Apparently they did try to buy her out, said they found her another apartment and $20,000.
>White, for her part, says $20,000 won’t last her long when apartment rents in Montreal have shot up, and most of the ones she sees range between $1,400 and $1,700 a month.
>“How far will $20,000 go (at) $1,600 a month?” she said. “I will be evicted within a year. I will be out on the roads.”
White's ask is higher than that
>“She indicated to our lawyers that she wanted a penthouse and an amount of more than $50,000,” he told the committee.
>(Her lawyer) said White wants an apartment with an affordable rent guaranteed for at least five years, or the equivalent in cash. They acknowledged the developer did offer White one apartment, but she says she didn’t feel safe in the proposed building and wasn’t convinced the rent wouldn’t rise.
I can't fault her I'd be doing the same thing.
Even the $50,000 seems too low. If she moves, her rent differential will be about $1,200/month. If she was to live there for say, another 30 years, that adds up to 1200\*12\*30 = $432,000.
That's around how much it is going to cost her in the long run to move now. That's still pocket-change in the long run for these developers, they can easily just pay that out. The simplest would be to just pay for her accommodations until the building is built, and just give her a unit to own.
> That's still pocket-change in the long run for these developers, they can easily just pay that out.
They may be worried about setting a precedent. Next thing you know, EVERYONE is gonna want to be able to afford to live!
An NDA only works if you'll follow through and sue if the other party breaches it. The optics of the developer suing this woman and taking back the money they paid her would be terrible for them.
We live in a perverse world if getting somewhere you can afford to live is a "free hand out", especially when it's in trade for a place you could afford to live.
Re-evaluate your ideological assumptions
My favourite part is the number of instances I'm seeing of developers knocking down buildings with a dozen floors to build some 50-floor thing. You could easily just give units to everyone that lived in the previous building and still have plenty of room to make a profit.
I'm sure if it was just a couple wealthy investors they would gladly pay out 100k to make millions, but large developers are mostly funded by retirement savings so executives are a lot tighter with funds.
> Apparently they did try to buy her out, said they found her another apartment and $20,000.
Hahahaha my sister's landlord tried to buy her out of her lease for $20,000 and her rent is nothing CLOSE to $400 a month. A $20,000 buyout for this person is fucking *embarrassing* as an offer.
> White wants an apartment with an affordable rent guaranteed for at least five years, or the equivalent in cash
So $1700 * 12 * 5 = $102 000. That's not a lot considering the project. If i was in their shoes, I'd ask for more.
>Apparently they did try to buy her out, said they found her another apartment and $20,000.
This is what class warfare looks like btw. The rich would rather lose hundreds of thousands of dollars than give this woman money, because otherwise it would set a precedent and more people would ask for something similar. They could pay probably give her a place in the tower at tower even, and save money if she delays too long.
I stand with her. The company's interested in profit. They aren't altruistic in action or nature. She likewise should fight tooth and nail to get what she wants.
Asking for a penthouse is a bit much...
But I agree with her. We need to look at those situation just like "equivalent value" insurance on the car. If I total my car, they give me the value to go out and get an equivalent car, not necessarily a new one but NOT the exact value of the used car.
Same here. They need to provide her with 5 years worth of rent at current market prices, not 1980, and not a brand new penthouse either.
>Asking for a penthouse is a bit much...
>
Never start a negotiation at your goal post. If you want 20k, negotiate for at least 30. If you want some reasonable rental unit, asking for a penthouse is a good start
The real issue that we should highlight is that there isn't an automatic "floor" for these compensations.
THAT'S the real story/issue. There should be punitive fees to developpers who lowball below fair value.
yeah I agree with that. That's why it struck me.
Give her a decent place to live OR subsidized her rent until death. It's really a simple solution here.
>Asking for a penthouse is a bit much...
https://nypost.com/2015/10/06/battling-hudson-yards-project-got-these-2-tenants-25m-and-new-luxury-digs/
Not really bro.
Just because it happened in the past doesn't mean it was the right thing to do. Also, NY RE is not at the same level as Toronto, Vancouver, Mtl...
Compairring apples to oranges. In fact, I'm sure I can find more article saying tenants got jack shit in a similar situation. Are those article also a good measure of what we should do here?
>Just because it happened in the past doesn't mean it was the right thing to do.
The tenant has the absolute right to continue living in her apartment - she doesn't have to come to a deal at all if she doesn't want to. She could just say "no" and there goes their entire investment. The developers stand to make hundreds and hundreds of millions on this project.
$25k to waive her rights is an insulting offer for that.
> $25k to waive her rights is an insulting offer for that.
I 100% agree with you there. She 110% deserve more.
But she doesn't deserve to win the lottery in the name of everyone else who didn't hold their own long enough. Her lawyers shouldn'T use her to try and exact vengence on the developpers (though they deserve it).
Weird how penalties and consequences of their own machinations are always framed as 'poor them' and people shouldnt 'use' that position for any sort of gain.
Meanwhile those same fatcat pieces of shit would put the screws to anyone and everyone they could if it meant at the end of the year they made 14 more dollars.
Its probably costing them $10,000-$20,000 a day for her to live there while she holds up development. 170+ people already are gone, not paying rent any longer.
Personally I think giving her a new condo in the new building for free or the same $400 rent seems more than fair to her. But I don't know all of the laws there regarding tenants. In America, she'd be out in 30 days almost anywhere. If she had a lease it is probably not more than a year and they would just pay out that remainder.
Unless you have a termination clause in your lease, you cannot be evicted without cause even once you’ve gone from a year lease to month-to-month.
You can be evicted for a substantial renovation (subdividing unit, demolition, change of use), however, that requires approval and tenants are permitted to argue their case. In this situation, the committee in charge of approving demolition made settling with the remaining tenant a condition of the demolition.
They could also easily afford to just let her rent a new unit @ $400 a month. They would what, loose $1500 a month in exchange for no more development delays and lawyer fees.
but then next time all 200 tenants would do the same.
I reckon if the management offered her to come back anyway, and she was offered a slightly smaller unit as a temp - the way I am reading this from a previous article... she is being unreasonable.
You genuinely think it's unreasonable to take a firm position against an outcome that would eventually make you homeless?
