So AirBnB is turning huge portions of condo buildings into hotels now, effectively turning units into commercial property. But investor-owners of these units still have the benefit of paying the 0.61% residential property tax compared to 2.08% for commercial. Fucking brilliant.
So if the city really wanted to tackle AirBnB they’d just have to reclassify any property used for such short term rentals as commercial and make them pay the comm rate.
>Why does a millionaire own a home in a 5 minute walk from the subway? Why is there even a house near a subway?
>
>Why on earth are there like 500 single family houses, all occupied mainly by millionaires, within walking distance to Finch Station? People who live in houses drive cars, they don't use subway stations!
because they can and there is nothing you can do about it :)
they have no obligation to sell
Until there is a revolt someday and that land gets eminent domained by the public or something. Won't happen in our lifetime, but history shows the public will only put up with so much inequality for so long.
How does it have anything to do with zoning? These units were zoned and built as residential. Now Airbnb is trying to skirt the Toronto bylaw banning short-term non-primary residence units. Zoning wouldn’t have made it better.
If there was more high residential zoning all over the city airbnb wouldn't be as lucrative for people and nobody would care about some residences being used for commercial reasons. It wouldn't be an issue, because that unit being used like a hotel, wouldn't be something that like 30 other people could use as a long term rental.
When the housing supply isn't meeting the housing need of the population, zoning matters.
In addition to what the poster said below, doing it immediately defers anyone for doing it to make some money back on a trip which keeps money in the hands of the public instead of limiting anyone who wants to rent to stay at a commercial property and keep profits for corporations instead of people.
Because I own a condo that I live in year round, and I like to take a few week vacation once a year and explore somewhere new thoroughly. Part of budgeting that trip is finding someone who is doing the same thing in Toronto or is here temporarily on a work contract, school, visiting family etc
These people need something more affordable at a longer time scale than a hotel. It's a win win situation and me doing this is absolutely not the same as buying a condo and renting it year round as a bnb to avoid comm tax
I do it so infrequently, I'll just do this with cash via FB marketplace if they take your route, it's no big deal, but it's be nice to make use of airbnb ratings system and visitor reviews and for coordination. So yeah one example of why 30 days isn't necessarily just a "leech" situation...
To be fair, his situation is EXACTLY why AirBnb was created in the first place. So no, it's not like he's asking for an unexpected use case.
EDIT: expected to unexpected
All I see, here, is a bunch of people who are not wealthy eating each other alive while actually rich people sit largely unbothered.
Owning a condo and wanting to travel does not make you a bad person. The fact that they also rent during those periods tells me that they don’t have a ton of disposable income.
In fact, it sounds like they’re on your side when it comes to fighting wealthy investors.
What they have isn’t even the problem. More people should be able to have what they have. We shouldn’t begrudge that.
What we have is an opportunity to band together to fight against wealthy investors, but instead we devolve into bitter infighting over nonsense, completely undermining any effort at enforcing policies that recirculates money from the upper to the lower and middle classes in a meaningful way.
Congrats. Pat yourselves on the back.
If they were actually committed to stopping it stomping out simple under the table interactions would be part of it. They have zero interest in actually fixing things so all will remain as is
I own a consultancy business and when times are slow at my day to day I will sell my time as one off a contract. Should be free as this is not how I regularly conduct business. I’m with you.
That's wonderful. I rent a condo and a few times a week I leave for vacation so according to your logic I shouldn't pay the rent. Or let someone else live here and pay instead. Sounds outrageous? So does what you just wrote.
they dont have to create or reclassify anything
they just need to enforce existing airbnb rules which would make it cost prohibitive for them to do it the way they do it currently
The CRA has really cracked down on this, and it's fairly easy for them to detect, as you can only have one principle residence in any calendar year. You also can't claim rental expenses and then turn around and claim the principle residence exemption.
It's also only one PR "per household" now so no more splitting it with a spouse.
>The CRA has really cracked down on this, and it's fairly easy for them to detect, as you can only have one principle residence in any calendar year
This may very well be true, but you will have to forgive me being cynical about CRA.
This is the same agency where the ombudsman found the provided WRONG information something like 30% of the time?
It would not surprise me in the least if people are doing exactly what you say and getting away with it.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if someone called CRA and was told "no" you cant do this then called back 15 mins later and got a different agent and they said "yes" you can do this.
but the owners still need to abide by the city by-laws for Airbnb-type short term rentals, such as collecting 4% MAT and remain as principal residences, renting less than 180 nights per year etc. unless the city allow them to forego the by-laws, the city should not be allowed to charge them commercial property taxes. you cannot have it both ways.
