So last night I attended a meeting for the tenants of my apartment complex. The owner of our complex has enlisted a developer to explore options for making their 'underperforming' property more lucrative.
The whole thing makes me spitting mad. I love my apartment it's absolutely perfect. The building was built in 1937 and it is so immaculately kept and has so much character. It is 'Colonial Revival' in style. We have greenspace with gardens that have tulips in the spring and annuals in the summer.
My neighbours are fantastic. The majority of the tenants are elderly ladies and the landlord has allowed them to turn areas around the building into gardens. What highrise apartment would ever allow that? These women have been in this building for decades cause it meets all their needs and it is affordable for them. Affordable housing is becoming more and more of an issue for anyone that isn't making a million dollars a year.
Instead of our lovely red brick buildings they want to build rows of 3 1/2 storey, million and half dollar townhouses. I'm so sick and tired of the things that are really important in life getting demolished all for money something so fleeting and in the grand scheme of things worthless. That is what I hate about this big city. Family, community, historic significance, greenspace are all undervalued in this urban jungle.
The question now is what do we as tenants do? Well everyone else is just as mad as I am. But many of them will not be pushed around. I plan to fight this with them. I have other options so I'm not worried about losing my place to live which means I won't be scared off like some of the tenants already have. And since money is not my primary focus I won't be bought either. As long as there are people in this building willing to put up a fight I will be helping.
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