addition to removing the incentive for forced economic eviction, rent control also helps tenants who move by choice or because of other life circumstances. 

Currently, anytime a tenant moves, the landlord can raise the rent to whatever the market will bear. 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. 

In Vancouver today, where thousands of renters are being forced out of their units, the lack of rent control often means being forced out of the city.

Since 2010, the average rent in Vancouver increased by 52% from $1,062 per month to $1,612. But if rent control had been in place since 2010, the average rent would have increased by only 39.7% to $1,484, even if all landlords applied the maximum annual increase every single year. If landlords applied the maximum allowable rent increase half the time, rents would have increased by only 18% to $1,257. 

Imagine if today you could look on Craigslist and see that the average apartment in Vancouver was $1,257.

Table: Average rent in Vancouver if rent control had been in place since 2010. Sources: CMHC Historical average rents by building type (Vancouver CY) and BC rent increases.

COPE City Council candidate Breen Ouellette

 

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. 

In 2018, CMHC began reporting the difference between average rents for tenanted units and average rents available/vacant units. Based on this data, 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 a devastating number of affordable rentals every year. There are 150,000 renter households in Vancouver, and 12% of them move per year, meaning that 18,000 units are rerented annually with huge rent hikes. Over the past four years we lost up to 18,000 affordable units per year in the City of Vancouver alone.

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. 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 budget of $3 million).

COPE City Councillor Jean Swanson 

 

Rent control will help the economy

Rent control will reduce the rents for approximately 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 $3,117 per year or $12,468 over four years. 

The median income of renter households in Vancouver is $50,250. In the absence of rent control, the average renter who moves by choice or by force will experience a rent increase of $3,117 which is the equivalent to a 6.2% pay-cut. 

With citywide rent control, the 18,000 renters who move annually 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. 

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

Table. Savings for Vancouver renter households if rent control had been in place from 2018 to 2021

 

What’s been done so far

SRO Vacancy Control 

In the fall 2019, COPE City Councillor Jean Swanson put forward a motion “Slowing the loss of the last low income SROs in Vancouver”, which a) asked the province to implement vacancy control for SROs, and b) asked City staff to look into the feasibility of developing a municipal model. The motion was passed unanimously by Vancouver City Council. The Province declined to take action, but in February 2020 the BC Supreme Court upheld the City of New Westminster’s “anti-renoviction” bylaw, dismissing landlord arguments that tenant protections are ultra vires for municipalities (this decision was supported later upheld by the BC Court of Appeals, April 30th, 2021). 

A follow-up motion to Vancouver City Council to begin developing a municipal vacancy control mechanism passed unanimously in October, 2020. Bylaw amendments required for enforcing vacancy control in Vancouver’s SROs were approved by City Council on December 8th, 2021.

In this new local rent control model, owners of SRO hotels submitted rent rolls annually by January 31st. Between tenancies, rents were only allowed to increase by inflation for units with rents at $500/month or more. A By-law set penalties for violations to the vacancy control policy, including for illegal rent increases and failure to properly report rent rolls. 

Importantly, in this model the onus wan’t on vulnerable tenants to challenge landlords at the RTB. The City conducted proactive inspections, and tenants could simply contact the City to report concerns. City Council also budgeted $500,000 for annual ongoing administrative costs.

Two SRO owners challenged the bylaw in court and, in August of 2022, the BC Supreme Court sided with landlords to quash the bylaw. However, the City is appealing the ruling at the BC Court of Appeals. COPE believes that the lower court’s ruling was incorrect, and COPE will work with community intervenors to reinstate the SRO vacancy control bylaw. With homelessness growing, failure is not an option.

There is also no time to lose in expanding rent control to all registered rental buildings in Vancouver. A COPE-led City Council will begin planning this policy immediately, so that it can be implemented immediately upon a favourable Appeals Court ruling.

 

Rent Freeze

In 2018, Jean Swanson and COPE campaigned for a Rent Freeze, seeking to limit the maximum annual allowable rent increase to 0%. Many observers thought this was not possible. Others thought that it would stop all rental building construction (which, in the end, it did not).

In July 2018, the Province’s Rental Housing Task Force consultations came to Vancouver. COPE volunteers and candidates pushed for vacancy control and a Rent Freeze, as reflected in media around the event (The Straight, The Courier). On September 6th, 2018, COPE held a rally calling for the annual rent increase to be lowered from 4% to 0%. The very next day the RTB announced that the maximum allowable rent increase would rise from 4% to 4.5%. COPE mobilized against the rent hike in the media and by petitioning, collecting thousands of signatures in just several days. In response, the Provincial Task Force recommended reducing the maximum allowable annual rent increase down to inflation only (2.5%), saving the average renter over $1000 per year (see Jean Swanson: We stopped the 4.5% rent hike, and this is just the beginning). 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, COPE pushed again for a full 0% Rent Freeze, which was implemented by the provincial government until 2021 when the maximum allowable increase went back up to inflation (1.5%). Last month, the province announced the increase for 2022 would be below inflation at 2%. 

COPE’s fight for a Rent Freeze has had a substantial impact, helping to hold average rents in check (see more data above). However the Rent Freeze was alway intended to work alongside full rent control (‘vacancy control’). Without rent control, landlords can raise the rent to whatever the market will bear upon turnover.


Landlord and developer arguments against rent control

Landlord and developer arguments

COPE’s position

Rent control will stop developers from building rental buildings

First, rent control does not affect the starting rents of any new developments.

Second, developers do not tend to build purpose-built rental buildings without government subsidies. Between 1990 and 2012, where there were fewer government subsidies for building rental, only 16% of housing completions were rentals (an average of 650 rentals of 4,182 housing completions per year). While the portion of rentals increased to 36% from 2013-2021 (source: CMHC), few of these are affordable. 

COPE proposes building 5,000 units of non-market, rent-controlled apartments and co-ops per year for working-class Vancouverites.

What about small landlords?

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 would be excluded from the city’s bylaw.

How are landlords going to pay for their “rising taxes”?

Property taxes only make up an average of 10-12% of rental revenues, and they have been reducing steadily as a portion of rental revenues over the past decade (source: rental revenues, CMHC; Taxes: RM-zoned properties in City of Vancouver Property Tax reports)

Property taxes are set as a portion of property value. If land value for a rental building goes up, taxes go up proportionately, and the owner can always sell for capital gains. If land values go down on some rental buildings because of rent control, taxes go down proportionately.