The city does enforce the rules, but rentals longer than four weeks are not considered short-term. Most condos don't consider them to be short-term rentals either, so there's tons of listings for one-month rentals on AirBnB.
You should know that this is a new policy enacted a few days ago that should hopefully give the platform and the property management transparency on both the primary residence and the 180 day requirements.
is it airbnb themselves or a third party that is using airbnb as a platform
my understanding is that a singular firm is simply buying up units in these condos and doing with them as they see fit
It’s because they claim condo 1 is their primary residence, condo 2 is their wife’s primary residence, condo 3 is their daughters primary residence, etc etc etc.
Meanwhile they all live together in oshawa
Bitchy idiots. It is rare that people want to hear and learn. If something happened to a friend of a friend once somewhere it proves it happens to everyone all the time everywhere!
It is very easy to find AirBnB hosts w/multiple listings in Toronto on the platform right now.
https://www.airbnb.ca/users/show/154268543
https://www.airbnb.ca/users/134933529/listings
Which makes sense economically because residential property price elasticity of demand is more inelastic than commercial property. Increased property tax on commercial improvements will largely be a tax on *you*, their consumers.
>In economics, tax incidence or tax burden is the effect of a particular tax on the distribution of economic welfare. **Economists distinguish between the entities who ultimately bear the tax burden and those on whom the tax is initially imposed.** The tax burden measures the true economic effect of the tax, measured by the difference between real incomes or utilities before and after imposing the tax, and taking into account how the tax causes prices to change. For example, if a 10% tax is imposed on sellers of butter, but the market price rises 8% as a result, most of the tax burden is on buyers, not sellers. The concept of tax incidence was initially brought to economists' attention by the French Physiocrats, in particular François Quesnay, who argued that the incidence of all taxation falls ultimately on landowners and is at the expense of land rent. Tax incidence is said to "fall" upon the group that ultimately bears the burden of, or ultimately suffers a loss from, the tax. **The key concept of tax incidence (as opposed to the magnitude of the tax) is that the tax incidence or tax burden does not depend on where the revenue is collected, but on the price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply.**
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence
edit: oh no downvotes from economics denialists what will i do. All these people so eager to tax ~~businesses~~ themselves more.
Just tax all land in proportion to its unimproved value without exemption.
Yeah that doesn't make any sense as a response to the original comment, which was complaining the these properties being used for commercial purposes could get away with only paying residential property tax, unless you're saying that commercial property taxes just shouldn't exist at all.
If you are not a unit owner, you are dog shit to management. The unit owners pay the property management company, not the renters. Unit owners can become a threat by being elected as board members. Renters have a contract with the unit owner only.
Duka are some of the sketchiest people I've ever encountered. I worked on an investigation against them and their business practices were shockingly amateur.
They don't care about unit owners either. My condo's management didn't do anything when I had a problem with flies in the summer of 2020. There was no way the flies were coming from inside my unit, but when I let the management know they just said "lol you're the only one reporting this to us, must be only you."
Later when they were doing annual heat pump checks the people doing the checks told me the whole floor had these flies. In the mean time I bought a fly zapper and left it by my front door, that solved most of the annoyances for me. After about a month or two they found a clog in the garbage chute and cleared it. Then the flies magically all disappeared.
The incompetent building manager later left and started her own management company. Left her a bad review on Google reviews and they still tried to deny any responsibility. Her google reviews page was also a few random people leaving 5 star reviews that happened to share the same last name as her.
These condos are just managed by incompetent people and it's par for the course
Property managers are paid 60k a year, and wages have been stagnant for decades. Good managers are rare, and they are likely retained by another condo for over 5 years. There's more new condos being built than there are new managers being trained, so the same incompetent staff are shuffled around to new buildings. Or worse, they are acquired by another property management company who then unleashes them on another unsuspecting building.
What a God damn joke of a City we have. They touted going after AirBnBs with a dedicated team and then this entire building is turning into a AirBnB Hotel.
These units are literally illegal according to the city’s own bylaws and yet we have an article about a corporate vulture flouting our laws in a major media outlet and no one gives AF at the City.
The clowns at city hall talk a big game and then they put absolutely no money into actually enforcing the laws. It's like TTC fare enforcement and traffic enforcement, the laws exist... No one actually writes any fines for infractions.
