DYSFUNCTION AT THE LTB

Ontario landlords seeking justice may have to wait a little longer

It’s been a long, weary road to resolution for landlords and tenants caught in the evictions backlog that was exacerbated in 2020 when the pandemic forced the Landlord Tenant Board (LTB) into a five-month hiatus. Though online hearings have since resumed via the Tribunals Ontario Portal, technical difficulties, prolonged waits, and complaints of biases abound.

Our paralegals are frustrated with the process, so I expect landlords are too,” says Joe Hoffer, a lawyer and partner with Cohen Highley LLP. “I think of the opening of Dickens’ novel Bleak House where the inscription outside the courthouse door reads, “Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!” because the delays, the cost, and the dysfunction result in daily miscarriages of justice for both landlords and tenants.”

Hoffer isn’t alone in his exasperation with the LTB, where problems have persisted for years. In fact, the sluggish pace of

“proceedings became the subject of an investigation by Ontario Ombudsman Paul Dubé before the State of Emergency was declared. According to his 2019-2020 annual report, Tribunals Ontario ranked fourth for most prevalent topic of complaint — and tellingly, 74 per cent of the 1,051 complaints

about the Tribunal were specifically related to the LTB.

In the two years prior to COVID, the LTB received approximately 80,000 applications per year, 90 per cent of which were filed by landlords seeking to end a tenancy or collect money owed. In 2020, that number dropped to about 48,000 applications due to the fivemonth LTB closure. As many feared, this created a surge in cases once the eviction moratorium lifted, and despite efforts to chip away at that backlog via online hearings and mediation, the board continues to struggle.

Acknowledging this is a real problem, the Ontario government recently earmarked $19 million over three years to help the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) and the Landlord and Tenant Board reduce their respective backlogs. The Province says the funding is intended to help both tribunals appoint new adjudicators, have resources on hand for mediation, improve IT platforms, and resolve disputes faster.

“Matters have gotten worse”

Though it’s still early on, Hoffer says he has yet to see any evidence of improved efficiencies at the LTB — and, if anything, matters for landlords seem to have gotten worse.

“Board members are facing a deluge of applications, and apparently they have no time assigned to writing orders because it can take months to receive them,” he reports. “In many cases following a hearing, we’ve found that the board member’s appointment may have expired, or that the board member resigned prior to issuing orders, and we then receive directions that we have to come back and have another hearing. You can imagine how well that goes over for the parties who thought they finally had their day in court, only to have to go back and start over.”

Adding more to the list of grievances, Hoffer says landlord applications for arrears

B.C.’s Residential Tenancy Branch now recording hearings

B.C.’s Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) announced in early June it would begin recording all dispute-resolution hearings in an effort to promote fairness and transparency.

“This change will help bring more fairness, transparency and justice for everyone involved in a tenancy dispute,” said Spencer Chandra Herbert, chair of the Rental Housing Task Force and MLA for Vancouver-West End. “The recording of disputeresolution hearings fulfils an important recommendation of the Rental Housing Task Force. Renters and rental housing providers all agreed this change was important to improve accountability and confidence that justice has been served.”

The Residential Tenancy Branch says that having an audio record of what happened during a dispute-resolution hearing will give all parties more confidence in the process and promote good conduct. The change was also called for by tenant advocates and the Office of the Ombudsperson, who collectively felt that not having these recordings made it difficult for parties to challenge a decision they believed was unfair.

“The Tenant Resource & Advisory Centre has always hoped that this Rental Housing Task Force recommendation would be implemented,” said Andrew Sakamoto, executive director, Tenant Resource & Advisory Centre. “All dispute-resolution participants deserve a right to procedural fairness, and recording hearings will go a long way toward improving transparency, accountability and consistency at the Residential Tenancy Branch.”

have been held up since December due to a dysfunctional computer system. Meanwhile, tenant applications have been processed in a matter of weeks. In short, he says, “I cannot recall a time over the past 35 years of my practice when the adjudicative system for landlord and tenant matters has been as dysfunctional as it is now.“

The good news is, according to an operational update posted May 5 to the Tribunals Ontario website, users who experienced technical issues filing their “Applications to End a Tenancy” and “Evict a Tenant or Collect Money” (L2 applications) through the portal will not be required to start the process over again.

“Applicants who filed an L2 application affected by this issue will be receiving a letter from the LTB asking that they complete a new L2 application using our PDF forms and upload it to their Tribunals Ontario Portal file,” the post reads. “This will not have an impact on the affected application’s place in the queue with respect to hearing dates and legislative deadlines, and any supplementary filings such as the Request to Extend or Shorten Time will also be unaffected. The original filing date will be preserved.”

