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ARE TENANTS IN B.C. SECOND CLASS CITIZENS?
Is the regulation by which landlords pass on capital expenses to tenants fair?

by Carol Reardon
(click images to enlarge)

Three years ago, Thea Bracewell, a tenant of 1906 Barclay Street, received a notice on her door that her landlord had applied to the Rental Tenancy Branch (RTB) to recover over $200,000 from its tenants for major repairs to the building, including repaving of a small parking lot and the replacement of windows and exterior wall cladding. She was not expecting this. She was not aware that in 2021 the BC Government made changes to allow landlords to charge additional rent increases to recover costs incurred on the maintenance, repair and upgrade of the building. The experiences that followed eventually led her to co-found a tenants group in the West End called "Repeal the ARI-C Working Group. "

What is the ARI-C and where did it come from?

On July 1, 2021, the BC Ministry of Housing changed the Residential Tenancy Act and Regulation to allow B.C. landlords to apply to the Residential Tenancy Branch to recover the costs of building repairs and maintenance from their tenants in the form of an additional rent increase. If approved, these expenditures are added to tenants' annual allowable rent increase, which is usually pegged to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This ability to charge "Additional Rent Increases for Capital Expenditures" is generally referred to as the "ARI-C".

Bay Tower at Davie and denman is one of many buildings where tenants have had rents increased to cover landlord’s capital expenses.

The  ARI-C resulted from the 2018 BC Rental Housing Task Force, whose mandate was to consult with public stakeholders and make recommendations to modernize the Province's residential tenancy regulatory scheme. The Task Force recommended dropping the previous two percent additional rent increase available to landlords every year to contribute to building maintenance and repair, and replace it with an ARI-C scheme similar to the approach adopted in Ontario and Manitoba.

 At the time, the ARI-C was expected to "strike a balance between keeping rent more affordable, while ensuring needed repairs are completed to maintain and improve rental housing." But how is this working out in practice?  

How is the ARI-C Affecting West End Tenants?

The West End has several features that make it a likely focal point for ARI-C applications. The West End is one the most densely populated neighbourhoods in Canada, with a population of about 45,000.  It has a vibrant mix of residents, many of whom reside in high-rise rental apartment buildings built in the 1960s and 1970s. According to the most recently available data, about 80 percent of West End residents are renters. With our ample supply of rental apartment buildings, the West End has historically served as a significant repository of relatively affordable rental housing within the context of the Vancouver housing market, attracting significant populations of people living on modest incomes, especially young people, seniors and newcomers.

But times have changed. The housing crisis has caused rents to escalate significantly across the country and the West End is no exception. An August 2025 survey conducted by Rentals.ca found that 34 percent of Canadian renters reported that they spend more than half of their after-tax income on rent (see Related Links below). Forty-nine percent of younger renters (ages 18-24) reported doing so. Vancouver consistently ranks as one of the most expensive rental markets in the country despite a recent decline in market rents.

As of March 2026, the median rent for all bedroom counts and property types in West End, Vancouver, BC is $2,400. This is +26 percent, or $500, higher than the national average, according to Zumper.ca. The average market rent for a studio apartment in the West End was $2,120.00; a one-bedroom was $2,300.00 and a two-bedroom was $3,420.00. Only one percent of available apartments were renting for under $1,500.00.

While BC has a form of rent control that limits the annual allowable rent increase that landlords may charge existing tenants, landlords are allowed to charge whatever the market will bear once a unit is vacated, creating an incentive for landlords to make use of legal mechanisms to evict or squeeze tenants out of their ostensibly rent-controlled units.

Another present reality for tenants living in older rental apartment buildings is that some are now owned by corporate landlords or real estate investment trusts (REITs) whose job is to maximize profits for their shareholders or unit holders. Private landlords seeking to maximize profits are not a new thing. It is a business after all. What is a modern twist is the introduction of owners of purpose built apartment buildings whose core business is not housing per se, but managing a broad real estate investment portfolio on behalf of investors who expect to receive a significant return on investment.

In a recent CBC article, a representative of this new breed of landlord observed that older rental buildings like the ones here in the West End are an attractive investment. While they may need a bit of fixing up, investors are able to avoid the high construction costs associated with new construction.

Does the ARI-C Strike the Right Balance Between "Keeping Rent more Affordable, While Ensuring Needed Repairs are Completed to Maintain and Improve Rental Housing?