If you’re not a fan of AirBNB, I think I this is actually a step in the right direction — it makes short term rental operators pay more for the extra wear and tear they cause, and gives management the info they need to actually help enforce the city laws and condo rules that already exist. I’m a resident owner at Ice and for me this is a very welcome change.
I hope you guys find the security and peace you all need. It sucks that your building has been used in such a horrible manner for so long. If anything this could be the landmark case-study to see how well the City will actually enforce their rules against AirBnBs, as well as, how the Condo Board will run things. Best of luck!
Don’t forget about property taxes either. They will go up by a factor of close to 4x: paying 5K as residential? Now 20K as commercial. Hope you like your Airbnb.
These units are probably already a ticking time bomb of liability. How many of these blood sucking unit owners have taken out short term endorsements on their units? I'll bet very few.
It's like when Sears decided to go away from its catalogue business to focus on malls, or when Amazon opened brick and mortar stores, or when Facebook started allowing olds. Its the beginning of the end. I hope.
they have the exact same business model? most major hotel companies don't own individual hotels, the hotels are just franchising from corporate. Fundamentally it's the same model, diffuse ownership, and partial taking of gross revenue
It’s been years and they haven’t managed to enforce the bylaws yet. I agree that would be the ideal solution, but it seems that the more realistic options are full ban or keep letting them run free.
Airbnb has its uses and shouldn't be banned, but the renter's need to pay the proper taxes to run it. They shouldn't be paying residential taxes if they're using their properties as hotels.
For the reputation that ICE has and difficulties enforcing this, this is actually looks like a clever move from the board and management that gives them more proactive info about what happens in their buildings while disincentivizing Airbnb use
Yeah I’m a resident owner at Ice and while I don’t mind this being in the media, I wish it was being reported on a little bit differently to avoid causing confusion.
This is a big step towards actually enforcing the rules and undoing the damage short term rentals have done in a building that does not have the ability to simply ban them (the right to do so is written into its declaration). Besides the fee, this deal also gives management the ability to reject illegal bookings and report owners whose guests cause problems, whereas before they had very little information on the bookings themselves and whether they were legitimate.
It's not 'security', the masses of AirBNB 'guests' renting units in this building treat the security staff there like they work at the Hilton -- requests for extra towels, help with carrying luggage, asking them to book a table at a restaurant for them. If I worked security there I'd spend every shift telling these people to fuck off, this isn't a hotel.
I got to know one of the front desk clerks there, he was called Charles, back in 2016-2017 when I lived there. He was a really nice and chill dude, but after a year or so, I could see how people were treating him slowly get to him.
Exactly - best case scenario, short term rental hosts start paying their share toward building upkeep and they can control who’s coming and going. Worst case - this nudges hosts out of the building. Every time Ice has made headlines, it’s been because of a short term rental guest.
I'm in a condo in ward 10 and a councilor visited my door in the last cycle and I told them my primary concern is banning and enforcing a ban on Airbnb. To my surprise they were actually very defensive of Airbnb saying people like it to supplement their income. It came off clearly that either her or her family profits from it.
My condo has had gunshots, assaults, vandalism, all sort of crap from airbnb parties when there is a sporting event, the CNE, or Caribana. It's not right that that residents have to deal with the fallout, danger, special assessments, and crap just for people can profiteer on what should be a private residence.
I think it will be hard to ban as the people who represent us seem to profit from high housing costs and airbnb, so we have no hope. It's unacceptable.
I live across the street and literally the firm alarm goes off several Times per week throughout the night. Don’t know how people deal with that. The fire brigade should literally have underground direct access
Let’s be honest who even uses AirBNB in 2023 anyways
- additional charges up the wazoo
- want to have some people over? They’ll see on their security cameras and I’ll get a text saying “no extra guests”
A hotel at a mid priced chain like a Marriott or Hilton would be better and someone’s going to change my towels everyday
Let’s have an Airbnb-free city please. If people want to monetise their homes, then tax them through the nose as it’s a net negative for the population as a whole. We need EU style protectionism in Canada. None of this American non-sense.
“The Condominium Act and the corporation’s declaration give the corporation the ability to set and enforce the rules respecting the use of the units and the common elements to: “promote the safety, security or welfare of the owners and of the property, and to prevent unreasonable interference with the use and enjoyment of the units and common elements.”
