The landlord had told them he wanted to raise the rent to $3,500 and when they complained he decided to raise it to $9,500.
“We know that our building is not rent controlled and this was something we were always worried about happening and there is no way we can afford $9,500 per month," Yumna Farooq said.
I think your second point is valid, but the first is upside-down. Landlords compete with tenants for plots and bank loans. If they started leaving the market, more plots will free up and banks will be forced to start giving out loans to tenants. This will allow people who are currently tenants to build their own houses, rather than needing to rent. And your third point only applies if you exclude some properties from rent control, which is what Ontario seems to be doing.
Uh, part of the point of the greenbelt is to stop building detached houses because they’re actually environmentally quite bad. I mean maybe individuals could work together to put together a co-op but Housing Now TO says that municipal governments generally block any of those that would pencil out.
If we’re being honest, all housing is environmentally bad. And not just environmentally bad, but bad for society in general. A necessary evil for the individual, perhaps, but it stands to reason that they should carry a high cost to account for the negative externalities they place on everyone else.