LandlordBC vice-president Hunter Boucher.

To the extent that the ARI-C was a political compromise to drop the annual two percent additional rent increase on all tenants while still providing landlords of older buildings with an incentive to perform maintenance and repairs, the Ministry of Housing viewed the ARI-C as a win/win solution at the time of its adoption.

The West End Journal (TWEJ) asked Hunter Boucher, the vice-president of operations for LandlordBC, to comment on the pros and cons of the ARI-C from the perspective of residential landlords and property managers in BC. He informed us that LandlordBC members were generally satisfied with the ARI-C and that it was serving its intended purpose by allowing landlords to recoup their capital expenditure costs, especially in the case of aging buildings whose upkeep is not insignificant. He said that rent increases pegged to the consumer price index were not keeping up with the costs that landlords incur, and that the ARI-C allows landlords to plan for capital expenditures in a way that is predictable and reliable.

TWEJ also interviewed several West End tenants who had been through at least one ARI-C rent increase application. Their reaction to the ARI-C mechanism and process was much more critical. Rents in the West End for those who have been living in older 1960s/1970s era buildings for an extended period of time have been shielded from the full impact of the significant increases in market rents by the rent control provisions of the Residential Tenancy Act. As seen above, that doesn't mean that rents are cheap, especially for seniors living on a fixed income or young people new to the job market. Not everyone receives a Consumer Price Index increase in their income every year. What may be a "modest" ARI-C rent increase to some tenants may squeeze others out of their apartments over time; all of which raises the question: what happens to tenants who are paying below market rent that get hit with an ARI-C increase they cannot afford?

Should Landlords have to Demonstrate an Inability to Pay?

A concern frequently raised by tenants was that landlords should not be allowed to charge additional rent increases above the annual CPI rent increase to pay for building repairs and maintenance unless the landlord demonstrates that it cannot afford to pay for building repairs and maintenance out of the base rent they receive. Steve Orner, a 22-year West End tenant whose landlord applied to the Residential Tenancy Branch to recover extensive building improvement costs, put it this way: "How is the landlord's ability to pay for capital expenditures not a point of consideration in the ARI-C process?"

It's somewhat unusual for governments to compel private businesses to open up their books in a market-based economy like ours. A good example where that does happen is our regulation of the price the public pays for electricity. Because electricity is recognized as a public necessity, the BC Utilities Commission regulates what costs can be passed on to public consumers to make sure they aren't being taken advantage of by electricity generators and distributors. The Utilities Commission also has experts on staff to assess and advise the Utilities Commission whether applications for price increases from public utilities should be approved.

Housing is also a public necessity. In 2019, the Federal Government passed the National Housing Strategy Act that recognizes the right to adequate housing as a basic human right for everyone in Canada. The BC Government has not yet taken this step. In any case, the goal of creating a society where everyone has access to adequate housing is still a work in progress. It is worth noting that the Manitoba equivalent of the BC ARI-C requires landlords to show that the regular annual rent increase isn't enough to cover their capital expenditure costs before an additional rent increase is approved.

Other forms of housing such as strata properties are more heavily regulated than private landlords when it comes to requiring them to maintain contingency funds for repairs, capital plans and depreciation reports, and owners have access to this information. It's worth considering whether landlords should be required to follow similar rules.

Are Landlords Being Over-Compensated Under the ARI-C?

Irrespective of whether landlords should or shouldn't have to open their books to recover capital costs, tenants interviewed by TWEJ raised the concern that the ARI-C is designed to effectively over-compensate landlords.

One issue raised by the tenants is that the scope of the cost recovery from tenants allowed by the ARI-C scheme is excessive. On the one hand, the scope of the work that is recoverable under the ARI-C scheme is extremely broad; on the other hand, landlords are allowed to recover 100 percent of the cost of this work, despite the fact that any appreciation in the value of the property, and ability to charge higher rents as a result of these improvements, all go to the landlord.  

The Residential Tenancy Regulation allows landlords to recover "eligible capital expenditures" which are defined as "the installation, repair or replacement of a major system or major component" for one of the following reasons:

  • Compliance with landlords' legal obligations under section 32 of the RTA to maintain residential properties in a state of decoration and repair that complies with health, safety and housing standards required by law and to make it suitable for occupation by tenants.

  • The major system or component has failed, is malfunctioning, is inoperative or is at the end of its useful life; or

  • To achieve a reduction in energy use or greenhouse gas emissions or an improvement in the security of the residential property.

