After months of anxiety and uncertainty triggered by eviction notices and legal disputes, Barrie Road Apartment tenants are staying put - for now.
Angela Coley, who has been a resident at the property for five years, says Palm Tree Investments is backtracking from its earlier plan to evict residents of the four-plex apartment at 201 Barrie Rd. The earlier story on this matter from August can be found here.
Coley said at a Landlord and Tenants Board hearing about the matter this week, the adjudicator dismissed the eviction plan, saying the landlord did not have the proper permits and also made errors on its submitted paperwork.
“They didn’t have the permits from the city to renovate," explained Coley. "They would have to demolish the units to do what they basically would like to do, and they just now only submitted the site plans."
Coley said the company now plans to demolish the units in which tenants received eviction notices and is expected to file for a demolition permit in the coming days.
Coley and other residents of the apartment complex earlier claimed Palm Tree Investments was unfairly serving residents with a letter of intent to evict for the purposes of renovations — what's known as an N-13 form.
The residents believe that Palm Tree Investments' plan was to turn each of the single-family units into two separate units, paving the way for them to evict the current tenants and raise the rent for new tenants in an attempt to take advantage of the current stress on the housing and rental market.
“The landlord plans on re-filing in a day or two, so it’s basically bought us three more months which is good because we have nowhere to go,” said Coley, who is among several tenants facing an uncertain future.
“We’ve been trying to negotiate with them for three months. I’ve had three deals fall through because we can’t get a hold of them. I could have been out of here a month ago, but we’ve been pushed up against a wall with nowhere to go," she said.
Coley, a personal support worker at Trillium Manor, says she has hired a lawyer to help her navigate the situation.
“I really couldn’t afford to do that, I’m probably going to have to go without for a bit because when you pay for things on a line of credit that’s what happens,” she said.
For the residents of the complex, their focus has shifted to looking for housing before they are served with another eviction notice, which they believe is inevitable as a result of the owners new plan to demolish the building.
“It’s been hard for us to find anything because we’ve basically been flagged for going to the media. Now we look like trouble makers. We are really in need of a miracle,” Coley said.
The Wasaga Beach-based company, Palm Tree Investments, could not be reached for comment in time for the publication of this article.
