Require public reporting on Nanaimo’s tenant-relocation protections

A move you didn’t plan for

Redevelopment can look like a planning notice from the street. For the person living inside, it can mean finding another home. Nanaimo now has tenant-assistance rules for some redevelopment situations. Residents need to understand both their reach and their limits.

Nanaimo City Council adopted Residential Tenant Assistance Bylaw 7459 on July 27, 2026, according to the City’s project page. Its described scope includes redevelopment involving demolition or partial demolition of buildings with four or more rental units. The City also identifies exclusions, including secondary rentals and ordinary renovations.

June reporting by The Discourse and CHLY captured concerns from tenant advocates about the proposed approach. Those interviews are useful evidence of the debate at that time. They should not be treated as a substitute for the final bylaw or as proof that a particular household has received, or been denied, assistance under it.

Promises and assistance delivered are different things

The next useful question is what happens when the rules are applied. An anonymized implementation report could show how many households were affected, what assistance was delivered and what compliance concerns were raised. Where reliable information is available, it could also report on return-to-building outcomes.

Individual tenants should not have to expose their identities or housing circumstances to make the system measurable. Aggregated reporting can protect privacy while still allowing residents to understand coverage and gaps. Clear definitions matter: households affected, payments offered and assistance actually delivered are different measures. Missing or incomplete information should be labelled rather than silently counted as success.

Follow the first year without exposing tenants

This petition asks Nanaimo City Council and Community Planning to establish an annual public implementation report, with the first due in July 2027. It also asks for tenant and developer consultation on practical improvements informed by that record. The proposed timing is our request, not an existing City commitment.

The campaign does not claim the bylaw prevents every eviction, applies to every rental, or has already failed. It asks for a way to assess the policy fairly after adoption. If an equivalent reporting commitment is already in place, Local Voices will link it and identify what, if anything, remains unanswered.