Landlords must apply for recovery of costs for an eligible capital expenditure within 18-months after the work is completed, and the work must not be expected to recur for at least five years. Landlords are allowed to submit subsequent ARI-C applications for future capital expenditures so long as they are 18 months apart.

The term "capital expenditure" is a well-understood term for those who practice tax law or tax accounting. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) allows businesses to write off business expenses under two sets of rules; one that applies to  "current expenses" (or operating expense) and another that applies to "capital expenditures". If a building cost is a "current expense" the landlord must claim it on its taxes in the current year. If the cost is a capital expenditure, the landlord must depreciate that cost over a specified number of years.

Rather than adopt the CRA criteria for deciding whether a building cost is a capital expenditure or a current expense, the Residential Tenancy Branch chose to reinvent the wheel by creating a bespoke scheme that is a simulacrum of the CRA scheme but does not explicitly follow it in practice. The result is a regulatory scheme that is vague and incoherent. Ironically, the Policy Guidelines meant to clarify the scheme tend to make it more incomprehensible.

The inclusion of repairs and maintenance of a major system or component within the definition of an eligible capital expenditure raises the question: what, if anything, is excluded from the definition of eligible capital expenditures?

The Residential Tenancy Branch has tried to carve out some repairs and maintenance as not being recoverable as an eligible capital expenditure by stating in its ARI-C policy guidelines that "minor" or "routine" repairs and maintenance of a major system or component "should not" (not must not) be approved as an eligible capital expenditure, and gives examples of expenditures that are not significant enough to qualify as an eligible capital expenditure:

  • Repairing a leaky faucet or pipe under a sink;

  • Routine wall painting, and patching dents and holes in drywall.

  • Replacing filters on an HVAC system.

  • Carpet cleaning.

  • Resetting an elevator door because it was held open too long.

  • Annual servicing of hot water heater.

steve orner.

The policy guidelines also provide that cosmetic upgrades may qualify as eligible capital expenditures if they are part of an installation, repair or replacement of a major system or component. Arbitrators sometimes allow landlords to bundle together miscellaneous repairs, maintenance and/or upgrades and submit them together as one "project" - often under one big invoice - instead of assessing each expenditure individually. As West End tenant Steve Orner commented, at the end of the day, "it seems like almost nothing is off limits for passing building costs along to tenants."

The ARI-C approval process allows  tenants to challenge a landlord's application to recover its capital expenditures. But the scope of recovery that landlords are entitled to under the ARI-C scheme is so broad, tenants are rarely successful. Lasse Hvitved is a legal advocate at the Tenant Resources and Advisory Centre (TRAC), a non-profit organization that provides education, assistance and representation to tenants in BC across a broad range of issues. He has fielded many calls about ARI-C applications from around the province and has assisted West End tenants to respond to ARI-C rent increases. In his experience, most ARI-C applications are fully approved and he is only aware of two applications that have been dismissed entirely.

West End Repeal ARI-C working group co-founder Zachary Coumont.

TWEJ did come across one unicorn: Zachary Coumont lives in a West End apartment tower on Nelson Street. Shortly after his building was purchased by Realstar the new owner conducted extensive renovations and applied to the Residential Tenancy Branch for approval to recover all of these costs from the tenants. Coumont and his roommate put in hundreds of hours between the two of them and managed to reduce the original amount claimed by the landlord by about 40 percent. Some of the items that were deemed ineligible included installing a new gym, landscaping upgrades, and a 13.8 percent deduction to the total claim to account for the fact that commercial tenants in the building also used common property such as the car parkade.

If nothing else, tenant participation in the approval process does at least help ensure that landlords don't include expenditures in their applications that obviously shouldn't be there, such as invoices from another building they own.

Why should Tenants Pay for Energy Efficiency Retrofits?

Tenants also questioned the fairness of the province allowing landlords to recover capital expenditures expected to reduce the energy use or greenhouse gas emissions of a building. Tenants interviewed recognized that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and energy conservation are important societal goals. Their concern was whether tenants should be required to shoulder 100 percent of the cost involved with energy retrofitting a building they don't own to achieve this societal goal, especially when the direct benefits of these improvements generally go to the landlord.  

Why are Landlords Allowed to Keep Tax Deductions and Tax Credits for Capital Expenditures Recovered From their Tenants?

