Hamilton has policies governing apartment demolitions. Should Halifax?

Halifax Regional Municipality does not require landlords to prove an apartment building is vacant before issuing a demolition permit, something that one group in Nova Scotia is trying to change.

ACORN, a national tenant advocacy group, says the recent case of Shailagh Benteau — whose Halifax apartment was demolished while she was awaiting a ruling on her eviction — shows change is needed.

"It's me today, but it could be you tomorrow," said Benteau in an interview.

"I would love to be the very last person this can happen to in Nova Scotia."

ACORN says there are other cities in Canada that have better protections in place for tenants. The group points to Hamilton, Ont., as a city with a rental housing protection bylaw.

In Hamilton, a landlord is required to notify tenants if they apply for a demolition permit and hold a meeting with tenants. That meeting, and minutes from it, must be submitted to the city before the demolition permit is granted.

The landlord could be required to replace the demolished units or provide assistance to displaced tenants before getting a demolition permit.

The Hamilton bylaw officially came into effect in January 2025 and only applies to properties with six or more residential units, according to the bylaw guideline.

Two compliance visits took place

For seven years, Benteau lived in an apartment at 3343 Westerwald St. off Dutch Village Road. Benteau was the last remaining tenant of the 24-unit building.

Benteau had gone to the province's residential tenancies program to argue that her landlord had not followed the rules in giving her a notice of eviction. She was awaiting a decision on her case when she arrived home on June 10 to find a massive hole in an exterior wall of the building.

She said she called police, and an officer told her the building was no longer safe and she would need to vacate it. Benteau went in, got her two cats and small valuables together, and went to stay with family for the night before returning the next day for her other items.

On June 12, the residential tenancies program ordered the eviction could not take place until Sept. 30, but the demolition was already underway.

The landlord, RC Jane Properties, had been granted a permit by the city in March to demolish the 24-unit apartment building to make way for a larger residential building.

A Halifax Regional Municipality spokesperson confirmed that while a landlord or company does not have to prove an apartment building is empty before they are issued a demolition permit, they are still bound by safety requirements under the building code, "which include ensuring the building is vacant prior to demolition activities."

HRM also confirmed to CBC News that staff visited the site on June 12 and again on June 19 to ensure compliance with building code regulations. The demolition permit has remained in effect.

Kathryn Morse is the councillor for District 10, where Benteau's apartment building was demolished.

Morse told CBC News it's "never OK" for a person's home to be torn down around them. She said the city could do more to ensure demolition permits are "issued at the appropriate time."

Dalhousie Legal Aid has been working with other tenants impacted by so-called "demovictions" over the past six months. Community legal worker Sydnee Blum said the city has the ability to fine landlords in a way the province does not. using municipal bylaw M-200.

Under that bylaw, a landlord could be fined between $150 and $10,000 a day for violating residential building standards.

Blum says the bylaw is applicable here because demolishing a "building outright makes it inherently unlivable" and this is an "inherent violation of the standards of the rental unit."

"Theoretically, we'd like to see the city impose that fine for every day that the tenant should have been entitled to live in that unit and it's uninhabitable because they've demolished it," Blum said.

Comparatively, violations of the province's Residential Tenancy Act could result in a fine of $1,000, but can be hard to enforce.

The residential tenancies program is under Service Nova Scotia, a provincial body, but city demolition permits are issued by HRM.

The province told CBC News there is no requirement to notify the city when an eviction case is the subject of a residential tenancies hearing.

In 2021, a bylaw was proposed at council that would have required confirmation that an eviction before the program and any subsequent tenant appeals were complete before a demolition permit was issued.

In the end, council decided it wasn't necessary to create a new by-law.

Morse said that these conversations may have to be re-visited given what's happened in her district.