Starting next summer, Toronto landlords will need to apply for a licence before evicting a tenant to renovate a unit, according to a new city council bylaw approved and championed by Mayor Olivia Chow and two allied councillors.
Chow ran on a pro-renter platform in the 2023 mayoral byelection. This week’s council meeting has seen some of her key commitments approved by council. At Wednesday’s meeting, councillors approved the mayor’s plan to spur purpose-built rental housing construction through tax and fee cuts.
The new “renoviction” (a joining of the words renovation and eviction) bylaw comes into effect on July 31, 2025. It was modelled on a similar bylaw in Hamilton, and several other Ontario cities are following suit.
A renoviction occurs when a landlord uses renovating the unit as an illegitimate reason to end a tenancy.
To get a Rental Renovation Licence, landlords must pay $700 per unit and obtain both a building permit and a report from a “qualified person” — such as an architect or engineer — confirming the unit needs to be empty before construction starts.
Under provincial law, landlords who want to evict a tenant for renovations must serve notice at least 120 days before the unit needs to be vacant.
On top of the licence, the new bylaw also offers tenants compensation while they’re displaced from the original unit.
If a tenant wants to return to the unit post-renovation, the landlord must help ensure they have a place to live during the construction period. That includes trying to find a comparable unit for a tenant to reside in and paying those rental costs.
If the landlord can’t find a unit, the tenant must find their own replacement. The landlord must then fund a monthly “rent gap” payment. The rent gap is based on the difference between the tenant’s current rent and the average market rent for a similar unit, which is calculated using federal government data.
If the tenant doesn’t want to return to their unit after a renovation, the landlord has to pay a lump sum equal to three months of the rent gap.
All tenants are entitled to moving allowances. Tenants with a studio or one-bedroom unit will receive $1,500. The allowance rises to $2,500 for units with two or more bedrooms.
Tenants and landlords need to agree on which path to choose and a signed copy of the agreement must be submitted as part of the licence application process.
Fines for non-compliant landlords vary but can run as high as $100,000.
City staff don’t know how many renovictions the bylaw will prevent because solid statistics are hard to come by. However, based on how many extra staff are needed for enforcement, the city expects to receive 160 renoviction licence applications after the bylaw comes into force in summer 2025.
Similar tenant protections are included in a 2023 bill from the provincial government. However, some of the relevant regulations haven’t been proclaimed. On Thursday, staff said the city’s bylaw could be redundant if the province implements the regulations.
The city recently introduced new multi-tenant housing regulations. Landlords who need to renovate their buildings, often known as rooming houses, to comply with the city’s new framework don’t have to pay the $700 licensing fee.