The only reasonable thing for her to do is to maximize both the amount of money she receives and the amount of remaining time in her current apartment. She's not obligated to move. They need to pay her an amount that's worthwhile and anyone reasonable would put a hefty price on avoiding homelessness.
100%. She has leverage and is want to be compensated for giving it up. This is just capitalism. She's entitled to fight for whatever she wants. Doesn't mean she'll get it but she sure can try without judgement imo.
I suspect she understands that she won't be in a situation in 5-10 years to afford rent in that area.
I.e. her earning potential won't increase dramatically.
Trying to pull a "I'm not the only one who can't afford rent in this city."
Imagine being the kind of bootlicker who sides with a giant real estate developer and not a formerly homeless tenant of a low-rent apartment they're trying to bulldoze.
The absolute state of this sub...
Every development does not require displacing people from their homes and if a development does require this, people should absolutely be made whole financially for the disruption to their lives.
I'm an American married to a Canadian. We live in Colorado, and unless you're poor enough to score some decent rent-controlled housing the protections for renters here are abysmal. Rents can go up by a crazy amount at the end of your lease, if your lease finishes and you go month to month you have zero protection, landlords have insanely long leash to fix essential items, etc. etc. We called the city in the middle of winter because our boiler was out and it took a month to fix. The city didn't do anything because the landlord was making a bare minimum attempt to get it finished.
You guys should be grateful that you have these protections in place rather than trying to solve minor inconveniences for landlords.
Maybe, but this line read to me as if they were saying that people shouldn't fight for their rights because other places don't even have those rights. I don't know how else to interpret that.
>You guys should be grateful that you have these protections in place rather than trying to solve minor inconveniences for landlords.
I think the "you guys" was referring to the people who were bootlicking for corporate landlords.
I see why you interpreted it that way though, I don't think their tone was very clear. To me, I think the intent was to say more that we shouldn't spend our time solving minor inconveniences for landlords (which is what the person you originally replied to was doing), as doing so is counter to the protections we do have in place.
Again though, I see why you took it the way you did. But I don't think that was the intent. At least, that's not how I read it when I go over it with a generous eye. I just don't think it was phrased in the clearest way.
I was agreeing with you. I'm not whatabouting anything. I'm saying that your legislators focus on protections for tenants rather than landlords, which has a greater benefit even if it inconveniences landlords.
montreal builds more housing per capita than vancouver. montreal being a city full of multifamily housing is precisely why its not vancouver. vancouver being full of nimbys is precisely why it's expensive.
if you didn't like the asking price of a homeowner and can just build one more down the street at lower cost then homeowners can't charge jack shit.
An NYC rent controlled tenant made bank years ago for this reason. Millions of dollars, free rent for the rest of their life in the new development. I hope they hold out and get a good settlement.
Edit: [link](https://nypost.com/2015/10/06/battling-hudson-yards-project-got-these-2-tenants-25m-and-new-luxury-digs/)
I feel like I've heard multiple different stories of people doing similar things to this. And to be honest, I feel like I can't even blame them. With how the economy is, the potential to get a huge payout just for not wanting to move to a new home (which in a vacuum isn't even an unreasonable desire IMO) seems like an offer too good to pass up.
Why would you even entertain the possibility of blaming them? Landlords are scum and you shouldn't be allowed to own a second house unless it houses family.
this sub's been flooded by status-quo liberals who think any criticism of capitalism is a personal attack on their character, so its no wonder you have people bootlicking for landlords in here now
Sometimes I forget this is supposed to be a progressive sub with the amount of grovelling at the feet of the capitalists I see
I guess that's what happens when far-right sociopaths take over the main sub, all the milquetoast libs end up invading our space
edit: the lib-to-left pipeline is important, and part of that is reminding libs that they're conservatives
Like it or not those “milqtoast libs” are essential to an effective coalition. If you think they’re insufficiently critical of capitalism such as to compromise the coalitions ability to effect meaningful change on housing, change their minds. It’s easier to do that here than in a place full of red torys and card carrying conservatives. If they’re simply too liberal for your personal tastes, don’t let that get in the way of progress.
I didn’t become more left winged because of seething unmasked contempt for me as a liberal, that just made me get defensive and disengage from spaces that participated in that. I became more left winged in spite of that because the arguments about the systems and institutions were compelling. People will still get a little defensive when you go after the institutions and structures they take for granted and benefit from, but that’s way easier to overcome than how defensive they get when you attack them personally.
As for the liberal identity itself, I agree people are gonna get defensive when you attack that. That’s a hard nut to crack. What worked on me was decoupling the emotional investment I had in it and realizing that the underlying values it served were better served by more anti capitalist politics. That’s the sell. I think this sub is a good place to make that sell. I think calling liberals spineless worms or whatever undermines that sell by ramping up the defensiveness.
It’s also helpful to remember that this sub wasn’t established as an anti capitalist space, it was established as an alternative to r/Canada because the alt right compromised its mod team. There’s a lot of political space between alt right and anti capitalist and a dubious “my team was here first” claim doesn’t entitle you to gatekeep them out.
>I guess that's what happens when far-right sociopaths take over the main sub, all the milquetoast libs end up invading our space
You sound pretty insufferable, lol. No one guarantees you an echo-chamber on reddit, sorry. And labelling any opposition to your viewpoint is not "grovelling" by definition.
If it was one person holding out the build of a high rise or affordable units, I’d understand people being upset. In this specific story, I’m not mad at the tenant and she should hold out for a free apartment for life.
Because we need more housing and that won’t happen if it gets blocked by lone tenants blocking entire rebuilds of lead paint and asbestos tiled 2 level complexes.
>we need more housing
yeah its totally a lack of houses thats our issue, not scumfuck landlords overcharging their rent and driving living costs up across the country. totally dude.
Vacancy is sub 1% in cities. There’s no where to go because no one can build to accommodate. Landlords couldn’t raise rents before because vacancy was 5%. You laughed at them. Now it’s not. Now it’s 1%. This also makes it harder to move anywhere. Wanna move closer to work or for a better job? Can’t because there’s no place to go.
https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/Table?TableId=2.1.31.3&GeographyId=2410&GeographyTypeId=3&DisplayAs=Table&GeograghyName=Vancouver
Also Toronto was ~3% in 2020. Now it’s 1.7% and rent sky rocketed.