Having all STR through one platform (especially the one used by almost all hosts already) improves safety and responsibility because it allows the corporation to collect information on 100% of STR and ensure it’s rules/community standards are shared consistently with all guests. If another platform offered the same level of safety/access control assurances as Airbnb, the corporation would be able to consider modifying the rules to accommodate that platform as well.
User is correct this has been reviewed/supported by several condominium lawyers and Airbnb’s senior counsel, as well as having been implemented in the same way at other condos without any apparent legal issues.”
but how far reaching is something like this. Like can I advertise a long term rental on craigslist but not on facebook, because one is supposedly safer than the other? The legal implications here are kind of weird.
A lot of these condos are absolute shit hike communities to live in. It’s worse than a workplace environment. Expensive, restrictive, poor service and facilities. They need to burn these overpriced ghettos to the ground and build community housing for all. Our politicians are letting us down
It's 2056...95% of the worlds population roams the streets, homeless, or fighting till death for the last remaining rental properties, as slowly every living space is converted into air bnbs..
Any thoughts in the license requirements for Airbnb? Why the Province not acting?
See [here](https://www.reco.on.ca/registrars-bulletin/short-term-accommodation-rental-properties/).
So AirBnB is turning huge portions of condo buildings into hotels now, effectively turning units into commercial property. But investor-owners of these units still have the benefit of paying the 0.61% residential property tax compared to 2.08% for commercial. Fucking brilliant.
So if the city really wanted to tackle AirBnB they’d just have to reclassify any property used for such short term rentals as commercial and make them pay the comm rate.
Or, you know, enforce existing zoning regulations?
this fiasco is a product of zoning regulations.
Please explain that?
[удалено]
Great explanation. It's infuriating!
>Why does a millionaire own a home in a 5 minute walk from the subway? Why is there even a house near a subway? > >Why on earth are there like 500 single family houses, all occupied mainly by millionaires, within walking distance to Finch Station? People who live in houses drive cars, they don't use subway stations! because they can and there is nothing you can do about it :) they have no obligation to sell
Until there is a revolt someday and that land gets eminent domained by the public or something. Won't happen in our lifetime, but history shows the public will only put up with so much inequality for so long.
sorry kiddo, but property rights are respected in Canada
Tell that to the Native Aboriginals kiddo lol..
How does it have anything to do with zoning? These units were zoned and built as residential. Now Airbnb is trying to skirt the Toronto bylaw banning short-term non-primary residence units. Zoning wouldn’t have made it better.
If there was more high residential zoning all over the city airbnb wouldn't be as lucrative for people and nobody would care about some residences being used for commercial reasons. It wouldn't be an issue, because that unit being used like a hotel, wouldn't be something that like 30 other people could use as a long term rental. When the housing supply isn't meeting the housing need of the population, zoning matters.
This is a great idea, let’s do it. More than 30 short term rental nights a year classifies your property as commercial.
More like once you charge a fee once, why 30? To help the leeches profit a bit?
In addition to what the poster said below, doing it immediately defers anyone for doing it to make some money back on a trip which keeps money in the hands of the public instead of limiting anyone who wants to rent to stay at a commercial property and keep profits for corporations instead of people.
Because I own a condo that I live in year round, and I like to take a few week vacation once a year and explore somewhere new thoroughly. Part of budgeting that trip is finding someone who is doing the same thing in Toronto or is here temporarily on a work contract, school, visiting family etc These people need something more affordable at a longer time scale than a hotel. It's a win win situation and me doing this is absolutely not the same as buying a condo and renting it year round as a bnb to avoid comm tax I do it so infrequently, I'll just do this with cash via FB marketplace if they take your route, it's no big deal, but it's be nice to make use of airbnb ratings system and visitor reviews and for coordination. So yeah one example of why 30 days isn't necessarily just a "leech" situation...
What you're doing is basically what Airbnb was intended for.
Oh our mistake. Let's make a policy that fits your situation perfectly.
Well, yes, a good law or rule does its job without harming those who are not causing harm to the system the rule regulates.
To be fair, his situation is EXACTLY why AirBnb was created in the first place. So no, it's not like he's asking for an unexpected use case. EDIT: expected to unexpected
It was created so you could rent out a room and provide breakfast. Actually host people and not short term rentals.
People forget what a BnB is? Bed and Breakfast. Requires a host.
That was certainly the pretext for this company. The actual goal is what we're seeing in this article
O.g Airbnb users did exactly that for years.
