NEWS AND ANALYSIS

VEZINA

Cont?d from page 1 situation hadn?t improved. On Monday, The Suburban spotted some work being carried out and CDN/NDG Mayor Michael Applebaum confirmed that to media. A company called Hazmasters was on site removing asbestos from the walls of the lobby, forcing tenants to enter their apartments at 4837 through the garage. One employee said it was ?disgusting? to allow residents to walk through the lobby knowing children would be exposed to asbestos, which can lead to serious respiratory ailments if inhaled. ?Mr. Sebag is someone who is well-known to the city officials. He?s one of our worst landlords,? said Applebaum, who is also the executive committee member in charge of housing. ?He is a delinquent landlord? As people like to say, a slumlord.? Sebag?s buildings made the news again in recent days after tenants complained once more of poor living conditions. Apartments at 4837 and 4855 Vezina are infested with rodents and cockroaches, some have been without heat or hot water, and severe water damage has even led to mushrooms sprouting up through the floor. When residents went without hot water for over a month in 2008, the city intervened and took a $9,000 lien out on the property. City workers did the repair work themselves and sent Sebag the bill. Now, weeks before Sebag is poised to sell the building to Groupe CDH, a nonprofit that plans to convert the building into affordable housing, the city is again threatening to take out another legal mortgage so that repairs and extermination work can finally be carried out. The city of Montreal is somewhat handcuffed by Quebec law. Slumlords have been known to swap properties between each other or between their own holding companies when infractions begin to pile up, thereby stalling repairs and restarting the entire process. Applebaum said he will approach Quebec about toughening housing regulations to close loopholes so that tenants in troubled buildings do not have to live in squalor indefinitely. One irony in this sad story is that Sebag may profit at the end of the day because a non-profit group is set to buy his Vezina buildings for $4.3-million. ?It?s a lose-lose situation,? said Côte des Neiges-NDG public relations director Michel Therrien. ?We don?t want to let people stay in these conditions. The only solution is to help get the building sold to this community organization.? Groupe CDH has been setting up co-ops since 1976 and the Vezina building will be managed by Hapopex, a housing group that deals mainly with such cases in Park Extension. Both groups get funding from the Quebec government and the city of Montreal to carry out renovations and to build affordable housing. Similar to the case of the decrepit apartment buildings at Place L?Acadie in Ahuntsic, government money will

RAISES

Cont?d from page 1 motion, saying the hike was a simple ?cost-of-living increase. The raise has been suspended year after year. This is why people in private enterprise don?t run? because there?s not enough money.? Applebaum makes $85,000 per year as borough mayor, and draws other

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Includes: salad bar, shrimp and other seafood, roasts, brochettes, grilled food, dessert counter and much, much more. essentially be used to get rid of a slumlord. In 2008, The Suburban spoke to some tenants in the buildings, including Sri Lankan immigrant Morali Muraleetharan and his family. Muraleetharan had grown accustomed to carrying large buckets of hot water from the neighbouring building, 4837, to his apartment at 4855, where the water was always ice cold. His wife Sujatha said at the time that her children were often startled and cried at night when they heard rats scurrying across the floor in the middle of the night. Cockroaches were also in every crevice; impossible to keep food out of reach. The family paid market price for their four-and-a-half, $650 per month. Heating and hot water were, at least in theory, included in the rent. n salaries as a city councillor, executive committee member and Agglomeration council member. ?I?m paid the maximum from the city of Montreal,? Applebaum noted. Rotrand argued the point, saying the suspension of the small raise, which wouldn?t have affected his own salary, was ?just political correctness.? The motion saved the borough $525. n

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