The owner of a 128-unit rental townhouse complex in Peterborough has filed an appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) after a recent decision by city council to deny an application to convert the complex into condominiums.
City councillor Matt Crowley, in whose ward the townhouse complex is located, told kawarthaNOW last week that he had learned from city staff that an appeal had been made.
On Friday (January 23), the City of Peterborough’s strategic communications director Brendan Webley confirmed to kawarthaNOW that the city has received an OLT appeal related to the property at 700 Parkhill Road West.
Burlington-based Simple Investor Real Estate Group (SIREG) Management Inc., which owns the property, submitted a completed draft plan of condominium to the city in June 2025. On December 1, city council meeting as general committee held a public meeting under the Planning Act where they considered a staff report that recommended council reject the draft plan.
At that meeting, council voted to support the staff recommendation, subsequently ratifying that decision at a city council meeting on December 8. Both votes carried by a unanimous vote of 11-0.
SIREG purchased the property, otherwise known as Parkhill Place, four years ago. It consists of 10 two-storey residential townhomes comprising 128 three-bedroom units. In its application to the city to convert the rental units to condominiums, SIREG noted it would continue to maintain the property but sell the three-bedroom units to private investors, with existing tenants continuing to rent the units from the new owners.
That said, existing tenants would be given the right of first refusal to purchase, at a price of $409,000 according to the city staff report on the application. That’s well above the city’s set minimum affordable threshold of $311,000.
The report also noted that 40 per cent of the units at Parkhill Place meet the provincial threshold for affordable rental housing and that, “While conversion to condominium ownership cannot force eviction of tenants and rents would continue as they are, over time it is expected that the units with affordable rents will be transition to market value as tenants turn over.”
During the December 1 public meeting, city planner Ian Walker told council that SIREG’s application, if approved, could result in the potential long-term loss of 17 per cent of the city’s stock of three-bedroom rental units. He noted the application doesn’t guarantee continued affordable rent rates or affordable purchase prices for the units.
Four Parkhill Place residents spoke before council prior to the vote being taken, with all four noting a poor landlord response to pressing maintenance and repair needs.
SIREG founder and CEO Todd Slater also spoke before council at the December 1 public meeting, stating that his company’s previous condo conversions hadn’t affected residents, noting a resident can only be evicted for non-payment of rent. He added rents can only be increased in line with provincial guidelines.
Slater said his company is aware of repairs needed at the townhouse complex, but said many of the repairs were the result of poor maintenance by the previous owner and that his company hadn’t had the opportunity complete all the repairs during the time it has owned the property.
Following general committee’s decision at the December 1 public meeting to deny the application, SIREG lawyer Jasdeep Dhillon spoke to council on December 8. He said the purchase cost of units for existing tenants would meet the city’s minimum affordable threshold of $311,000, later noting there was “a good possibility” SIREG would appeal to OLT if council ratified its earlier decision.
Among the Parkhill Place tenants who spoke before council during the December 1 public meeting was Jennifer Lacey, a Parkhill Place resident for eight years. She presented council with the results of a tenant survey that found that, of the 47 tenants who responded, 66 per cent are living there because of affordability and 72 per cent would not be eligible for a mortgage if they wished to purchase their unit.
Lacey, like the other tenants who addressed council, cited her displeasure with SIREG’s response to maintenance and repair needs.
“I sent one (maintenance request) in and they (SIREG) didn’t respond for like 10 months,” she tells kawarthaNOW. “They actually responded (to my request) the day that I was delegating (before council). I think it’s because they knew I was going to be making a delegation.”
“When they (the city) did the engineering study, there was a picture of a broken step in the basement of a unit. That study was done in January 2025. That wooden step was still broken in November 2025. So, my concern is if they (SIREG) fail to complete recommended repairs that are in the engineering study, what’s the recourse?”
And then there’s the affordability concern.
“A lot of the tenants have lived here for decades, and some of them pay maybe $1,100 a month for a three-bedroom townhouse. Will rent be increased because of the condo conversion? If this was converted, I can’t get evicted, but if I move out and somebody else came in, they won’t have that same protection.”
Councillor Crowley says, after receiving city staff input and talking directly to Parkhill Place residents, it was clear to him which way to vote on the application.
“It was pretty clear that the right thing to do was to deny this,” he says. “I think a lot of it is fear of the unknown. A lot of residents had a lot of anxiety surrounding this entire process. The residents there are really upset about the lack of maintenance … things that are in disrepair.”
“Also, talking to residents, there was a real fear of displacement and the potential for a lack of affordability. There were promises made that rent isn’t going to increase — ‘We’re not going to kick you out, we’re not going to evict you’ — but along with that was what residents were telling me about repair problems that have been ongoing in many units over a long period of time.”
“I think there’s a lack of trust there between the residents and the owner. That really affected how council looked at the entire situation, along with staff’s recommendations. If you hear that a (building) owner isn’t even doing basic maintenance, that doesn’t instill a lot of confidence.”
While reluctant to offer an opinion on how the city would fare on this matter before OLT, councillor Crowley notes “We (city council) made our decision based on the best information that we had in front of us.”
Meanwhile, Lacey says if there’s a silver lining to be found in the process, it can be found in city council’s reception of her, and her neighbours’, concerns.
“I’m a lifetime renter and I’ve never felt so validated regarding my housing before,” she says, adding “I felt seen and heard as a tenant.”
While proud of her active role in the process, Lacey is wary that her speaking out publicly may have ramifications.
“There’s a power imbalance between landlords and tenants. Part of my very nervousness (with speaking before city council) is ‘Am I putting a bullseye on myself?'”
“There are probably a lot of tenants who should take their landlord to the Landlord and Tenant Board. That’s the best recourse, but with that power imbalance, and paying less rent than a lot of people in Peterborough, that can be scary. I’ve always felt you can’t have affordable housing and up-to-date maintenance. It’s either one or the other.”
As for the OLT appeal, a case number has not yet been assigned as of the date of this story.
“The case will appear on the case status service once the appeal is received and processed by the tribunal, which, depending on the volume of appeals received at a given time, may take a number of weeks,” reads the OLT website.
With files from Bruce Head.