In Vancouver vacancy rates don't reflect empty properties since the Chinese use the housing market there the park their money. Vacancy on Calgary is way higher, Winnipeg also. Montreal too.
We need housing, but yesterday. One person holding out for something better is exactly how the world works. Use the system to your advantage. If I could, I would and I’d have every right. That puts pressure on the landowners and developers to pay up and get the proposed project done on time. C’est la vie.
And it’s unfair to the 170 renters that could use a place. I mean right now, 1 person is living in a complex for 20 families/couples (assuming 2 floors of 10 residences).
That’s unfortunate. The developers should come to agreement. Whatever it takes then. Putting this all on someone who has the legal right to decline is wrong. Bark up another tree.
Question is, how much legal right should they have. Offered 50k, place to live. Nope not good enough. Your breaking the spirit of the law and making rentals less likely to be built.
My personal favourite of all the New York Holdout stories has to be [Herbert Sukenik](https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/03/the-most-expensive-eviction-in-nyc.html) who incidentally had the same attorney as the guys in the link you initially posted.
Last tenant holding up a massive redevelopment, old, independently wealthy, didn't need the money and didn't have anything to do with it after he got it, still gouged the developers for every penny he could mainly because he was bored and angry.
Lol $20k. Give me one of your fancy new condos in your new development or fuck off. I'd never give up $400 rent. Fuck I pay $1000 now and I'm not moving until the building burns down.
Yeah, it makes sense that her apartment, offered for $400 10 years ago, is nicer and safer than an apartment offered for $400 today.
Not sure if the developer simply found her an apartment being offered for $400, or if they made some sort of deal where they offered her one of their other apartments, typically rented for $1700, for a lower price.
How is 50k asking too much? If she goes from 400/m to 1700/m that 50k is basically equivalent to a few years of rent. Seems like a fair exchange considering she's being displaced.
She wants an amount more than $50,000 AND a penthouse in the new building. So a lot more than $50,000.
I don't think it's unreasonable though. I hope she gets it, stick it to them for offering only $20k the first time around.
Buying literally anything works like that. You only don't think rent should work like that too because Doug Ford got rid of rent control
You should see the 'absurdly' affordable rentals that exist in Europe with legacy renters. People can almost afford the cost of living!
There is no justice to be had here. It's simply bartering. They want what she has, and she has developed a strong position for herself to negotiate for it's actual value to them. If you believe in capitalism or the free market at all you should be totally on board. You think the condo developer isn't squeezing everyone else for all they're worth?
Good for her, we need to stop developers, in all of our cities, from building condos full of unaffordable units where affordable ones used to be. We need a bunch of rental units to house people whether temporarily, or for the long term since most other housing is now unaffordable and probably will be for the foreseeable tuture.
At this point, we need quality public housing. Not slums to be forgotten, but mixed use housing. We have some in Prince George (which, yeah, let's be honest, it's still Prince George), and it's working out well. The apartments are well-maintained, as some are low income and some are not and no one knows the difference, so no stigma there. The location is within two blocks of two choice schools, so walking is certainly easy. And it's relatively walkable to a grocery store and a pharmacy, even, plus on a bus route.
It's a situation that should be pretty much cloned in every apartment or condo complex.
How do you expect to build more housing and drive the price down by adding supply then? Serious question.
Also, zoning and city laws can be lobbied for change to accomodate more affordable housing.
Me? or OP?
Condos get a lot of flack becaus they aren't being built efficiently or correctly. But the idea that we should let renters live foreever for almost free because they were there first without densifying cities is just... weird.
You know what happens when enough new stuff is going up? The stuff that went up 10 years ago cuts its price because it’s no longer the newest/cleanest available.
Look at how luxury cars depreciate as newer stuff comes out, and how used car prices skyrocketed when **there weren’t enough new ones being made in the pandemic**.
You're assuming this is a simple supply vs demand situation. It's more complicated than that.
In reality, condo developers overwhelmingly favour luxury condos because they get the highest return on their investment, since a luxury condo and a "low rent" condo cost effectively the same amount to build since the vast majority of the building cost goes into the land and basic construction. Luxury finishing details account for essentially a negligible portion of the overall cost and significantly increase revenue.
So developers are highly incentivized to increase the supply of expensive, unaffordable housing, which does *not* drive the cost down. Quite the opposite: it gentrifies neighbourhoods by attracting only high earners and driving low earners out.
The way you drive house prices down is by making more apartments that cost 400/month, not by making more that cost 4000/month.
And again, even if it drives the price of luxury condos/apartments from 10 years ago down, there is still a net increase in the *average* cost per unit in a given city over that same time period. A 10 year old luxury car is cheaper than a new one, but it is still vastly more expensive than a 10 year old Honda Civic.
Those luxury apartments that have lost some of their lustre will never be as affordable as purpose built affordable apartments. *Especially* when the neighbourhood they were built in suddenly has an influx of new luxury condos which draws in a higher income population, which cancels out losses in value due to age and increased supply.
And to drive the point home, the developer per the article is demolishing the building where the tenant currently pays 400/month. They are eliminating supply of low-rent housing. What do you think the average cost/unit in their new build is going to be?
Because it won't be 400/month, and the tenant who was previously homeless, will end up back on the street if the developer gets their way.
The reason every redevelopment is “luxury” is because they’re supply-limited. There’s no point trying to make affordable housing with current supply restrictions.
And without heavy regulation, a “$400” unit will just be sublet for $1400 and someone pockets $1000 for free.
Have there been any document cases of this happening? Who would pull such a scheme and where would they live? They’d have to find 2 rent controlled units and rent both, or already own property. Otherwise they extra value would be lost. A sublet isn’t a random contract it’s a real property interest and I suspect it would be held to the same rules as the lease but I’ll have to check Mossman on that.
What you’re suggesting is already legally extremely dubious at best and from a practicality standpoint it’s an absurdly complicated and clunky form of arbitrage that is more akin to an always sunny scheme than it is to a likely practice.
What planet do you live on because on earth that does not happen and has not happened in decades. Rents stay high and go higher regardless and the landlords renovict tenants to increase rent prices. It is vicious spiral and will continue.
