The City of Burnaby says a local developer has failed to meet its obligation to help house displaced tenants, and now renters say the very policy designed to protect them has failed.Tenants were evicted from a three-storey rental building at 4330 Maywood St. in Metrotown last summer.
He added: “The city was advised that the project would not be proceeding and the property would be sold. Therefore, we do not know when a new buyer would take over the project and proceed with building the development with the replacement units.” Developers pay rent top-ups for the tenants, whose rents prior to demoviction are frequently well below the current market rate, while the tenant pays the rent they paid before they were displaced. The new development must include rental units for the displaced tenants, at the same rent, to replace the demolished units.
“I am so worried — it’s just consuming,” Zimmer told the NOW. “It’s consuming because you don’t know where you’re going to end up. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. And so I’m living day-to-day basically.”Both the tenants were paying rents of about $950 until they were displaced. Their new rents are about $2,100, meaning the developer subsidizes about $1,100 for their monthly rent top-ups.Wong wants to know what will happen after the bond runs out.
“I looked at it, I read it twice, because I thought ‘These are not options,’” Wong said. “Like they’re forcing you to pick between three horrible choices.”Renters frustrated with TAP experience One of the options given to tenants under the TAP is to take a lump-sum payment instead of rent top-ups. But in the long term, Zimmer said, the rent top-ups and new unit in the new building seemed like the better option.