SLP owns Bank Block through a holding company, 211–231 Bank Street Holdings Inc. This company was incorporated on March 24, 2022 by Tamer Abaza, who is the sole director of the company. The holding company’s registered office is 226 Argyle Ave, SLP’s head office.
At a total cost of $10,275,000, Abaza now owns the entirety of the eastern side of Bank St. between Lisgar St. and Nepean St. He owns everything from 178 Nepean St. to 211–231 Bank St.
Abaza purchased Bank Block in two transactions. The residential addresses 178 Nepean St. and 227 Bank St. were purchased on August 31, 2022 for $8,075,000 from Potechin Investments, brothers David Wolfe and Stanley Wolfe, and the estate of their father Theodore Wolfe. Soon after, on September 23, 2022, Abaza purchased the commercial building between 178 Nepean St. and 227 Bank St. from Sophal Hardy for $2,200,000.
On October 14, 2022, Abaza obtained $13,000,000 of financing from Fiera Real Estate for this block.
Smart Living’s Development Application
The current residential tenants are not referred to once in the 2,400 pages of documents Smart Living Properties submitted for their planning application. Instead, the future/prospective tenants are considered, for example when assessing future noise levels and parking. The current tenants, who have created homes at Bank Block – who have made Bank Block what it is – and built networks of support throughout the neighbourhood, are never referenced in any of the documents. Smart Living, Fotenn, and the other companies SLP hired would rather erase the existing tenants than have to consider the impact of their repositioning plan.
The only mention by the landlord of the current Bank Block tenants was an email attachment from 211–231 Bank Street Holdings Inc. to City of Ottawa urban planner Adrian van Wyk, obtained through a freedom of information request. On November 7, 2023, a week after SLP issued N13 eviction notices, van Wyk wrote in an email, “Applicant requested that this document not be made available for public consumption and be treated confidentially.” The document, titled “Tenant Relocation & Assistance Plan” is anything but an assistance plan. It plainly describes the eviction process, and states, “the appropriate notice and required activities as per the Residential Tenancies Act(RTA) will be activated.” The “Next Action” outlined in the letter is simply, “Relocation letter and N13 Notice to all tenants.” Why is SLP afraid of releasing this document? What are they trying to hide? We can assume they were trying to keep another of their mass evictions under wraps.
Bank-Block-Relocation-Assistance-PlanOn December 29, 2022, Smart Living Properties submitted its first round of development applications to the City of Ottawa. On January 27, 2023, they submitted a few more reports, and on November 7, 2023, a number of other studies and reports.
Smart Living Properties hired their longstanding partner Fotenn Consultants to navigate the city planning bureaucracy. These other companies were contracted to complete various required reports, such as architectural plans, a wind study, a wastewater study, and a tree impact assessment:
- Woodman Architect & Associates
- EXP Services Inc.
- Paterson Group
- Commonwealth Historic Resource Management
- Annis O’Sullivan Vollebekk Ltd.
- Gradient Wind Engineering Inc.
- CGH Transportation Inc.
About Smart Living Properties
Smart Living Properties is an Ottawa-based landlord/developer and mass evictor founded by Rockcliffe Park mansion residents, Tamer Abaza and Rakan Abushaar. SLP converts apartment buildings and rooming houses into furnished student housing, which they brand as “co-living properties” and “micro-suites.”
The SLP brand was adopted in 2017; before then it was known as Takyan Consulting & Development. Takyan had a notorious reputation, with multiple news articles describing how Abaza and Abushaar neglected their properties and rented out unfinished units to students.
Smart Living has made a business out of acquiring properties on the margins of the so-called “housing spectrum,” repositioning them, and charging exorbitant rents. Several of SLP’s properties were home to many people who had previously been homeless. Once Abaza and Abushaar get away with a mass eviction, they make sure the new units are financially out of reach for the vast majority of tenants.
Many tenants who have been forced out of their homes by SLP have moved out of the city, have been forced to pay $100s more in rent, have moved to much smaller units, or returned to the streets and shelter system. The Osgoode Chambers rooming house in Sandy Hill is an example of this.
While many tenants at Osgoode Chambers were students and workers who had never been homeless, many others moved to Osgoode Chambers directly from a shelter or the streets. In December 2020, while SLP was mass evicting tenants here, Abaza and his subordinate Rowland Gordon attended a fundraiser at the Ottawa Mission, five blocks away from Osgoode Chambers. Tenants who they had just renovicted were now living at the Mission.