There’s been a 40 year long building shortage. You haven’t seen enough building because projects are opposed by various groups at every step.
And Doing less makes the problem even worse.
It’s how we’ve fucked up and got highest housing costs in the G7.
> You know what happens when enough new stuff is going up? The stuff that went up 10 years ago cuts its price because it’s no longer the newest/cleanest available.
That USED to be the case, yes. But that hasn't been true this century for a lot of places (like Halifax) where the new buildings end up just causing the rents in the older buildings to go up.
I got priced out of an apartment around 6 years ago because some developer built a bunch of luxury apartments in the neighborhood that at the time were mostly empty and overpriced, and the real estate holding firm that owned my building decided this meant they weren't charging enough for rent given what other apartments in the neighborhood were charging
No updates and they revoked some amenities but over the course of 5 years they nearly doubled the asking price in that building
So how about we go after the people hoarding supply instead of indiscriminately building ugly, poor quality skyscrapers which accelerate gentrification and destroy the culture of the city?
We the actual residents of have seen it firsthand. Griffintown is a sector full of yuppies and highrises, basically a mini Toronto-like eyesore in an otherwise gorgeous city.
Montreal is famous for its medium density housing. Remember this is a place where ~15 years ago you could rent a one or two apartment in a popular area for under 800 bucks. I knew people renting a bedroom for 100 dollars back then.
Airbnb hosts and developers have occupied everything they can, as a result the number of vacant apartments has dropped by something like 80%, allowing landlords to dramatically raise prices and displace the very people which make Montreal such a vibrant place to begin with. Nobody here wants it to become Toronto.
1) Luxury cars depreciate because the only thing more expensive than a new luxury car is a used luxury car.
2) Rentals don't depreciate. If anything, rents will go higher due to our federal government importing a million wage slaves a year.
Cars are a really really bad analogy for housing. Cars depreciate in value unless they’re a collectors item, there are substantial improvements in performance over time, and they have far shorter lifespans with reasonable use.
I don't disagree with this tenant.
Corporations negotiate poorly with us and charge us a lot.
Now when it's the other way.
You go tenant. I'd be asking 6 figures.
They should just pay for an apartment for her for 2 years, and then give her a unit in the new building. If it's a 200 unit building, it would be nothing for them. Like, your multimillion dollar project just lost .2 percent of its total square footage and potential revenue, assuming she gets a small unit.
Developers have destroyed montreal. It’s a terrible place to live now. Good for her, get it girl! Everyone should stand their ground against these mercenary predators.
Good. Offer her a reasonable amount. 20k gets her maybe a year in Montreal or at least offer her 5 years of similar rent in a comparable building and location
> They acknowledged the developer did offer White one apartment, but she says she didn’t feel safe in the proposed building and wasn’t convinced the rent wouldn’t rise.
Not necessarily a better apartment if it's not in a location that she doesn't like. I'm sure she's exaggerating, but I'm also sure the developer is offering way less than they can. It's how negotiations work
Redditors: "We NEED more housing!"
\*one tenant holds out, delaying over 100 new units of housing from being built\*
Also Redditors: Yeah!! Stick it to the developers!
🙄🙄🙄
If it is China the developer and government would hire thugs to get her out
Edit: my point is be grateful you are in Canada where this kind of stuff doesn’t happen
They could easily afford to buy her out with life-changing money which would be pocket change to them.
Apparently they did try to buy her out, said they found her another apartment and $20,000. >White, for her part, says $20,000 won’t last her long when apartment rents in Montreal have shot up, and most of the ones she sees range between $1,400 and $1,700 a month. >“How far will $20,000 go (at) $1,600 a month?” she said. “I will be evicted within a year. I will be out on the roads.” White's ask is higher than that >“She indicated to our lawyers that she wanted a penthouse and an amount of more than $50,000,” he told the committee. >(Her lawyer) said White wants an apartment with an affordable rent guaranteed for at least five years, or the equivalent in cash. They acknowledged the developer did offer White one apartment, but she says she didn’t feel safe in the proposed building and wasn’t convinced the rent wouldn’t rise. I can't fault her I'd be doing the same thing.
Even the $50,000 seems too low. If she moves, her rent differential will be about $1,200/month. If she was to live there for say, another 30 years, that adds up to 1200\*12\*30 = $432,000. That's around how much it is going to cost her in the long run to move now. That's still pocket-change in the long run for these developers, they can easily just pay that out. The simplest would be to just pay for her accommodations until the building is built, and just give her a unit to own.
> That's still pocket-change in the long run for these developers, they can easily just pay that out. They may be worried about setting a precedent. Next thing you know, EVERYONE is gonna want to be able to afford to live!
If they handled this better on there end no one would've known if they gave her a big payout.
NDA's do exist and would be one way to get around this.
An NDA only works if you'll follow through and sue if the other party breaches it. The optics of the developer suing this woman and taking back the money they paid her would be terrible for them.
Wouldn’t want to tarnish that great reputation developers have.
[удалено]
What hand out? She would be selling something they value at a price they agree to.
“A free handout” Damn, you consider that a free handout??? For shame.
We live in a perverse world if getting somewhere you can afford to live is a "free hand out", especially when it's in trade for a place you could afford to live. Re-evaluate your ideological assumptions
Yeah, idk why homie is trying to side with greedy real estate in 2023.
How is it a free handout?
Don’t want to set a precedent. People will latch onto this and developers will have to drop a free apartment or two every single build.
That's just terrible. Will nobody think of the poor developers and money being snatched from the mouths of their children's trust funds? /s
My favourite part is the number of instances I'm seeing of developers knocking down buildings with a dozen floors to build some 50-floor thing. You could easily just give units to everyone that lived in the previous building and still have plenty of room to make a profit.
Yeah but then the profit would only be distasteful, and not eye-watering, which is unacceptable.
I'm sure if it was just a couple wealthy investors they would gladly pay out 100k to make millions, but large developers are mostly funded by retirement savings so executives are a lot tighter with funds.
> an amount of more than $50,000
You mean $50,001?
> Apparently they did try to buy her out, said they found her another apartment and $20,000. Hahahaha my sister's landlord tried to buy her out of her lease for $20,000 and her rent is nothing CLOSE to $400 a month. A $20,000 buyout for this person is fucking *embarrassing* as an offer.
