Comment 112631

By Jonathan Dalton (registered) | Posted July 07, 2015 at 17:49:27

I have a real soft spot for anti-gentrification activists like this one since I realized how terribly wrong I was when I argued with them in the famous 'fat cats' gentrification debate around 2010. Since then it's become obvious that small businesses and lower income residents actually are being pushed out despite the insistence of gentrification apologists that this need not happen. Or that somehow it's different here because it's artists own buildings.

We argue more about whether it's a problem or not than what the solution to the problem is. I believe they need to change the commercial tenancy act to better protect tenants as small businesses currently have absolutely zero protection once their leases are up. A rent cap similar to the one Berlin introduced would help keep housing affordable.

5 years ago my friends were buying houses in my neighbourhood. Now all I hear about is people being outbid or kicked out by Toronto buyers. The hot housing market has dreadful consequences for renters as potential buyers are renting for longer resulting in low vacancies and upward pressure on rents.

I don't believe we can ignore the social consequences of economic revival in the downtown. We need growth and density and more tax revenue to run the city but there must be decisive action to protect those who have been here through the hard times - without whom there would have been nothing left to gentrify.

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