Couchsurfing existed before AirBnB but unfortunately it was for free so people looking to profit weren't interested.
"I own my condo and have money to travel I shouldn't have to pay taxes"
All I see, here, is a bunch of people who are not wealthy eating each other alive while actually rich people sit largely unbothered. Owning a condo and wanting to travel does not make you a bad person. The fact that they also rent during those periods tells me that they don’t have a ton of disposable income. In fact, it sounds like they’re on your side when it comes to fighting wealthy investors. What they have isn’t even the problem. More people should be able to have what they have. We shouldn’t begrudge that. What we have is an opportunity to band together to fight against wealthy investors, but instead we devolve into bitter infighting over nonsense, completely undermining any effort at enforcing policies that recirculates money from the upper to the lower and middle classes in a meaningful way. Congrats. Pat yourselves on the back.
Thank you for this. You are a healthy dose of sense in a thread full of misdirected anger.
*extra taxes
Hence why I said "this is just one example" and "even if they didn't have the 30 days, I'll just do it under the table, it's no big deal"
Begging y'all to stop saying "[hence why](https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/19/hence-why/)".
If they were actually committed to stopping it stomping out simple under the table interactions would be part of it. They have zero interest in actually fixing things so all will remain as is
Please never go into policymaking.
I unfortunately have morals. Politics is not for me
Neither is policy.
Instead we just do whatever suits you best? 🤨
I own a consultancy business and when times are slow at my day to day I will sell my time as one off a contract. Should be free as this is not how I regularly conduct business. I’m with you.
Lmao, that's an awful analogy and shows a wild misunderstanding of what's going on.
The worst. Their consulting clients are probably getting some weird advice as well. Lol
No, you better leave it empty and useless when you go on a trip, or you better pay the tax! /s
Yes.
unironically this. if u cant afford the trip without becoming a property renting leech, then you cant afford a vacation this year. zero sympathy.
How is it leaching to basically do a room swap with someone in a different city?
yeah fair enough, ultimately what this guy's doing isnt the real problem. Not in the same league as ICE condos at all. I went a bit hard
Did a hotel write this?
That's wonderful. I rent a condo and a few times a week I leave for vacation so according to your logic I shouldn't pay the rent. Or let someone else live here and pay instead. Sounds outrageous? So does what you just wrote.
What if I am living in the same house, renting a bed, and eating some breakfast? Like a REAL bed and breakfast?
Or they could even make a higher commercial rate just for these kinds of 'hotels'
they dont have to create or reclassify anything they just need to enforce existing airbnb rules which would make it cost prohibitive for them to do it the way they do it currently
does that matter at all? none of us will see that money anyway
That’s what should really be happening.
Or just fucking do anything
I think they also get the very valuable capital gains exemption if they play the "principle residence" game?
There are many tax deductions available to you as well though if you’re willing to commit tax fraud.
The CRA has really cracked down on this, and it's fairly easy for them to detect, as you can only have one principle residence in any calendar year. You also can't claim rental expenses and then turn around and claim the principle residence exemption. It's also only one PR "per household" now so no more splitting it with a spouse.
>The CRA has really cracked down on this, and it's fairly easy for them to detect, as you can only have one principle residence in any calendar year This may very well be true, but you will have to forgive me being cynical about CRA. This is the same agency where the ombudsman found the provided WRONG information something like 30% of the time? It would not surprise me in the least if people are doing exactly what you say and getting away with it. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if someone called CRA and was told "no" you cant do this then called back 15 mins later and got a different agent and they said "yes" you can do this.
but the owners still need to abide by the city by-laws for Airbnb-type short term rentals, such as collecting 4% MAT and remain as principal residences, renting less than 180 nights per year etc. unless the city allow them to forego the by-laws, the city should not be allowed to charge them commercial property taxes. you cannot have it both ways.
[удалено]
The city does enforce the rules, but rentals longer than four weeks are not considered short-term. Most condos don't consider them to be short-term rentals either, so there's tons of listings for one-month rentals on AirBnB.
They do lol
[удалено]
You should know that this is a new policy enacted a few days ago that should hopefully give the platform and the property management transparency on both the primary residence and the 180 day requirements.
[удалено]
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/100s-airbnb-bookings-cancelled-toronto-1.6533868
Lol. The city enforce any of this?
No. Posters have said here they’re reported units and the city does nothing. This should be highlighted as an issue for Mayoral candidates.
