TORONTO — Tenants at three buildings in Toronto’s east end who had been staring down eviction notices have reached an agreement with their landlord to end a public battle that lasted more than two years, both parties said.
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 said this week they have reached an “amicable” deal without providing further details because the terms of the agreement are confidential. The tenants are no longer withholding rent, they said.
Philip Zigman, a tenant organizer who worked with the Thorncliffe Park Drive residents, said the fact that they got an acceptable agreement “speaks to the power of working class organizing," and will encourage other tenants to fight back against unfair landlords.
“I think that other tenants in the city, who are facing above guideline rent increases, who are dealing with other issues, like you know, disrepair, I think they can look to the example that Thorncliffe Park tenants have set," he said in a phone interview.
"And learn from that and organize at their buildings and in their neighbourhoods to fight back.”
The three mid-rise buildings overlooking the Don Valley in the northeast end of the city were acquired by Starlight Investments in 2019 using an investment from the Public Sector Pension Investment Board. The buildings' day-to-day management is handled by Greenwin Corp., a property management and development firm.
Zigman, who doesn't live in the Thorncliffe buildings, said the battle against one of the largest private landlords in the country and one of Canada's largest pension funds wasn't easy for a small group of working-class Torontonians.
“It was a big fight," he said. “I absolutely think tenants in Thorncliffe Park should be proud of their organizing work, proud of their commitment to the struggle."
Those tenants' efforts drew media attention and 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.
Bruno Dobrusin, 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 100 units — an achievement Dobrusin described as "historic."
Those repairs have largely been made in the past year, he said.
The dispute is ongoing nearly two years after it started, with tenants raising concerns about disrepair in buildings' common spaces and rent increases, and landlord Barney River Investments seeking to evict about 100 families.
The Landlord and Tenant Board said an eviction hearing involving the Lawrence Avenue buildings has been held, and that the file is being processed. Further hearings have not been set up yet and Barney River Investments couldn't be reached for comment.
Landlords in Ontario are allowed to increase rent up to a certain percentage set by the province each year, in units that were occupied before Nov. 15, 2018. The rate is set at three per cent for 2025.
They can also apply for above-guideline increases, known as AGIs, to fund renovations aimed at improving living conditions.
Dobrusin said AGIs are the primary source of the dispute between the landlord and tenants at the Lawrence Avenue buildings.
"What is very frustrating … is that when your conditions in your unit and your living conditions are so bad, and then at the same time the landlord applies for an AGI to repair things that basically you don't see and that are not impacting your daily life," he said.
Unaddressed issues included broken tiles, holes in the walls, mould on ceilings, peeling paint and broken elevators and laundry machines, according to tenants.
Disrepair was also a major issue for the residents of Thorncliffe Park Drive buildings, one tenant there said, citing problems such as unmown lawns, broken fuse boxes, frequent power outages and water shutdowns.
"We have our landlords, who have decided to go all further in order to evict us instead of listening to us and making all these adjustments (fixes)," Sameer Beyan told The Canadian Press before the agreement was reached with the landlord.
Penny Colomvakos, Starlight Investments' senior vice-president for residential operations and communications, has rejected the tenants' allegations, saying in a statement last month that the company was dedicated to "ongoing improvements in building maintenance and resident support."
She said the company had invested more than $30 million to improve aging infrastructure and addressed more than 22,600 maintenance requests since acquiring the buildings in 2019.
Ricardo Tranjan, a political economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said the Thorncliffe buildings' complex ownership and management structure was a complicating factor during the rent strike because it was not always clear where tenants should turn to raise their concerns.
"This is an incredible lack of transparency. I think it's not a good model for managing housing," he said of financialized landlords, or companies that own or manage rental properties as an investment.
Tranjan, who is also the author of the book "The Tenant Class," said one reason why the strikes by the York South-Weston Tenant Union yielded faster results was because the tenants lived in properties managed by a single corporate landlord, meaning they knew whom to negotiate with.
Tranjan said the renters' organized efforts are admirable, despite the constant threat of eviction.
"There's a lot of victories and then there's lot of momentum," he said.
"I think that from a movement-building perspective, it's also an immense show of force and inspiring, and it's likely to motivate other groups."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 5, 2025.
Sharif Hassan, The Canadian Press
