在加拿大
Nenshi’s landlord gouging comments ‘tarred an industry,’ says rental association president
Gerry Baxter Executive Director of the Calgary Residential Rental Association.Photograph by: Dean Bicknell , Calgary HeraldCalgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi smeared residential landlords when he publicly suggested tenants are victims of widespread gouging, said the head of an industry association.“It tarred an industry,” Gerry Baxter, executive director of the Calgary Residential Rental Association, said Friday. “That’s pretty much what it is. It’s an opportunity to single out landlords and make them the scapegoats.”Baxter was reacting to comments Nenshi made a day earlier during an interview on CBC Radio, where he and Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson briefly discussed Alberta’s tight rental market, rent control and whether landlords were gouging tenants.The provincial government requires landlords to provide tenants three-months notice before raising rent and allow only one increase in a 12-month period. However, Alberta does not cap the amount of the increase.While Iveson said evidence of gouging was debatable, Nenshi was emphatic: “Oh, there’s gouging happening,” he said.“Figure out a way that you can continue to provide housing and get a decent return without gouging your tenants,” he suggested to landlords. “And there’s been way too much of that happening.”Baxter said the mayor’s “cavalier” statement left many residential rental landlords bewildered and feeling unfairly targeted.“The interpretation ... is that all landlords are gouging their tenants, which is absolutely incorrect,” he said. “It’s nonsense.”On Friday, Nenshi said his earlier comment on rent gouging was largely based anecdotal evidence and not, in fact, a systemic problem. “What I’m calling for is ethical business more than anything else,” Nenshi told the Herald. “If you’re a landlord and your costs have gone up ... then of course you pass that on to your tenant. That’s part of your business.“But every day I get calls in my office from people who have been given no notice, a month’s notice, of 30, 40 per cent increases in their rent,” Nenshi added. “And nobody’s costs have gone up that much.” An April survey by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. found the residential vacancy rates in Calgary and Edmonton were tied for the lowest in the country, at 1.4 per cent. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Calgary was $1,267, behind only Vancouver.Baxter said Calgary’s average rental rate for a two-bedroom unit is only slightly higher than it was in 2008.“When you look at it it’s about a 2.5 per cent per year increase in the last six years,” he said. “Which is pretty close to (inflation).”With Calgary’s rental market effectively hovering near zero and the city’s population continuing to surge, calls for the province to implement tougher rent controls have increased in recent weeks.But that’s unlikely to happen. Premier Jim Prentice has repeatedly rejected calls for the province to introduce rent controls, saying the “real solution for this is the market.”Meanwhile, the former head of Calgary’s planning and development department said the city should examine streamlining its development approval process, including fast-tracking affordable housing applications, to avoid a looming crisis.“There needs to be, obviously, more rental built,” said David Watson, president of Attainable Homes Calgary Corporation. “The challenge is that a lot of the new rentals is actually at the higher end and really isn’t going to help the lower end of the market where people really need it.”“If there is a crisis then there needs to be crisis proposals put on the table and ways to deal with it,” Watson added.
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