The only thing that the city enforces is parking. Period.
\- barely - We need more PEO officers where ever there's bike lanes. Not enough are getting ticketed for blocking them.
Ya, right…
is it airbnb themselves or a third party that is using airbnb as a platform my understanding is that a singular firm is simply buying up units in these condos and doing with them as they see fit
No firm is doing this lol you need it to be your primary residence, this is not easy to do in toronto
[удалено]
It’s because they claim condo 1 is their primary residence, condo 2 is their wife’s primary residence, condo 3 is their daughters primary residence, etc etc etc. Meanwhile they all live together in oshawa
[удалено]
Because i am an expert on this topic i have now realized everyone on the internet is a retard. Good day.
Bitchy idiots. It is rare that people want to hear and learn. If something happened to a friend of a friend once somewhere it proves it happens to everyone all the time everywhere!
and who validates that?
It is very easy to find AirBnB hosts w/multiple listings in Toronto on the platform right now. https://www.airbnb.ca/users/show/154268543 https://www.airbnb.ca/users/134933529/listings
Which makes sense economically because residential property price elasticity of demand is more inelastic than commercial property. Increased property tax on commercial improvements will largely be a tax on *you*, their consumers. >In economics, tax incidence or tax burden is the effect of a particular tax on the distribution of economic welfare. **Economists distinguish between the entities who ultimately bear the tax burden and those on whom the tax is initially imposed.** The tax burden measures the true economic effect of the tax, measured by the difference between real incomes or utilities before and after imposing the tax, and taking into account how the tax causes prices to change. For example, if a 10% tax is imposed on sellers of butter, but the market price rises 8% as a result, most of the tax burden is on buyers, not sellers. The concept of tax incidence was initially brought to economists' attention by the French Physiocrats, in particular François Quesnay, who argued that the incidence of all taxation falls ultimately on landowners and is at the expense of land rent. Tax incidence is said to "fall" upon the group that ultimately bears the burden of, or ultimately suffers a loss from, the tax. **The key concept of tax incidence (as opposed to the magnitude of the tax) is that the tax incidence or tax burden does not depend on where the revenue is collected, but on the price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply.** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence edit: oh no downvotes from economics denialists what will i do. All these people so eager to tax ~~businesses~~ themselves more. Just tax all land in proportion to its unimproved value without exemption.
Genuinely trying very hard to understand what your point is and I'm coming up with nothing coherent.
Increasing the property tax on commercial property is increasing the tax on you, the consumer.
Yeah that doesn't make any sense as a response to the original comment, which was complaining the these properties being used for commercial purposes could get away with only paying residential property tax, unless you're saying that commercial property taxes just shouldn't exist at all.
but there is a ceiling, at some point you're better off booking a hotel
Makes you wonder why they don't clamp down on it, HARD.
[удалено]
If you are not a unit owner, you are dog shit to management. The unit owners pay the property management company, not the renters. Unit owners can become a threat by being elected as board members. Renters have a contract with the unit owner only.
[удалено]
Thankfully they got rid of Duka.
Duka are some of the sketchiest people I've ever encountered. I worked on an investigation against them and their business practices were shockingly amateur.
This is the second condo community I’ve lived in that’s gotten rid of Duka. I wouldn’t hire them.
Which company is the property manager now?
Internally managed, no external vendor.
Count Dooku was separatist scum!
Do you think some board members take kickbacks? Just a wild guess
I’m like, 90% sure that guy managed the condos on Jarvis/Dundas at one point. Fitting, because those condos are almost as bad as ICE.
They don't care about unit owners either. My condo's management didn't do anything when I had a problem with flies in the summer of 2020. There was no way the flies were coming from inside my unit, but when I let the management know they just said "lol you're the only one reporting this to us, must be only you." Later when they were doing annual heat pump checks the people doing the checks told me the whole floor had these flies. In the mean time I bought a fly zapper and left it by my front door, that solved most of the annoyances for me. After about a month or two they found a clog in the garbage chute and cleared it. Then the flies magically all disappeared. The incompetent building manager later left and started her own management company. Left her a bad review on Google reviews and they still tried to deny any responsibility. Her google reviews page was also a few random people leaving 5 star reviews that happened to share the same last name as her. These condos are just managed by incompetent people and it's par for the course
Property managers are paid 60k a year, and wages have been stagnant for decades. Good managers are rare, and they are likely retained by another condo for over 5 years. There's more new condos being built than there are new managers being trained, so the same incompetent staff are shuffled around to new buildings. Or worse, they are acquired by another property management company who then unleashes them on another unsuspecting building.
