CITY COUNCIL HAS JUST APPROVED MUNICIPAL PROTECTIONS AGAINST BAD FAITH RENOVICTIONS
Ottawa’s long awaited anti-renoviction by-law cleared its first major hurdle on July 8, passing the City’s Planning and Housing Committee. On July 15, city council passed the by-law which will come into force on January 1, 2027. This comes after a long journey of advocacy from students, community groups, and city councillors.
A renoviction is when a landlord evicts a tenant by claiming major renovations, demolition, or conversion to non-residential use are required. There are three legal grounds for renoviction: demolition, the need for a vacancy for extensive repairs/renovations, or conversion of the unit for non-residential use. That being said, community advocates claim that these renovictions are often done in bad faith, with the intention of getting a “low rent” paying tenant out of the unit. It can happen formally, through a legal eviction notice called an N13, or informally, through pressure tactics that never show up in any official data at all.
The scale of the problem
How serious the renoviction crisis in Ottawa is depends entirely on who you ask.
ACORN’s report tracked 650 confirmed renovictions between 2010 and 2025, combining Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) filings with community-reported cases. Only 4.7 per cent of the cases ACORN tracked ever resulted in a formal N13 filing.
City staff put the number far lower, identifying roughly 230 units across 40 addresses with possible undocumented renovictions since 2020.
David Longchamp, West End Chair of Ottawa ACORN, says the gap exists because most renovictions never reach the tribunal at all.
Longchamp told the Fulcrum, “Tenants are told they have no choice, are given misleading information, or are pressured to sign documents without understanding their rights. Once that happens, many of the provincial protections no longer apply because, on paper, the tenant chose to leave.”
ACORN says provincial changes are not enough
In April 2026, Ontario amended the Residential Tenancies Act to strengthen tenant protections for renovation-related evictions. This includes a minimum 60-day window to return to a unit after work is completed, an automatic bad-faith presumption if landlords don’t comply, and doubled fines of up to $100,000 for individuals and $500,000 for corporations.
City staff originally recommended against a municipal by-law, arguing the provincial changes “substantially address the policy objectives” a by-law would cover.
ACORN disagrees. “The provincial changes are a step forward, but they don’t stop renovictions before they happen,” said Longchamp. Adding,”They mostly help tenants after they’ve already lost their homes and are forced into a long legal battle.”
The latter argument ultimately won out at city hall. Somerset Councillor Ariel Troster pushed back against staff’s recommendation, forcing a draft by-law to committee over their objections.
What the by-law does and doesn’t do
The by-law that passed committee on July 8, and council on July 15, is narrower than what tenant advocates wanted.
It requires landlords to apply for a city licence within seven days of issuing an N13. To obtain that licence, they must prove they already have a building permit, a step Jeff Leiper says should deter bad-faith evictions before they get started.
Landlords must also provide tenants with an education package explaining their rights. This includes the right to return to their unit at the same rent once renovations are complete, a protection that exists on paper under provincial law but which ACORN says is almost never exercised in practice.
What the by-law does not include is significant.
Unlike anti-renoviction by-laws in Hamilton and Toronto, Ottawa’s version requires no mandatory compensation beyond existing provincial minimums, no moving expense coverage, no alternative accommodation requirement, and no report from a qualified person —such as an engineer— confirming that vacant possession is actually necessary.
What comes next?
A motion by Troster, which also passed council, asks staff to review the by-law in late 2027, and bring forward options for adding compensation requirements and a qualified person’s report.
Hamilton, which passed a strong by-law in 2024 with both of those requirements, saw N13 filings drop 80 per cent in its first year, from 119 to 23. Leiper says he hopes Ottawa sees similar results, but stopped short of committing to a comparable target.
“We don’t know what that number will be in Ottawa,” he said. “Only time will tell.”
For Longchamp and ACORN, the by-law is better than nothing but falls short of what the crisis demands. “Provincial reforms improve the legal process after the fact,” said Longchamp. Adding, “A municipal by-law helps stop unfair displacement from happening in the first place.”
For students in Sandy Hill, the difference between those two approaches is not abstract. As Elnaz Enayatpour, president of the University of Ottawa Students’ Union (UOSU), put it: “A well-housed student is a better student.”
Student areas
ACORN’s “Hidden Renovictions” report has identified Sandy Hill and Lower Town as renoviction hotspots, while explicitly flagging them as student-populated and lower income areas. Mass renovictions have been documented on Osgoode Street and Laurier Avenue East, both within walking distance of the U of O’s main campus.
Enayatpour says the pattern is something students have been raising concerns about for years.
“We’re seeing companies purchase properties in Sandy Hill, renovate them, and then jack up the price,” says Enayatpour. Adding, “The stock of housing in Sandy Hill has always been more affordable because it’s older housing and it’s kind of one of the only places students can afford to comfortably live in, and we’re seeing people get priced out.”
The numbers back up her claim. According to CMHC data, Sandy Hill and Lowertown already sits above the city average across every unit size, average rents run $1,705 for a one-bedroom and $2,836 for a three-bedroom or larger, compared to city-wide averages of $1,593 and $2,090 respectively. For students already stretched thin, losing a rent-controlled unit in the neighbourhood means facing a significantly more expensive market.
UOSU’s housing caucus found that many students who received an N11 notice did not understand they were signing away their rights by voluntarily terminating their tenancy. Enayatpour says students are also among the least equipped to fight back.
All Five mayoral candidates were contacted for this story. Mark Sutcliffe, Alex Lawson, Neil Saravanamuttoo, and Zed Chebib did not respond before the deadline. Jeff Leiper, who is also a mayoral candidate, provided comment in his capacity as Kitchissippi ward councillor and chair of the planning and housing committee.
