Kensington Market residents really don’t like local realtor Phil Pick, who is accused of helping to gentrify the market by helping landlords increase rent, and posters have been appearing in the area expressing this displeasure. Posters that read “Wanted: Phil Pick, for Killing Kensington Market,” started appearing all over the neighbourhood in recent weeks. Pick represents a local landlord who is increasing rent in a commercial building in the area that will force out a number of small, independent businesses, some of which have been there for 50 years. Rent is supposedly being tripled, and these businesses simply can’t afford it. Pick was also the subject of controversy four years ago when he tried to bring a Starbucks into Kensington Market.

Rising rents in the downtown core are not a new problem — property values are high, and the cost of maintaining older buildings can also be steep, so rents are going up all over the city, not just in Kensington Market. But Kensington, with its history of welcoming a wide variety of immigrant communities throughout its existence, has created a community that is particularly dedicated to maintaining its independent spirit. According to Phil Pick, he’s simply trying to get his clients rents commensurate with what their properties are worth, and so he has to take these attacks with a grain of salt. “I can’t let [it] upset me,” Pick told the CBC. “This is nothing new. I get a lot of people yelling at me on the street. I just can’t take it to heart. I’m more interested in servicing my clients.”

[via CBC]

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Megan Patterson is the Science and Technology Editor at Paper Droids and currently a Toronto Standard intern. She also tweets more than is healthy or wise. 

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