On September 14th, 2022, representatives from every municipality in BC will gather at the yearly Union of BC Municipalities conference to discuss possible resolutions to some of BC's most pressing issues, housing being one of them. The City of Victoria is proposing Resolution NR10: The Resolution to Explore Vacancy Control. 

 

What is vacancy control/Resolution NR10?

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Resolution NR10 is one of a handful of housing-related resolutions being proposed by the City of Victoria – it calls on the provincial government to explore vacancy control, a system of rent control that ties annual rent increases to rental units, rather than individual tenancies. A province-wide system of vacancy control would mean that rent increases would be limited when a tenancy ends, similar to the way rent increases are regulated during a tenancy. 

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As it stands in BC, with no limit on how much a landlord can increase the cost rent of a unit between tenancies, landlords have significant financial incentive to evict tenants.

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How can I help?

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Leading up to September 14th, we are calling on BC residents to email their local governments and urge them to support Resolution NR10. Please feel free to use and edit the letter template below.

 

To find your local government's contact information, click here.

 

Sample letter: 

 

Dear Council,

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As a resident of [insert your community name here] I urge you to support UBCM resolution NR10: the resolution to explore vacancy control. 

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Our community, like all others across B.C., continues to suffer from a housing affordability crisis, and I believe that the policy recommendation that this resolution proposes will have a meaningful effect, should the provincial government implement it.

Without vacancy control, landlords continue to increase rents beyond what renters can afford. This in turn puts renters in a position where they cannot afford to move and are scared to ask for repairs when dangerous health hazards such as mold or extreme heat threaten their lives, and provides landlords with significant financial motivation to evict tenants. 

 

The high cost of rental housing is hurting our residents, communities, and local economies. It is imperative to the long-term health of our economy and social fabric that working people are able to afford to live in our communities. The Residential Tenancy Act would continue to provide landlords the ability for reasonable annual increases, or higher increases if they've incurred eligible capital expenditures, while preventing them from earning mega-profits at the expense of tenants who have significantly less economic power.
 

Don’t just take it from me, recent polling show that the majority of British Columbians support policies like this.

I hope that our community can count on you to support these resolutions.

Sincerely,

[your name]

[postal code]

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