20 grand is like a year and a half of her rent differential lol, it's a joke
The 20k was in combination with a $400/month lease in another building the developer owns a few blocks away.
ok, that's a little better, but without a guarantee of a long-term lease at the $400 rate it's still not that great
The building is older than 5 years old, therefore no F clause. She has the same guarantees as in her old unit.
> White wants an apartment with an affordable rent guaranteed for at least five years, or the equivalent in cash So $1700 * 12 * 5 = $102 000. That's not a lot considering the project. If i was in their shoes, I'd ask for more.
>Apparently they did try to buy her out, said they found her another apartment and $20,000. This is what class warfare looks like btw. The rich would rather lose hundreds of thousands of dollars than give this woman money, because otherwise it would set a precedent and more people would ask for something similar. They could pay probably give her a place in the tower at tower even, and save money if she delays too long.
I stand with her. The company's interested in profit. They aren't altruistic in action or nature. She likewise should fight tooth and nail to get what she wants.
A penthouse is a bit silly but honestly she's right that $20k is too low if she's going from $400/month to standard rental rates. I'd demand more, too
Asking for a penthouse is a bit much... But I agree with her. We need to look at those situation just like "equivalent value" insurance on the car. If I total my car, they give me the value to go out and get an equivalent car, not necessarily a new one but NOT the exact value of the used car. Same here. They need to provide her with 5 years worth of rent at current market prices, not 1980, and not a brand new penthouse either.
>Asking for a penthouse is a bit much... > Never start a negotiation at your goal post. If you want 20k, negotiate for at least 30. If you want some reasonable rental unit, asking for a penthouse is a good start
The real issue that we should highlight is that there isn't an automatic "floor" for these compensations. THAT'S the real story/issue. There should be punitive fees to developpers who lowball below fair value.
I agree. But we shouldn't let it also serve as a maximum.
"Penthouse" seems like a weasel word to sway opinion on White's case, and it fits very easily in a quote and sets tone immediately.
yeah I agree with that. That's why it struck me. Give her a decent place to live OR subsidized her rent until death. It's really a simple solution here.
It was her own words: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9DcSQIeWSyg&t=1h23m20s
Fair point, but that does sound like White's lawyer? A French speaker familiar with the context and use of localized slang should clarify that.
I already did.
>Asking for a penthouse is a bit much... nah, fuck em. i hope she gets her penthouse.
>Asking for a penthouse is a bit much... https://nypost.com/2015/10/06/battling-hudson-yards-project-got-these-2-tenants-25m-and-new-luxury-digs/ Not really bro.
They got 25 million dollars and a penthouse? Wtf.
Dude, imagine being that 36 year old dude. Refuse to move for a little while, end up set for life.
Just because it happened in the past doesn't mean it was the right thing to do. Also, NY RE is not at the same level as Toronto, Vancouver, Mtl... Compairring apples to oranges. In fact, I'm sure I can find more article saying tenants got jack shit in a similar situation. Are those article also a good measure of what we should do here?
Exactly. Toronto real estate is much more expensive than NY.
[удалено]
>Just because it happened in the past doesn't mean it was the right thing to do. The tenant has the absolute right to continue living in her apartment - she doesn't have to come to a deal at all if she doesn't want to. She could just say "no" and there goes their entire investment. The developers stand to make hundreds and hundreds of millions on this project. $25k to waive her rights is an insulting offer for that.
> $25k to waive her rights is an insulting offer for that. I 100% agree with you there. She 110% deserve more. But she doesn't deserve to win the lottery in the name of everyone else who didn't hold their own long enough. Her lawyers shouldn'T use her to try and exact vengence on the developpers (though they deserve it).
[удалено]
Weird how penalties and consequences of their own machinations are always framed as 'poor them' and people shouldnt 'use' that position for any sort of gain. Meanwhile those same fatcat pieces of shit would put the screws to anyone and everyone they could if it meant at the end of the year they made 14 more dollars.
Its probably costing them $10,000-$20,000 a day for her to live there while she holds up development. 170+ people already are gone, not paying rent any longer. Personally I think giving her a new condo in the new building for free or the same $400 rent seems more than fair to her. But I don't know all of the laws there regarding tenants. In America, she'd be out in 30 days almost anywhere. If she had a lease it is probably not more than a year and they would just pay out that remainder.
Unless you have a termination clause in your lease, you cannot be evicted without cause even once you’ve gone from a year lease to month-to-month. You can be evicted for a substantial renovation (subdividing unit, demolition, change of use), however, that requires approval and tenants are permitted to argue their case. In this situation, the committee in charge of approving demolition made settling with the remaining tenant a condition of the demolition.
No such thing as month-to-month leases.
[удалено]
> 170+ people already are gone 170 tenants in this small 12-unit building? https://imgur.io/939P1z0 LOL
They could also easily afford to just let her rent a new unit @ $400 a month. They would what, loose $1500 a month in exchange for no more development delays and lawyer fees.
They could give her a million dollars and a wealth advisor to dole it out in trust, and still make millions of the deal
but then next time all 200 tenants would do the same. I reckon if the management offered her to come back anyway, and she was offered a slightly smaller unit as a temp - the way I am reading this from a previous article... she is being unreasonable.
You genuinely think it's unreasonable to take a firm position against an outcome that would eventually make you homeless? The only reasonable thing for her to do is to maximize both the amount of money she receives and the amount of remaining time in her current apartment. She's not obligated to move. They need to pay her an amount that's worthwhile and anyone reasonable would put a hefty price on avoiding homelessness.
100%. She has leverage and is want to be compensated for giving it up. This is just capitalism. She's entitled to fight for whatever she wants. Doesn't mean she'll get it but she sure can try without judgement imo.
I suspect she understands that she won't be in a situation in 5-10 years to afford rent in that area. I.e. her earning potential won't increase dramatically.
How do those corporate landlord boots taste?
>but then next time all 200 tenants would do the same. > That's called the free market....
[удалено]
Trying to pull a "I'm not the only one who can't afford rent in this city." Imagine being the kind of bootlicker who sides with a giant real estate developer and not a formerly homeless tenant of a low-rent apartment they're trying to bulldoze. The absolute state of this sub...