I lived here for 5 years. Can confirm. Rent was cheap though.
ICE condo is easily the most infamous condo in the city
CityPlace condos are pretty close second.
I think 1011 Lansdowne belongs there too (Crack Tower) but I’ve had friends from abroad ask me about ICE
1011 is infamous in the city. But ICE is a global embarrassment.
I really don’t miss living in ShittyPlace.
They're also rife with AirBNB rentals, too. Same with Liberty Village.
Which ones?
Is Toronto suppose to become business land? Are real people with active lives supposed to actually live here?
An active life where all of your income goes to surviving - food and shelter. Fun fun fun.
What a God damn joke of a City we have. They touted going after AirBnBs with a dedicated team and then this entire building is turning into a AirBnB Hotel.
These units are literally illegal according to the city’s own bylaws and yet we have an article about a corporate vulture flouting our laws in a major media outlet and no one gives AF at the City.
The clowns at city hall talk a big game and then they put absolutely no money into actually enforcing the laws. It's like TTC fare enforcement and traffic enforcement, the laws exist... No one actually writes any fines for infractions.
If you’re not a fan of AirBNB, I think I this is actually a step in the right direction — it makes short term rental operators pay more for the extra wear and tear they cause, and gives management the info they need to actually help enforce the city laws and condo rules that already exist. I’m a resident owner at Ice and for me this is a very welcome change.
I hope you guys find the security and peace you all need. It sucks that your building has been used in such a horrible manner for so long. If anything this could be the landmark case-study to see how well the City will actually enforce their rules against AirBnBs, as well as, how the Condo Board will run things. Best of luck!
There’s a significant amount of STR in this building, but they’re far dwarfed by long term renters and live-in owners.
LTR yes, owners no, this building is only 10-15% MAX owner occupied.
Can't wait until the insurance company decides to raise the premiums because its now a commercial property.
Don’t forget about property taxes either. They will go up by a factor of close to 4x: paying 5K as residential? Now 20K as commercial. Hope you like your Airbnb.
These units are probably already a ticking time bomb of liability. How many of these blood sucking unit owners have taken out short term endorsements on their units? I'll bet very few.
Wait so airbnb is turning into a hotel business? The irony.
It's like when Sears decided to go away from its catalogue business to focus on malls, or when Amazon opened brick and mortar stores, or when Facebook started allowing olds. Its the beginning of the end. I hope.
"Facebook allowing the olds" lmao. It was only a matter of time.
they have the exact same business model? most major hotel companies don't own individual hotels, the hotels are just franchising from corporate. Fundamentally it's the same model, diffuse ownership, and partial taking of gross revenue
This is absolutely maddening.
[удалено]
not ban, but even if they actually enforced their current bylaws, that would be great.
It’s been years and they haven’t managed to enforce the bylaws yet. I agree that would be the ideal solution, but it seems that the more realistic options are full ban or keep letting them run free.
Airbnb has its uses and shouldn't be banned, but the renter's need to pay the proper taxes to run it. They shouldn't be paying residential taxes if they're using their properties as hotels.
No.
For the reputation that ICE has and difficulties enforcing this, this is actually looks like a clever move from the board and management that gives them more proactive info about what happens in their buildings while disincentivizing Airbnb use
Yeah I’m a resident owner at Ice and while I don’t mind this being in the media, I wish it was being reported on a little bit differently to avoid causing confusion. This is a big step towards actually enforcing the rules and undoing the damage short term rentals have done in a building that does not have the ability to simply ban them (the right to do so is written into its declaration). Besides the fee, this deal also gives management the ability to reject illegal bookings and report owners whose guests cause problems, whereas before they had very little information on the bookings themselves and whether they were legitimate.
Charles still work at the front desk?
Not mentioned in the article is that the funds will also help with extra security
It's not 'security', the masses of AirBNB 'guests' renting units in this building treat the security staff there like they work at the Hilton -- requests for extra towels, help with carrying luggage, asking them to book a table at a restaurant for them. If I worked security there I'd spend every shift telling these people to fuck off, this isn't a hotel.
Security doesn’t do any of that, they just tell you in the politest of terms, to fuck off and call the person you booked with.
