[policyenthusiast]

Heard an update from the City yesterday on the forthcoming 'Attainable Housing Program'. Expect to see/hear more in February and something by May-ish.

Sounds like a tax deferral program of some sort for new multi-family in the Downtown, but with a slight catch that will be working off of 'attainable rents' as set out by certain national body'.

Either way, very positive news and a program that should spur a number of new projects.

Did they mention anything about unit count expectations?

 

[IanO]

Nothing more yet.

 

[policyenthusiast]

Unfortunate anecdote from LinkedIn about an OTR conversion not being maintained:

I've been without heat in my Edmonton apartment for 29 days.

My landlord is Strategic Group, the Calgary-based real estate company led by CEO Riaz Mamdani. I rent at Capital Apartments, one of Strategic Group's office-to-residential conversions in downtown Edmonton. My heat pump failed on December 25, 2025. It is now January 23, 2026. Interior temperatures have dropped to 9°C. It has been as cold as -27°C with wind chill outside.

Alberta Health Services inspected my unit and sent Strategic Group an official compliance report on January 14. Five days later, rather than scheduling the repair, Strategic Group sent another technician to prepare another quote.
I have received no confirmed repair date. No response to my compensation requests. I am sleeping next to a space heater with frost forming on my windows.

Strategic Group owns and manages residential properties across Alberta, including Capital and e11even in Edmonton, UPTEN, Cube, Missao, and Marda in Calgary, and Terra Townhomes in Airdrie. They operate out of the CN Tower in Edmonton and their head office at Strategic Centre in Calgary. They are currently developing the Barron Building and recently acquired Chevron Plaza for conversion.

I'm sharing this here because prospective tenants, investors, partners, and commercial clients deserve to know how Strategic Group responds when essential services fail. This is not a one-off maintenance delay. This is 29 days of corporate negligence during the coldest month of the year in Alberta.
I have filed complaints with Alberta Health Services and the Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service.

People in the comments were extremely kind, offering the guy free accommodations and other forms of help. It's insane to me that his situation has gotten this bad, as any landlord is surely aware of how much cheaper it is to fix a heat pump than it is to repair a pipe that bursts in the cold.

 

[policyenthusiast]

Dug further into this, some more stories about Strategic (some are funny, most just awful):

• In 2016, Riaz Mamdani, the CEO, was nearly assassinated in Calgary. He was shot 6 times at his mansion through his Rolls Royce. They suspected it was because he never paid contractors for the work they did on his buildings, and someone put a hit on him.
• They are absolute scum. They raised my rent by over 30% in 2024. What’s worse, is that the city of Calgary is offering them millions of dollars to build rental units. Outrageous!
• As a contractor I stopped working for them over a decade ago. No regrets
• I revoked authorization for Strategic to debit my bank account and placed a stop debit with my bank. They made up some random amount and took it from my account anyways.
• I have a friend living in one of this companies buildings in Spruce Grove. The "non smoking" building. She can't even open her patio door now thats it's summer, she is surrounded top, bottom and sides by smokers. It's disgusting. She was warned twice while signing her lease, that the building is strictly non smoking. Dog feces in the hallway,.marks all over the walls. Up until this week, the carpets looked 10 years old. They at least cleaned those.
• the building were in is in need of severe renovations that were told to us would be finished BEFORE we moved in. 1 of 2 elevators are broken, the front gate that controls who comes in and out of the lot was broken. The landlords don't care about the property and it really shows.
• My mom lived there for 2.5 years and at the end of her lease they were forcing tenants to have their dogs dna taken to identify the owners who don't pick up after their dogs.
• My 2 bikes were stolen because there was a damaged door that led to inside the building. After it was stolen I talked to other residents and I found out it happened several times for the same reason. Basically, the door leading to the outside would get jammed because of a damaged bolt and not fully lock, unless extra force was used to close it, so perpetrators would come inside the building without even having to break in.
• One person overlooking multiple buildings, nobody's been around to clean the building in WEEKS, and the doors still haven't been fixed.

 

[Yeggy]

^ A bunch of this smells like a liable suit.