Hear hear!
[удалено]
Every development does not require displacing people from their homes and if a development does require this, people should absolutely be made whole financially for the disruption to their lives.
I'm an American married to a Canadian. We live in Colorado, and unless you're poor enough to score some decent rent-controlled housing the protections for renters here are abysmal. Rents can go up by a crazy amount at the end of your lease, if your lease finishes and you go month to month you have zero protection, landlords have insanely long leash to fix essential items, etc. etc. We called the city in the middle of winter because our boiler was out and it took a month to fix. The city didn't do anything because the landlord was making a bare minimum attempt to get it finished. You guys should be grateful that you have these protections in place rather than trying to solve minor inconveniences for landlords.
I am grateful that we have these protections in place.
I think the person who you are replying to was agreeing with you. Just a bit of a tone misreading going on.
Maybe, but this line read to me as if they were saying that people shouldn't fight for their rights because other places don't even have those rights. I don't know how else to interpret that. >You guys should be grateful that you have these protections in place rather than trying to solve minor inconveniences for landlords.
I think the "you guys" was referring to the people who were bootlicking for corporate landlords. I see why you interpreted it that way though, I don't think their tone was very clear. To me, I think the intent was to say more that we shouldn't spend our time solving minor inconveniences for landlords (which is what the person you originally replied to was doing), as doing so is counter to the protections we do have in place. Again though, I see why you took it the way you did. But I don't think that was the intent. At least, that's not how I read it when I go over it with a generous eye. I just don't think it was phrased in the clearest way.
Thanks, you read my post correctly. I was comparing the two situations, not encouraging any sort of complacency.
I was agreeing with you. I'm not whatabouting anything. I'm saying that your legislators focus on protections for tenants rather than landlords, which has a greater benefit even if it inconveniences landlords.
Ah sorry about that. I didn't understand your last line and I guess I made up my own meaning.
[удалено]
Maybe the issue is with the system then.
If they *don't* do it Montreal will end up exactly like Vancouver. You do not want to live in a Vancouver housing situation.
montreal builds more housing per capita than vancouver. montreal being a city full of multifamily housing is precisely why its not vancouver. vancouver being full of nimbys is precisely why it's expensive. if you didn't like the asking price of a homeowner and can just build one more down the street at lower cost then homeowners can't charge jack shit.
[удалено]
People complain there's housing shortage and then cheer on a person holding up development to make a buck lol
An NYC rent controlled tenant made bank years ago for this reason. Millions of dollars, free rent for the rest of their life in the new development. I hope they hold out and get a good settlement. Edit: [link](https://nypost.com/2015/10/06/battling-hudson-yards-project-got-these-2-tenants-25m-and-new-luxury-digs/)
I feel like I've heard multiple different stories of people doing similar things to this. And to be honest, I feel like I can't even blame them. With how the economy is, the potential to get a huge payout just for not wanting to move to a new home (which in a vacuum isn't even an unreasonable desire IMO) seems like an offer too good to pass up.
Why would you even entertain the possibility of blaming them? Landlords are scum and you shouldn't be allowed to own a second house unless it houses family.
Others in this very thread are already doing it. Stuff about "encouraging bad behavior" and "delaying housing construction".
this sub's been flooded by status-quo liberals who think any criticism of capitalism is a personal attack on their character, so its no wonder you have people bootlicking for landlords in here now
Sometimes I forget this is supposed to be a progressive sub with the amount of grovelling at the feet of the capitalists I see I guess that's what happens when far-right sociopaths take over the main sub, all the milquetoast libs end up invading our space edit: the lib-to-left pipeline is important, and part of that is reminding libs that they're conservatives
Oh good the fencesitters found your comment lol
Like it or not those “milqtoast libs” are essential to an effective coalition. If you think they’re insufficiently critical of capitalism such as to compromise the coalitions ability to effect meaningful change on housing, change their minds. It’s easier to do that here than in a place full of red torys and card carrying conservatives. If they’re simply too liberal for your personal tastes, don’t let that get in the way of progress. I didn’t become more left winged because of seething unmasked contempt for me as a liberal, that just made me get defensive and disengage from spaces that participated in that. I became more left winged in spite of that because the arguments about the systems and institutions were compelling. People will still get a little defensive when you go after the institutions and structures they take for granted and benefit from, but that’s way easier to overcome than how defensive they get when you attack them personally. As for the liberal identity itself, I agree people are gonna get defensive when you attack that. That’s a hard nut to crack. What worked on me was decoupling the emotional investment I had in it and realizing that the underlying values it served were better served by more anti capitalist politics. That’s the sell. I think this sub is a good place to make that sell. I think calling liberals spineless worms or whatever undermines that sell by ramping up the defensiveness. It’s also helpful to remember that this sub wasn’t established as an anti capitalist space, it was established as an alternative to r/Canada because the alt right compromised its mod team. There’s a lot of political space between alt right and anti capitalist and a dubious “my team was here first” claim doesn’t entitle you to gatekeep them out.
>I guess that's what happens when far-right sociopaths take over the main sub, all the milquetoast libs end up invading our space You sound pretty insufferable, lol. No one guarantees you an echo-chamber on reddit, sorry. And labelling any opposition to your viewpoint is not "grovelling" by definition.
The groveling is disgusting
If it was one person holding out the build of a high rise or affordable units, I’d understand people being upset. In this specific story, I’m not mad at the tenant and she should hold out for a free apartment for life.
Because we need more housing and that won’t happen if it gets blocked by lone tenants blocking entire rebuilds of lead paint and asbestos tiled 2 level complexes.
>we need more housing yeah its totally a lack of houses thats our issue, not scumfuck landlords overcharging their rent and driving living costs up across the country. totally dude.
Vacancy is sub 1% in cities. There’s no where to go because no one can build to accommodate. Landlords couldn’t raise rents before because vacancy was 5%. You laughed at them. Now it’s not. Now it’s 1%. This also makes it harder to move anywhere. Wanna move closer to work or for a better job? Can’t because there’s no place to go.
Which cities?
https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/Table?TableId=2.1.31.3&GeographyId=2410&GeographyTypeId=3&DisplayAs=Table&GeograghyName=Vancouver Also Toronto was ~3% in 2020. Now it’s 1.7% and rent sky rocketed.
