Nicholas McLeod.
Nicholas McLeod said he's disappointed that the students lost their bid to overturn a condo rule they call discriminatory.
File photo
A group of South Keys students have lost their bid to overturn what they call a “discriminatory” condo rule against renting to unrelated people.
At an annual general meeting for Carleton Condominium Corporation 24 on Southgate Road on Tuesday, Dec. 6 the rule was upheld by about 20 votes, coming in around 100 to 80 in favour of the rule – although Carleton student Nicholas McLeod who is leading the fight against it said the majority of people who actually attended the meeting opposed the rule, and the vote was won by proxy votes collected beforehand by the board.
The issue began on Oct. 20 when four of six condo board members passed a rule reiterating that the 257 townhouse units contained in the condo are for families, and that landlords should only rent to people who qualify as a family.
Under the rule, a family constitutes a conventional family of parents and children, a single person, a married or committed couple, unrelated people who own the condo together, a patient and caregiver, or unrelated people who plan to live together “permanently or indefinitely.”
McLeod immediately started petitioning against the rule, arguing that while the rule never specifically identifies students as the target, they are the only group of people who rent as unrelated people who won’t live together forever.
“When the people who are impacted by something come from a single group you know there’s something suspicious about that,” he said the morning after the “disappointing” vote.
However condo board president Lorne Anderson said students renting as a group of unrelated people are covered by the phrase “permanently and indefinitely” and would easily qualify as a family under that clause. The true targets, he said, are landlords who rent to unrelated people for only a few months at a time, or who have illegally turned their units into rooming houses and rent to unrelated people who have individual leases and rental rates.
“This is an attempt to convince some of our absentee landlords that we’re serious about enforcing the (Ontario Condominium) Act. Under section 83 landlords are required to provide a list of their tenants and copies of the lease. And many have not done that,” he said.
McLeod said the fight is not over, however, and he has already filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission on the grounds of age and family status discrimination.
“The commission’s legal support there has taken my case on already. So the slow grind of justice will continue with that,” he said.
Although McLeod will continue fighting for students’ rights, he will be passing the more localized torch to the condo’s homeowners to fight the issue once they choose a spokesperson. He is leaving the condo since, being a student, he said he must now leave the condo once his lease is up.
“The homeowners are going to be leading it themselves. There were a lot of angry people leaving that meeting. There were lots of homeowners who spoke who said they can’t afford to live in their house anymore,” he explained.
Anderson said no students who rent as a group should have to leave, if they indeed plan to rent together indefinitely.
“The way I read the rules, I don’t see that people need to leave,” he said.