Apartments are allowed to be dangerously hot in Toronto. City still studying options

CBC

17 hours ago

Should Toronto set a maximum indoor temperature for apartments?
7 minutes ago
Duration 2:29
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Monique Gordon's second-floor apartment in Rexdale is sweltering hot all year-round — even in the winter.
She keeps track of the temperature in her home with a small digital thermometer and records it as proof. Recently, on a cool, rainy 20 C afternoon, her unit was 27.3 C, an indoor temperature that's unsafe to live in, health experts and environmental advocates say.
Gordon, who is chair of ACORN's Etobicoke chapter, has lung granulomas. Paired with the heat, it makes it difficult to breathe.
"Thank God, I don't have any asthma because I don't think I'd be able to make it through with the heat," Gordon told CBC Toronto.
She says she's tried in the past to hook up an air conditioner, but every time it ran, it tripped the fuse. Last week, she told city officials about the lack of temperature control in her building during a tour.
Gordon, like many tenants across Toronto, is bracing for yet another hotter-than-usual summer, while the city continues looking into implementing a maximum indoor temperature standard for apartments.
City officials chose not to endorse a standard because of financial and technical barriers in 2018. Then, in June 2023, city council voted in favour of exploring the feasibility of a maximum temperature standard as a way to ensure no residential unit becomes dangerously hot. That led to another motion that was approved last December, where council endorsed the idea and asked for recommendations.
"They just need to make the decision and then just enforce it," Gordon said.
Toronto Heat Safety, a coalition of tenant advocacy groups, health experts and environmental organizations, came together last year to demand that the city establish a 26 C max temperature to prevent residents from developing any health problems from heat, including heart and breathing problems.
With weather and climate modelling showing extreme heat days will increase in the city, Canadian Environmental Law Association lawyer Jacqueline Wilson, whose organization is part of Toronto Heat Safety, says sweltering apartments are an urgent health and safety concern.
She says the onus shouldn't be on tenants.
"It's kind of a core fundamental right to be safe in your home," Wilson said.
"We're seeing that if you don't have the infrastructure in place to cool, that you're not safe in your home."
WATCH | The consequences of extreme indoor temperatures:
We installed sensors inside 50 homes without AC. Most levels were unsafe.
2 years ago
Duration 8:57
In a year of deadly heat waves, CBC News installed sensors to measure the heat and humidity inside 50 homes with little to no air conditioning over the summer to find out how hot they would get and explored the consequences of extreme indoor temperatures.
In an emailed statement, city spokesperson Shane Gerard said recommended next steps toward implementing a maximum indoor temperature standard will be released in a fourth quarter staff report, as requested by city council last December.
"Indoor temperatures in apartment buildings are a particular concern, as tenants living in units without air conditioning or other cooling equipment may be at higher risk of heat-related health impacts," he said.
"Addressing excessive indoor temperatures is a complex issue that must consider housing affordability, ongoing decarbonization initiatives, public health practices, and the perspectives of tenants and property owners."
Toronto already has rules for heat in winter
The new maximum standard would mirror what Toronto already has in place to protect renters in the winter. The minimum temperature standard of 21 C means landlords have to provide heat and run it from Oct. 1 to May 15, according to rules updated last December.
If a tenant is fortunate enough to live in a unit where the owner already installed an air conditioner, then city rules state it has to be on from June 1 to Sept. 30 and maintain a maximum temperature of no more than 26 C.
But right now, there's nothing keeping residents safe from scorching temperatures if they've moved into a unit that doesn't have a landlord-installed air conditioner.
That includes Gordon, as well as Thorncliffe Park resident Khalil Aldroubi, whose 21st-floor apartment can reach highs of 29.79 C. He says his kids often put a mattress on the balcony just to get some sleep during hot summer nights.
"Everyone's sweating and burning," he said. "It's hard to sleep."
Aldroubi is among the majority of tenants living in apartments who don't have air conditioners. A municipal report from 2018 on the consequences of extreme heat found that only six per cent of apartment buildings in Toronto are reported to have air conditioning.
By creating a maximum temperature standard, all landlords would have to make sure units stay cool and provide some sort of technology to do it, says Sarah Buchanan, campaigns director for Toronto Environment Alliance, another member of Toronto Heat Safety.
She says it's no different from any other safety requirements landlords already have to abide by.
"We have rules in place in rental apartments to protect people from things like fires. Landlords have to provide sprinklers, smoke detectors, things like that. It's starting to get hot enough now that we need to have rules in place to protect people from heat," Buchanan said.
But when additional responsibilities and costs are saddled on landlords, some tenants worry how they might be impacted. That's why Wilson says it's important for the city to also consider complimentary measures, such as funding for landlords with low income renters.
Buchanan says she knows the city is working diligently to find the right answers, but that a maximum temperature bylaw is an important tool and the faster it's established, the better.