Residents in a downtown Toronto apartment complex have won a $1.2-million settlement in a case that began with a derelict tenant swimming pool.
The Federation of Metro Tenants Associations (FMTA), and others in the rental housing industry, say the settlement — worth about $3,000 per unit — is the largest they have ever encountered.
“This is a huge win for the community,” said Yaroslava Avila Montenegro, executive director of the FMTA. “I’m so proud they were able to exert their power as tenants.”
Cole Rodness, vice-president of asset management for building owner Fitzrovia, described the settlement as a victory for both sides.
“At the end of the day I think we all won,” he said. “Residents obviously were disappointed at the closing of the pool but hopefully with this compensation, we’ll able to move forward in a more collaborative environment between residents and landlords.”
For the tenants, the settlement is the culmination of a five-year ordeal, which began in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic led to the closure of the pool in the two-tower complex near Sherbourne and Dundas streets.
As the pandemic was winding down in 2022, and the pool still had not reopened, tenant Jennifer Kerwood complained to the landlord at the time that the pool was an amenity she had a right to under her lease, and withdrawing that amenity should mean a rent abatement — a request that she said the landlord disputed.
The following year the building was sold to Fitzrovia, which also opposed the rent rebate, Rodness said, because the company was still looking into the possibility of replacing the pool.
That’s when Kerwood took her complaint to the province’s Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB). She asked for an unspecified rent reduction to offset the loss of the swimming pool.
As the case was winding its way through the LTB complaint process, Kerwood said she began organizing with tenants in her building.
By then, it wasn’t just the shuttered pool that was causing headaches for tenants, she said. The new landlord’s ambitious renovation plan — which meant ongoing construction throughout both buildings — was adding to the discontent.
In the fall of 2024, when the LTB was ready to begin hearing her initial presentations, Kerwood founded the Sherbourne Estates Tenants Association, which now has a membership of about 120 people. That number is roughly a quarter of the tenants in the 596-unit complex.
“The tenants really came together,” she told CBC Toronto. “I’m thrilled at the result we’ve gotten.”
Rodness, for his part, said the company upgraded the building, modernizing the facade and the units and even added a “pet spa.”
In an email to CBC Toronto, company CEO Adrian Rocca said: “We completed these capital improvements without ‘renovictions,’ without above guideline rent increases and while fully honouring every lease. We modernize homes without pushing people out.”
The tenants’ complaint about the closure of the swimming pool finally made it before an LTB adjudicator this past January. At the same time, Kerwood filed a second complaint with the LTB based on the disruption caused by the renovations.
That’s when she was approached by Fitzrovia to discuss a settlement, she said.
“That’s when they decided to negotiate with us seriously,” she said. “They were very good about it.”
The two sides met privately, and within a few months they’d hammered out a settlement, Kerwood said. Her association dropped both applications at the LTB, and the company has offered a rent abatement of $3,000 per apartment on each of the buildings’ 400 or so so rented units.
Tenants have until next June to accept the offer, according to Rocca’s email, and so far about two-thirds have done so.
Elaine Page, a paralegal who specializes in landlord-tenant issues, said the case is a first.
“In my 30 years in practice I have never seen that kind of settlement,” she said. “It is quite amazing. I give a lot of credit to the landlords for their generosity.”
She said the takeaway for landlords is that withdrawing amenities listed in a lease has consequences.
“You can expect that two things are going to happen: One you’re going to be looking at an abatement of rent, [or] two, potentially a rent reduction going forward.”