Tenants objected to the Residential Tenancy Branch's policy that landlords who claim federal or provincial tax credits, tax deductions or capital cost allowances on their income tax in relation to "eligible capital expenditures" do not have to pass these savings on to tenants, even though tenants are the ones paying 100 percent of the costs of these capital expenditures.

Does the ARI-C Formula for Converting Approved Capital Expenditures into an Additional Rent Increase Compensate Landlords in Excess of the Approved Capital Expenditures?

Once the Residential Tenancy Branch approves a landlord's capital expenditures for recovery from its tenants, this dollar amount is converted into a rent increase using a formula set out in the Residential Tenancy Regulation. The formula goes like this:

  • The total amount of the approved capital expenditures is divided by the number of units in the building.

  • This number is then divided by 120 to arrive at the additional dollar rent increase required to recover the landlord's total amount capital expenditures within 10 years.

  • The landlord then calculates what a three percent additional rent increase on top of the next annual allowable rent would amount to for each unit.

  • The landlord is allowed under the Regulation to add whichever is the lower of these two amounts at the time of the next annual rent increase.

In other words, landlords are not allowed to add more than an additional three percent rent increase above the annual allowable CPI-pegged rent increase in any one year to recover their capital expenditures; but, if the landlord is not able to recover all of its capital expenditures in year one under this formula, the regulation allows landlords to carry over any amount it was unable to recover with the first percent increase and repeat this calculation for up to another two years, potentially adding up to nine percent in additional rent increases over three years, not counting the compounding that happens with each rent increase.

Trent McLaughlin.

This isn't a hypothetical situation. Trent McLaughlin is a West End resident living at Bay Tower, a rental building formerly owned by Hollyburn Properties Ltd, but sold in 2021 to InterRent Real Estate Investment Trust and Crestpoint Real Estate Investments Ltd. The building was renovated by the new landlords in 2021. Almost all of these capital expenditures were approved by the Residential Tenancy. McLaughlin's share of the eligible capital expenditures could not be fully recovered by the first three percent additional rent increase, so a second additional three percent increase was added the following year; and they expect a third additional increase to recover the remaining amount.

Another concern expressed by tenants is that the ARI-C approach to capital cost recovery takes a lump sum dollar amount and converts it into a percentage rent increase that continues indefinitely, even after the capital expenditure in question is fully recovered. As tenant Steve Orner puts it: "A rent increase for capital expenditures that goes on in perpetuity, even after the capital expenditures are paid for, is simply a rent increase under the guise of capital recovery. At some point, an ARI-C additional rent increase stops being capital recovery and is just a rent increase."

A worst case scenario of the impact of the ari-c on annual rent increases.
(click image to enlarge)

Zachary Coumont, who co-founded the West End Repeal ARI-C Working Group after his experiences with the ARI-C process, developed a graph for their website (see Related Links below) that demonstrates how the ARI-C affects a tenant's base rent over time if a landlord maximizes its entitlement to apply for capital cost recovery every 18 months:

This graph portrays the worst case scenario for tenants, but it also captures the inflationary impact that the ARI-C has on annual rent increases.

Is the ARI-C Hearing Process Fair to Tenants?

Technically speaking, the director of the Residential Tenancy Branch is the person with the authority to approve additional rent increases under the ARI-C provisions. In practice, these applications are referred to the same dispute resolution process that applies to other Residential Tenancy Branch applications. As described on the Residential Tenancy Branch website: "The landlord and tenant attend a hearing, and each share testimony and evidence with an arbitrator who makes a decision both parties must follow."

When the Residential Tenancy Branch receives an ARI-C application from a landlord, the application is set down for a one-hour telephone conference hearing. Tenants are provided with a "Notice of Dispute Resolution Proceeding Package" that lists the date and time of the hearing, instructions on how to connect to the conference call, a copy of the landlord's application, and (possibly) the landlord's evidence.

ARI-C hearings are conducted in accordance with the Residential Tenancy Branch Rules of Procedure - a 49-page document that sets out the procedural rules tenants and landlords must follow in order to participate in an ARI-C dispute resolution hearing. On paper, landlords are required to include "any documents in their possession that relate to the maintenance of a major system or component that was repaired or replaced" along with its ARI-C application, but the landlord may submit further evidence so long as it is received at least 30 days before the hearing. Tenants must submit their evidence at least 15 days before the hearing, which means tenants may have only 15 days to research, prepare and serve the landlord with their documents.

