Rent cap not part of long-awaited N.B. housing strategy, minister says – New Brunswick | 24CA News
Housing Minister Jill Green made herself clear throughout an announcement detailing New Brunswick’s housing technique on Thursday.
“The rent cap is not in the strategy,” she mentioned.
She referenced a gathering in Ottawa on Tuesday whereas saying, “I was there with the other Ministers of Housing all across Canada and I was speaking very specifically with the (ministers) that have rent caps in their particular province,” she mentioned.
Six provinces at the moment have a hire cap in place.
“They have a myriad of different problems because they have the rent cap in place,” she mentioned.
Housing advocates like Matthew Hayes of the N.B. Coalition for Tenants Rights have been calling for a hire cap in New Brunswick because the non permanent one it had in 2022 led to January.
“The tenants that I talk to are extremely fearful that they won’t be able to afford the next rent increase and there’s nothing in today’s announcement that alleviates that fear,” Hayes mentioned in an interview on Thursday.
Darcey Wallace of ACORN NB, a tenants’ advocacy group, mentioned his group was disillusioned {that a} hire cap was off the desk.
The housing technique features a hire financial institution, which supplies short-term loans for one-off bills, like one month of hire or a safety deposit, for as much as 750 renters.
It additionally features a new profit for renters aimed toward seniors and households in want, in addition to these with disabilities.
While Wallace applauds these initiatives, he’s involved about subsidizing hire with no hire cap in place.
“You’re putting more money into the market for housing, which is going to increase the cost of housing. A rent cap is a solution that allows the cost of rent to increase slowly and evenly,” he mentioned.
Green housing critic Megan Mitton was happy to listen to concerning the hire financial institution, however mentioned the technique lacks protections for renters.
“We don’t see a rent cap and we don’t see protections to keep affordable housing stock that already exists,” she mentioned.
She would additionally prefer to see measures put in place to stop spikes in house rental costs between tenants.
“Having (rent control) tied to the apartment would mean that between one tenant to another, the rent wouldn’t spike,” she mentioned. “A rental registry would also be helpful so renters could see what the price was before so they know that there’s some fairness involved.”
When requested about rental enhance safety between tenants on the announcement, Green mentioned whereas it wasn’t included within the technique “everything is on the table.”
Liberal housing critic Benoît Bourque mentioned a hire cap is required in mild of the excessive degree of migration to the province driving up rents and lowering provide.
“So in these current conditions where you have this spike of rent increases, I really feel that a rent cap is very efficient,” he mentioned.
The technique features a aim of getting six thousand housing begins a 12 months.
New Brunswick Apartment Owners Association president Willy Scholten mentioned he hoped to see tax breaks for the sector to allow this.
“The private sector is dealing with additional cost increases and especially interest rates in the last year have gone up tremendously,” he mentioned in an interview.
“The report doesn’t talk about the private sector as a partner in that,” he mentioned.
He mentioned property taxes have been the “biggest operating cost” for house house owners, and was disillusioned to see that wasn’t addressed within the technique.
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