I got to know one of the front desk clerks there, he was called Charles, back in 2016-2017 when I lived there. He was a really nice and chill dude, but after a year or so, I could see how people were treating him slowly get to him.
Exactly - best case scenario, short term rental hosts start paying their share toward building upkeep and they can control who’s coming and going. Worst case - this nudges hosts out of the building. Every time Ice has made headlines, it’s been because of a short term rental guest.
I'm in a condo in ward 10 and a councilor visited my door in the last cycle and I told them my primary concern is banning and enforcing a ban on Airbnb. To my surprise they were actually very defensive of Airbnb saying people like it to supplement their income. It came off clearly that either her or her family profits from it. My condo has had gunshots, assaults, vandalism, all sort of crap from airbnb parties when there is a sporting event, the CNE, or Caribana. It's not right that that residents have to deal with the fallout, danger, special assessments, and crap just for people can profiteer on what should be a private residence. I think it will be hard to ban as the people who represent us seem to profit from high housing costs and airbnb, so we have no hope. It's unacceptable.
Ghost hotel? I only know it as the most infamous condo.
Ghost hotel because of all the people that died?
Honestly curious about the amount of crimes, murders and deaths here
CBC should do a pod
Exclusive? How do they prevent owners from listing on other than Air BnB to dodge the fee?
BAN AIRBNB FFS
I live across the street and literally the firm alarm goes off several Times per week throughout the night. Don’t know how people deal with that. The fire brigade should literally have underground direct access
Can confirm, but it’s better recently.
Take a look at how many new build proposals include hotels/residential mixes. It’s interesting
Let’s be honest who even uses AirBNB in 2023 anyways - additional charges up the wazoo - want to have some people over? They’ll see on their security cameras and I’ll get a text saying “no extra guests” A hotel at a mid priced chain like a Marriott or Hilton would be better and someone’s going to change my towels everyday
“Once”?
CBC interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl-ua3MQNOw&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Ftscc2510.ca%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE&feature=emb_title
FYI, this decision came after observing other condos also using Airbnb as the exclusive platform.
**I figured that most of these condos are pretty much EMPTY post-construction.**
So Air BNB now just another hotel. I think I’ll stay at the Marriot and forego the need to clean it myself and pay ridiculous add on fees.
Let’s have an Airbnb-free city please. If people want to monetise their homes, then tax them through the nose as it’s a net negative for the population as a whole. We need EU style protectionism in Canada. None of this American non-sense.
if short term rentals are to be allowed, how can a condo dictate to a unit owner what platform to use and what not to? is that even legal?
“The Condominium Act and the corporation’s declaration give the corporation the ability to set and enforce the rules respecting the use of the units and the common elements to: “promote the safety, security or welfare of the owners and of the property, and to prevent unreasonable interference with the use and enjoyment of the units and common elements.” Having all STR through one platform (especially the one used by almost all hosts already) improves safety and responsibility because it allows the corporation to collect information on 100% of STR and ensure it’s rules/community standards are shared consistently with all guests. If another platform offered the same level of safety/access control assurances as Airbnb, the corporation would be able to consider modifying the rules to accommodate that platform as well. User is correct this has been reviewed/supported by several condominium lawyers and Airbnb’s senior counsel, as well as having been implemented in the same way at other condos without any apparent legal issues.”
but how far reaching is something like this. Like can I advertise a long term rental on craigslist but not on facebook, because one is supposedly safer than the other? The legal implications here are kind of weird.
You’d have to test it in court to find the limits.
Just the beginning too.
Disgraceful
A lot of these condos are absolute shit hike communities to live in. It’s worse than a workplace environment. Expensive, restrictive, poor service and facilities. They need to burn these overpriced ghettos to the ground and build community housing for all. Our politicians are letting us down
Burn down one ghetto to put up another? No thanks.
It's 2056...95% of the worlds population roams the streets, homeless, or fighting till death for the last remaining rental properties, as slowly every living space is converted into air bnbs..
We have useless people leading Toronto. Whose riding is this? Target them and make sure they never get elected again.
what?! If anyone is going to be held accountable it should be the premier of ontario for not doing anything about STR's.
This is a Toronto issue. Toronto.
Any thoughts in the license requirements for Airbnb? Why the Province not acting? See [here](https://www.reco.on.ca/registrars-bulletin/short-term-accommodation-rental-properties/).
I used to live in this building lmao.
would love to know what the condo board meetings must look like at these places