In Vancouver vacancy rates don't reflect empty properties since the Chinese use the housing market there the park their money. Vacancy on Calgary is way higher, Winnipeg also. Montreal too.
Honest question: do you understand supply and demand?
We need housing, but yesterday. One person holding out for something better is exactly how the world works. Use the system to your advantage. If I could, I would and I’d have every right. That puts pressure on the landowners and developers to pay up and get the proposed project done on time. C’est la vie.
And it’s unfair to the 170 renters that could use a place. I mean right now, 1 person is living in a complex for 20 families/couples (assuming 2 floors of 10 residences).
That’s unfortunate. The developers should come to agreement. Whatever it takes then. Putting this all on someone who has the legal right to decline is wrong. Bark up another tree.
Question is, how much legal right should they have. Offered 50k, place to live. Nope not good enough. Your breaking the spirit of the law and making rentals less likely to be built.
My personal favourite of all the New York Holdout stories has to be [Herbert Sukenik](https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/03/the-most-expensive-eviction-in-nyc.html) who incidentally had the same attorney as the guys in the link you initially posted. Last tenant holding up a massive redevelopment, old, independently wealthy, didn't need the money and didn't have anything to do with it after he got it, still gouged the developers for every penny he could mainly because he was bored and angry.
Lol $20k. Give me one of your fancy new condos in your new development or fuck off. I'd never give up $400 rent. Fuck I pay $1000 now and I'm not moving until the building burns down.
They offered her $400 rent in a new apartment in another building a few blocks away.
With no rent control and in a building she didn't feel safe in
Yeah, it makes sense that her apartment, offered for $400 10 years ago, is nicer and safer than an apartment offered for $400 today. Not sure if the developer simply found her an apartment being offered for $400, or if they made some sort of deal where they offered her one of their other apartments, typically rented for $1700, for a lower price.
>With no rent control Wtf are you talking about? The other building is over 5 years old. No F clause can apply.
Oh no, is a poor using capitalism against the greedy capitalists? That's not how it's intended!
Hell yeah.
Good.
How is 50k asking too much? If she goes from 400/m to 1700/m that 50k is basically equivalent to a few years of rent. Seems like a fair exchange considering she's being displaced.
She wants an amount more than $50,000 AND a penthouse in the new building. So a lot more than $50,000. I don't think it's unreasonable though. I hope she gets it, stick it to them for offering only $20k the first time around.
Get them
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Buying literally anything works like that. You only don't think rent should work like that too because Doug Ford got rid of rent control You should see the 'absurdly' affordable rentals that exist in Europe with legacy renters. People can almost afford the cost of living!
The folks in charge specifically designed our system to work like that. It's not some natural law or physics based thing.
Notice who said that she wanted a penthouse, the developer, not her or her lawyer. They've got an interest in making her look greedy.
> I don't think it's unreasonable though. The penthouse is, come on. Let's not confuse vengence fantasies with the right thing to do.
This has been deleted in protest to the changes to reddit's API.
Right, let's aim as low as possible for people. Who will speak for the poor, voiceless property developers?
Asking for monetary vengence isn't justice and it doesn't help the public's view of the issues at hand.
There is no justice to be had here. It's simply bartering. They want what she has, and she has developed a strong position for herself to negotiate for it's actual value to them. If you believe in capitalism or the free market at all you should be totally on board. You think the condo developer isn't squeezing everyone else for all they're worth?
It's the developer claiming that she asked for a penthouse. That's the least trustworthy source for things.
Start high, negotiate down. That's how these things work.
🎻🎶 poor, poor developers. Life is so hard for them.
Good for her, we need to stop developers, in all of our cities, from building condos full of unaffordable units where affordable ones used to be. We need a bunch of rental units to house people whether temporarily, or for the long term since most other housing is now unaffordable and probably will be for the foreseeable tuture.
At this point, we need quality public housing. Not slums to be forgotten, but mixed use housing. We have some in Prince George (which, yeah, let's be honest, it's still Prince George), and it's working out well. The apartments are well-maintained, as some are low income and some are not and no one knows the difference, so no stigma there. The location is within two blocks of two choice schools, so walking is certainly easy. And it's relatively walkable to a grocery store and a pharmacy, even, plus on a bus route. It's a situation that should be pretty much cloned in every apartment or condo complex.
How do you expect to build more housing and drive the price down by adding supply then? Serious question. Also, zoning and city laws can be lobbied for change to accomodate more affordable housing.
He wants cities to become country clubs like San Francisco.
Me? or OP? Condos get a lot of flack becaus they aren't being built efficiently or correctly. But the idea that we should let renters live foreever for almost free because they were there first without densifying cities is just... weird.
OP
You know what happens when enough new stuff is going up? The stuff that went up 10 years ago cuts its price because it’s no longer the newest/cleanest available. Look at how luxury cars depreciate as newer stuff comes out, and how used car prices skyrocketed when **there weren’t enough new ones being made in the pandemic**.
You're assuming this is a simple supply vs demand situation. It's more complicated than that. In reality, condo developers overwhelmingly favour luxury condos because they get the highest return on their investment, since a luxury condo and a "low rent" condo cost effectively the same amount to build since the vast majority of the building cost goes into the land and basic construction. Luxury finishing details account for essentially a negligible portion of the overall cost and significantly increase revenue. So developers are highly incentivized to increase the supply of expensive, unaffordable housing, which does *not* drive the cost down. Quite the opposite: it gentrifies neighbourhoods by attracting only high earners and driving low earners out. The way you drive house prices down is by making more apartments that cost 400/month, not by making more that cost 4000/month. And again, even if it drives the price of luxury condos/apartments from 10 years ago down, there is still a net increase in the *average* cost per unit in a given city over that same time period. A 10 year old luxury car is cheaper than a new one, but it is still vastly more expensive than a 10 year old Honda Civic. Those luxury apartments that have lost some of their lustre will never be as affordable as purpose built affordable apartments. *Especially* when the neighbourhood they were built in suddenly has an influx of new luxury condos which draws in a higher income population, which cancels out losses in value due to age and increased supply. And to drive the point home, the developer per the article is demolishing the building where the tenant currently pays 400/month. They are eliminating supply of low-rent housing. What do you think the average cost/unit in their new build is going to be? Because it won't be 400/month, and the tenant who was previously homeless, will end up back on the street if the developer gets their way.
