July 17 2013
Tenants of Talbot Apartments on Bayview are fighting eviction notices for the end of August issued by their landlord. Some of the tenants are at the Landlord and Tenant Board as early as next Wednesday July 24. The tenants of the three apartment buildings have been pressured, indeed harassed, by the landlord to sign the notices and many have done so.
“Don’t believe the landlord, believe the law,” Geordie Dent, executive director of the Federation of Metro Tenants Association, told the tenants at a meeting called to discuss the eviction notices. Tenants “can make the landlord go to the Landlord and Tenant Board, which is a provincial court, and prove why they have to evict you,” Dent said.
The landlord, ADMNS Kelvingrove Investment Corp., plans to renovate and update the apartments which have been designated as heritage. It was only four years ago that the same owner tried to get permission to demolish the heritage buildings but was refused by the Ontario Municipal Board. The current plans would reduce the amount of low-rental apartments in the city.
Tenants were promised they would be relocated within the complex during renovations but that promise has been broken.
Most of the tenants are long term having lived there for decades. Many of those who are left are the most severe and vulnerable and are in no position to move. They have no choice but to try and fight the eviction order.
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Jade Jenkins & David Lorimer