We asked Hunter Boucher about the experience of LandlordBC members with the ARI-C application process. He reported that, initially, it was taking too long for landlords to recover their costs from tenants; but LandlordBC "worked closely with the Residential Tenancy Branch to tighten up timelines" and the application process is now running smoothly from landlords' perspective.  When asked whether small landlords were finding the process difficult or confusing, he explained that members of LandlordBC are well-supported by his organization.

Tenants interviewed for this article reported a different experience with the ARI-C process.

None of the tenants were aware of the ARI-C provisions before they received their first ARI-C notice of application. While tenants are generally aware of the annual CPI-pegged annual allowable increase, ARI-C increases are sporadic and there is no requirement for landlords to notify tenants that work being performed on their building is likely to result in an additional rent increase stacked on top of the annual CPI-pegged allowable rent increase. The Residential Tenancy Branch standard lease agreement talks about rent increases, but it doesn't specifically mention the possibility of "additional" rent increases.

Tenants described feeling overwhelmed by the task of educating themselves about ARI-C process, gathering evidence, and preparing submissions all within short timelines and with limited access to expertise. Landlords who apply for the recovery of costs under the ARI-C are obviously aware of the ARI-C process and have 18 months from the completion of the work to prepare and file their ARI-C applications.

West End Repeal ARI-C working group co-founder thea bracewell.

Thea Bracewell, another co-founder of the West End Repeal ARI-C Working Group, summarized her experience with the ARI-C process this way: "It was an extremely stressful and deeply unfair process that has made daily life in Vancouver even more unaffordable for myself and my neighbours. We’re not lawyers or building engineers and yet we were expected to defend ourselves against a lawyer for the landlord without access to any of the building information that we needed to dispute the process."

TWEJ spoke with tenant rights practitioners to obtain a systemic perspective on the problems identified by the tenants. 

Lasse Hvitved, from TRAC,  pointed out that a significant percentage of BC landlords are small and their ARI-C applications are not complicated. There are fewer issues respecting tenant access to information and tenants are more likely to be capable of responding to the landlord's application without the assistance of experts and legal representation.

Lasse Hvitved of The Tenant Resource & Advisory Centre.

At the other end of the spectrum, however, are the ARI-C applications made by the owners of high rise apartment buildings, especially after extensive renovations have occurred. These applications can involve hundreds of pages of documents. The Residential Tenancy Branch uses the same dispute resolution process in both cases.

Hvitved explained that, by happenstance, the hearing process was more manageable for tenants when it was first adopted because the Residential Tenancy Branch had a significant backlog of all applications waiting to be set down for hearing and the wait times were long. When the process was expedited to address the backlog, mandatory preliminary disclosure hearings were eliminated and timelines were shortened. Mr. Hvitved said the Residential Tenancy Branch deserved some credit for reducing average hearing wait times, but added it was "not without costs" to the fairness of the process in some cases.

In the case of complex ARI-C applications involving high-rise towers, the shortening of the timelines appears to have created a perfect storm for tenants by exacerbating other problems with the ARI-C scheme: the technical complexity of the financial and engineering issues raised by the regulatory scheme; the complexity of the Residential Tenancy Branch procedural rules; the expectation that tenants will be able to organize and coordinate amongst themselves in response to an ARI-C application, and the limited access to legal representation and other experts.

NexGen Litigation founder dawn macgregor.

Dawn MacGregor, is a Vancouver- based civil litigation lawyer and founder of NexGen Litigation and has experience advising clients on residential tenancy and housing related disputes, including matters arising from major capital work and renovations.MacGregor provided TWEJ with general observations about the ARI-C process based on her experience, with the caveat that her comments should not be construed as legal advice and that tenants facing an ARI-C application should seek legal advice specific to their circumstances.

MacGregor observed that complex ARI-C applications present a "class-action-like" cost dilemma for tenants where the total cost of the capital expenditures may be quite large, but these costs are spread over a large number of tenants and over a period of time:

"For many individual tenants, the amount at stake simply doesn't justify the cost of hiring a lawyer or experts to challenge an ARI-C application. Even when an ARI-C is approved, the rent increase for any one tenant may be relatively modest - a few percentage points of rent spread over a few years. On its own, that rarely makes it economical for a single tenant to retain a lawyer for full representation, review of hundreds of pages of documents and/or hire qualified experts to assess and testify regarding the technical systems and maintenance records."