“I cannot recall a time over the past 35 years of my practice when the adjudicative system for landlord and tenant matters has been as dysfunctional as it is now.”

HEALTHY BUILDINGS FOR LIFE

The 6 principles of sustainable building envelope design

Canada’s apartment sector has come a long way in terms of sustainable design and construction. With large commercial buildings now accounting for 13 per cent of Canada’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, developers and owners are seeking ways to lower their carbon footprint and build healthy, resilient, cost-effective structures that decrease the negative impacts on the environment. In fact, sustainability objectives are largely driving today’s commercial design and construction projects—and given the building envelope is an essential component that serves to protect the interior of a structure while facilitating climate control (keeping the occupants both safe and comfy), its importance cannot be understated.

Broadly speaking, achieving a sustainable building envelope means avoiding resource depletion of raw materials, energy, and water, to prevent environmental degradation caused by operation demands of buildings and their infrastructure throughout their life cycle. It’s a complicated pursuit with long-lasting benefits that impact all aspects of an apartment building. Here, RJC Engineers shares six principles of sustainable building envelope design that are driving the industry forward.

1. Designing for resilience – “a tough skin” Just like we say that someone who can withstand whatever life throws at them has a “tough skin”, a similar thing might be said of a building envelope. A resilient building envelope is designed to factor in the changing climate conditions on our planet, as well as the current local conditions of the area like moisture, humidity, wind, and temperature fluctuations. These climate patterns and projections influence the materials of construction and the long-term energy performance strategies for the building, ensuring that interior comfort is protected while energy demands of heating and cooling systems are minimized.

2. Optimizing energy use – “the right jacket” Wearing the right jacket will keep us warm in the winter and block out damaging sunrays in the summer. Similarly, the right building envelope will protect the interior space from the exterior climate, resulting in less consumption

of resources. A sustainable envelope relies on efficiency and passive design measures for its operation as much as possible and includes features like spectrally selective glazing, thermal insulation, solar shading devices, building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) and passive ventilation to meet or exceed applicable energy performance standards. The building commissioning process includes the building envelope to determine that performance requirements related to energy efficiency, such as air tightness, are met.

3. Use of sustainable materials – “healthy food” If eating healthy food keeps our bodies healthy, then building from sustainable materials keeps our buildings and planet healthy. Sustainable building envelopes should be constructed using materials that optimize service life and minimize life-cycle environmental impacts. Considerations include length of service life, global warming potential of materials, resource depletion, human toxicity, as well as embodied energy and GHGs due to materials acquisition, manufacturing, packaging, transportation, installation, use and reuse/recycling and disposal. The goal is to eliminate materials that have a short service life, are pollutants or toxic, and consider the use of building envelope assemblies that can be deconstructed and re-used at the end of the building service life.

4. Enhancing indoor environmental quality – “sunshine and clean air” The indoor environmental quality of a building has a significant impact on occupant health, comfort, and productivity. Increased airtightness and better thermally broken systems help control energy losses but must be met with corresponding improvements in ventilation and indoor quality. Daylighting is an important feature of indoor environments, and energy efficiency can be maintained by using high performance glazing systems that control energy flow while maintaining high levels of visible light transmission. Even when inside a building, or maybe especially when inside a building, we still want to see some sunshine and breathe clean air.

5. Optimizing operational and maintenance practices –

“regular workouts” Kind of like how it takes regular exercise to improve our fitness levels, incorporating operations and maintenance considerations into the design of a building envelope contribute to operational efficiency over its lifetime. Building occupants and operators should be appropriately trained in a comprehensive preventative maintenance program to keep all building systems associated with the building envelope functioning as designed.

6. Retrofitting existing buildings – “getting a physical, new wardrobe and a make-over” Things are not as they used to be. Building practices have changed, and so has our climate. Canada needs to retrofit many of its existing buildings to achieve our GHG emissions commitments. Building envelope retrofit strategies have evolved to the point where buildings can be retrofitted while fully occupied and brought up to the performance levels associated with Passive House standard. Retrofit strategies are an important part of the construction industry’s future, since nearly all inefficient buildings in Canada have already been built. It is usually more sustainable to renovate or retrofit an existing building or facility than to tear one down and construct an entirely new one. Improvements to building envelope systems reduce concerns related to air infiltration and leakage, moisture diffusion, surface condensation, and rainwater entry—issues that can negatively impact the building’s energy performance and indoor environmental quality.

Visit RJC Engineers at rjc.ca to learn more about how we can help with sustainable design, structural engineering, structural restoration, building energy modelling, building envelope, reserve fund studies, roof and plaza deck design, condition assessments and more, to design, assess, maintain and improve your buildings.