Tenants at three buildings in Toronto’s east end and their landlord say they have reached an agreement to end a public battle that lasted more than two years.
In May 2023, around 100 residents of 71, 75 and 79 Thorncliffe Park Drive in East York stopped paying rent to protest what they said were deteriorating building conditions amid a rent hike.
The landlord, Starlight Investments, and renters who had been staring down eviction notices say they have reached an “amicable” deal without providing further details because the terms of the agreement are confidential.
They say tenants are no longer withholding rent.
Philip Zigman, a tenant organizer who worked with the Thorncliffe Park Drive residents, says the fact that tenants got an acceptable agreement “speaks to the power of working class organizing.”
He says the residents have set an example that could encourage other Toronto tenants to organize and start their own rent strikes when they are facing similar issues in their buildings.
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Their efforts drew media attention, inspired praise from activists and their collective action was followed by similar rent strikes pushing back against landlords.
In the months after the Thorncliffe renters made the first move, the residents of 33 King Street and 22 John Street in Toronto’s west and tenants at 1440 and 1442 Lawrence Avenue West in the city’s north also began their own rent strikes.
An organizer at the York South-Weston Tenant Union said the strike over proposed rent hikes at the King Street and John Street buildings ended 16 months after it started, and “was amicable on both parts agreeing to the agreement.”
Meanwhile, the renters at both Lawrence Avenue buildings celebrated an early win after the Landlord and Tenant Board issued an interim order requiring their landlord to do repairs in more than a hundred units.
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