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Hi Tim,

It’s good you guys are commenting on the issues of how can most ordinary people and small business survive this, something a lot bigger has to be done. Personally I suggest from the time all was shut down last week until life reopens again, people access whatever goods and services they need (without overtaking) and that includes rent, mortgages, power, water, phone, internet etc., and those that are necessary still work, but nothing is given, nor anything taken, money wise. When life reopens, however long it takes, everything used and done between last week and then is forgiven, erased, doesn’t count, it starts again where life was paused last week. Everything else means we’ll all go bankrupt and that isn’t good. It really is the only thing that makes sense, total forgiveness.

The bigger thing is that it seems a landlord, most likely more, is taking a bad action and it needs to be called out and stopped. I noticed Mr. McNeil said yesterday that landlords can’t throw out tenants, can’t evict them, due to Covid-19, that no one can be thrown out until things get back to normal, but he never said anything about landlords jacking up rent. That is what happened yesterday, to one of my husbands friends (happy theatre layoffs, both), he might not be able to throw them out but he is jacking up the rent. Oh, it’s not for a few months, he said. But how can anyone, after a crisis is called, jack up rents, that will go up certainly before people are back to work (and with some things, if) and no one can take that on without being thrown out? It’s horrifying! Please point a light on this issue, it’s scary for all us renters.

Melannie Burke :-(!

Tim, I have been reading about the horrifying razing of the houses between North and May Street, from Agricola and Robie. The reason the Steel group is allowed to do it is because of the zoning. Most houses would be zoned R-1 and would have to have application to change their zoning to be turned into a parking lot. In that neighborhood, when it was first conceived, the zoning was different, allowing both commercial and residential development, because they didn’t know what would be built there at the time. After mostly housing was built and was there for decades, the zoning difference, that should have been changed by the city, was forgotten. Steel had to have found out about this and stayed quiet about it, buying properties covertly until they had enough to destroy a community with nothing legal to stop them. They aren’t even decommissioning the streets and sidewalks for the parking lot, so no one can touch them that way. There is a zone map going around, that you should get a hold of, because there are other areas zoned this way and if the Steel group gets away with this, others will try the same thing.The city needs to fix this now so it can’t happen again. It’s not totally in the bag, a few of the residents are holding out, including two on May street, the small antiques store and I was told the vet hadn’t sold over yet either. I suspect they are being bullied, but I can’t prove it. I’m pretty sure The Ecology Action Centre are. I get their fear and inaction from before, after 10 years of Harper, they needed to be careful, but things federally have changed. They are scared now (I was talking to one fellow on Saturday evening from the EAC, that’s how I know who hasn’t sold yet) they fear doing more than just being seen to host the group that opposes the Steel group, they’ve been told if they do more their funding will be pulled and their non profit status taken away. It would be a good thing to see who has been doing it, who can back up that threat so effectively they are staying out of it. I still wonder how 22 demolition licences for the same streets can be issued without raising any concerns anywhere. Isn’t everything supposed to be digitized so this can’t happen? And most of the development that has gone on isn’t good. Just destroying things to replace them with others isn’t good, crap work or not. We don’t need the development that is going on. There has been multiple studies that pointed out we already have enough business/commercial development now to sustain us for 25 years, we don’t need more. Ditto for those high priced condos. No one wants them, nit even to rent. The whole thing will be a mess all the citizens of this city responsibility when all the developers go bankrupt from their buildings, as they do all the time (it’s why condo guarantees aren’t worth the paper they are printed on) move away and do it again, leaving us with all the expense of them, and a council who has moved on, some to other work, not caring that their only advocating for the people who paid for their campaigns will hurt the rest of us hugely. After all, there is no way to hold council responsible, right? The only thing that isn’t being build is lower income affordable housing, and ordinary housing with good transit access to our city, some of which the Steel group are currently destroying. It’s frustrating. I wonder if the city realizes how much property tax they will be forgoing with all those properties destroyed. a parking lot will not bring in anywhere near that in income for the city. Who picks up the money they are saying goodbye to? The rest of us? And if others do as they do, the problem will be worse. What’s needed, the only thing that can be done is a huge and very public boycott of the Steel group, their Colonial Honda dealership and anything else that they are involved in and the boycott needs to be long term, no matter what happens. It needs to be picked up by not just all the online media but the tv media as well, enlisting all the citizens in the province and all those from here that moved away, to put pressure on the Steel group by advocating that not just they but their friends and family will never buy from Steel. A big cut in profits is the only thing these people understand, and so it never happens ago. How do you do this? Thanks for listening Tim. Sincerely, Melannie Burke