Renters now better protected in Mississauga, city says

City officials say they’ve taken steps to allow more housing to be built in Mississauga while at the same time looking out for tenants and keeping rents affordable.

In updating its rental housing protection bylaw this week, the City of Mississauga “is taking another step to improve affordable rental housing and support the tenants who rely on it,” city officials said in a news release on Thursday morning, one day after city council approved amendments to the rules.

Officials added the beefed-up bylaw “helps preserve the city’s stock of affordable rental housing when redevelopment occurs.”

Redevelopment in that context is the process of demolishing or renovating existing rental properties and replacing them with modernized or expanded housing units.

Enacted in 2019, the bylaw has been updated “to better support tenants during the redevelopment process,” the city said this week, adding the bylaw revisions apply “to approximately 360 rental buildings in Mississauga with six or more units.”

As new rental housing is developed in Mississauga, city officials say they’ll strive to keep rent affordable for residents.

Andrew Whittemore, the city’s commissioner of planning and building, said balance is key moving forward.

“As Mississauga grows, we need to build more rental housing while making sure tenants are supported every step of the way,” he said, adding the updated bylaw “strikes that balance by supporting redevelopment, strengthening tenant protections and preserving affordability so residents aren’t left behind as our city moves forward.”

More than eight in 10 rental buildings 35-plus years old

With more than 85 per cent of Mississauga’s rental buildings (with six or more units) built before 1990, redevelopments in the city are expected to rise, according to officials with the municipality.

While older rental units “typically offer more affordable rents, the age of the buildings can make them more likely to undergo redevelopment,” city officials said. “Regulating this activity allows the city to balance tenant protection with the need to increase overall housing supply.”

According to the city, the updated bylaw now provides stronger supports for eligible tenants living in affordable units affected by rental housing redevelopment.

Protections include:

The bylaw amendments also address affordability requirements in order to better reflect today’s housing market, the city said.

In that context, officials added, the revised bylaw:

• Continues to require that replacement units remain affordable at similar rents for at least 10 years — and that they remain rental units for at least 20 years.
• Lowers the threshold for protected units from 175 per cent average market rent ($3,500 for a 2-bedroom unit in 2025) to 125 per cent of vacant unit average market rent ($3,100 for a 2 bedroom unit in 2025). This means the rules apply to more moderately priced units.
• Introduces income-based tenant matching — this means that if the original eligible tenants don’t move back to a replacement unit, the vacant retained units will be offered to people whose incomes meet the affordability threshold for the similar affordable rents. This approach ties affordability protections directly to the physical unit and ensures that tenants who need affordable rents have access to affordable units.

“In addition,” city officials said, “under the updated bylaw, replacement units must also be comparable in size to the original unit.”

(Cover photo: City of Mississauga X)