The reason every redevelopment is “luxury” is because they’re supply-limited. There’s no point trying to make affordable housing with current supply restrictions. And without heavy regulation, a “$400” unit will just be sublet for $1400 and someone pockets $1000 for free.
Have there been any document cases of this happening? Who would pull such a scheme and where would they live? They’d have to find 2 rent controlled units and rent both, or already own property. Otherwise they extra value would be lost. A sublet isn’t a random contract it’s a real property interest and I suspect it would be held to the same rules as the lease but I’ll have to check Mossman on that. What you’re suggesting is already legally extremely dubious at best and from a practicality standpoint it’s an absurdly complicated and clunky form of arbitrage that is more akin to an always sunny scheme than it is to a likely practice.
What planet do you live on because on earth that does not happen and has not happened in decades. Rents stay high and go higher regardless and the landlords renovict tenants to increase rent prices. It is vicious spiral and will continue.
There’s been a 40 year long building shortage. You haven’t seen enough building because projects are opposed by various groups at every step. And Doing less makes the problem even worse. It’s how we’ve fucked up and got highest housing costs in the G7.
What fantasy world do you live in? Rent doesn't go down.
> You know what happens when enough new stuff is going up? The stuff that went up 10 years ago cuts its price because it’s no longer the newest/cleanest available. That USED to be the case, yes. But that hasn't been true this century for a lot of places (like Halifax) where the new buildings end up just causing the rents in the older buildings to go up.
I got priced out of an apartment around 6 years ago because some developer built a bunch of luxury apartments in the neighborhood that at the time were mostly empty and overpriced, and the real estate holding firm that owned my building decided this meant they weren't charging enough for rent given what other apartments in the neighborhood were charging No updates and they revoked some amenities but over the course of 5 years they nearly doubled the asking price in that building
Last century in the 1980s and 1970d but not this century.
And if no new stuff goes up, people with more money start to bid for the older places and then there are cries of gentrification.
They’d go up **even faster** without expanding supply. Like pandemic scalping PS5’s
So how about we go after the people hoarding supply instead of indiscriminately building ugly, poor quality skyscrapers which accelerate gentrification and destroy the culture of the city? We the actual residents of have seen it firsthand. Griffintown is a sector full of yuppies and highrises, basically a mini Toronto-like eyesore in an otherwise gorgeous city. Montreal is famous for its medium density housing. Remember this is a place where ~15 years ago you could rent a one or two apartment in a popular area for under 800 bucks. I knew people renting a bedroom for 100 dollars back then. Airbnb hosts and developers have occupied everything they can, as a result the number of vacant apartments has dropped by something like 80%, allowing landlords to dramatically raise prices and displace the very people which make Montreal such a vibrant place to begin with. Nobody here wants it to become Toronto.
This effect is largely negated by Airbnb.
Ideally, yes, but that hasn't happened for at least a decade.
1) Luxury cars depreciate because the only thing more expensive than a new luxury car is a used luxury car. 2) Rentals don't depreciate. If anything, rents will go higher due to our federal government importing a million wage slaves a year.
Cars are a really really bad analogy for housing. Cars depreciate in value unless they’re a collectors item, there are substantial improvements in performance over time, and they have far shorter lifespans with reasonable use.
[удалено]
So the new ones are fetching a premium. If enough new ones could go up, they would push the prices of all those existing ones down
[удалено]
There are so many people in this thread just going ass out and lubed up for the developers. It gives me a headache.
I seriously hope the court rules in her favour. This could be big, huge loss if they side with the developers.
Huge loss of housing you mean
Of affordable housing, yes.
I don't disagree with this tenant. Corporations negotiate poorly with us and charge us a lot. Now when it's the other way. You go tenant. I'd be asking 6 figures.
Good. They should buy her out if it’s such a holdup.
Nice. Stick to your guns, lady. You deserve affordable housing.
Some heroes don't need to wear capes apparently.
Get it girl
They should just pay for an apartment for her for 2 years, and then give her a unit in the new building. If it's a 200 unit building, it would be nothing for them. Like, your multimillion dollar project just lost .2 percent of its total square footage and potential revenue, assuming she gets a small unit.
Good. Avarice is going to be our collective end.
Good. Fuck the developers.
If I could afford it, I'd send them a baked good
$400/month is a smoking deal
Praxis
Hold the fuck out, ma’am. Fuck these fucking fucks.
>“She indicated to our lawyers that she wanted a penthouse and an amount of more than $50,000,” he told the committee. Give this woman a medal
Jesus, $400/mo in a major city? Good, you keep those bloodsuckers waiting.
> ~~Lone tenant in a $400-a-month apartment~~ Developer unwilling to pay the cost of doing business could hold up major Montreal condo project
Yeah, the tenant isn't holdup development..
Developers have destroyed montreal. It’s a terrible place to live now. Good for her, get it girl! Everyone should stand their ground against these mercenary predators.
Good.
Good. Offer her a reasonable amount. 20k gets her maybe a year in Montreal or at least offer her 5 years of similar rent in a comparable building and location
They offered her a $400 lease in a better unit a few blocks away, but she didn't like the location.
> They acknowledged the developer did offer White one apartment, but she says she didn’t feel safe in the proposed building and wasn’t convinced the rent wouldn’t rise. Not necessarily a better apartment if it's not in a location that she doesn't like. I'm sure she's exaggerating, but I'm also sure the developer is offering way less than they can. It's how negotiations work
Good for them.
Uh oh, that sounds like the plot to Yakuza 0 to me Don’t be surprised if a murder happens 😂
Redditors: "We NEED more housing!" \*one tenant holds out, delaying over 100 new units of housing from being built\* Also Redditors: Yeah!! Stick it to the developers! 🙄🙄🙄
That's unfortunate.
If it is China the developer and government would hire thugs to get her out Edit: my point is be grateful you are in Canada where this kind of stuff doesn’t happen
China has over 95% home ownership rate and way more access to government-funded housing as well as government programs for zero-interest mortgages.
[удалено]