Another systemic issue identified by MacGregor (and complained about by the tenants interviewed) is the express stipulation in the Residential Tenancy Regulation that tenants bear a "burden of proof" to persuade the arbitrator that the capital expenditures performed by the landlord were made necessary by the landlord's failure to properly maintain and repair the building.  

MacGregor explains the difficulty that this reverse onus provision presents to tenants:

"One of the central issues in ARI-C cases is whether the repairs or replacements were required because of inadequate repair or maintenance on the part of the landlord. The Residential Tenancy Branch explicitly places the onus on tenants to prove that an otherwise eligible capital expenditure is ineligible on that basis. That being said, delayed or inadequate maintenance is not something many tenants are realistically positioned to assess, particularly where the relevant systems are technical, inaccessible, or out of sight.

The Residential Tenancy Branch provides guidelines about the expected lifespan of major building systems, but those are only guidelines. They can be rebutted by evidence relating to (amongst other categories) environmental conditions, maintenance history, installation, and usage — information that typically sits almost entirely with the landlord. While landlords are required to disclose maintenance and other records in their possession, tenants often have no practical way of knowing whether those records are complete or what may be missing without expert help."

Hvitved observed that the burden of proof is generally born by the applicant unless the respondent is in a unique position to have access to the necessary evidence. In this case, the Residential Tenancy Branch, for reasons unknown, shifted the burden of proof from the applicant landlords, who are the ones who have access to the relevant evidence, to tenants who have little or no access to it.

Another major complaint raised by tenants was the failure of their landlords to provide proper disclosure of documents and other forms of relevant evidence. For example, the Residential Tenancy Branch procedural rules provide that landlords "must" provide the relevant maintenance records; and "should" provide other relevant documents. Residential Tenancy Branch arbitrators have the authority to issue a summons to require landlords to produce these documents but regularly decline to do so.  Hvitved told us that in his experience landlords provide maintenance records about ten percent of the time, and that arbitrators often proceed without these documents being provided to tenants.

MacGregor summed up the process this way: " At the end of the day, tenants may be required to contribute to the cost of major capital work on property they do not own and do not control - often without the kind of advance visibility that would allow them to meaningfully assess the decision." 

Is there Room to Improve the ARI-C Process?

TWEJ invited Lasse Hvitved to share any ideas he had about how the ARI-C could be changed to create a more level playing field for landlords and tenants. Hvitved observed that there was "no compelling reason to ignore the need for justice to expedite the process" and identified changes that could significantly improve the fairness of the ARI-C process:

  • Bifurcate the ARI-C process by designing an enhanced ARI-C process with longer timelines and better procedural guard rails for ARI-C applications over $35,000. 

  • Give landlords the burden of proof to show that the capital expenditures they seek to recover from tenants were not made necessary by their own failure to properly maintain the building;  

  • Ensure that Residential Tenancy Branch arbitrators have the skills and use the procedural tools they already have to meet accepted standards of procedural fairness and natural justice;

  • Make the scheme simpler, clearer and easier to administer by replacing the existing complicated scheme with a simplified check list of what is an eligible capital expenditure.

TWEJ asked the Ministry of Housing whether it would consider conducting a review of the ARI-C . The Ministry replied that it had no current plans to make any changes to the ARI-C.

TWEJ also asked West End MLA Spencer Chandra-Herbert, what he thought about the value to West End residents of conducting a review of the ARI-C. He responded by saying that he believes that “the ARI-C needs review and changes to make it fairer, and continues to speak with the Housing Ministry alongside constituents to share that view.”

Is Tinkering with the ARI-C Good Enough?

As you can tell from the name, members of the West End Repeal ARI-C Working Group believe that ARI-C is too broken to be fixed by tinkering with it. But that raises the question: what would take its place?

If the tenants are right and landlords are being overcompensated by the ARI-C, would the world fall apart if the government just got rid of it? Should the governments regulate large private landlords in a manner similar to strata properties and require them to set money aside in a contingency fund? 

With so many West End tenants already living close to the tipping point of affordability, perhaps the government should consider purchasing some of the older buildings in the West End and converting them into co-ops or non-profit housing. If it's cheaper for REITs to buy older apartment buildings and fix them up rather than buy new ones, perhaps the government should look into this too.

Carol Reardon is a longtime resident of the West End, an administrative lawyer (non-practising) and a board member of the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre. 

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