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Greedy landlords who evict small-sized tenants in order to boost rents are often cited as among the main reasons roughly one in seven storefronts lie empty in Montreal.

The vacancies decrease sales and the lifeblood of a city whose identity is based in large part on the vitality of its commercial arteries, spurring Montreal’s administration to hold a series of public consultations starting Tuesday to seek ideas and generate solutions.

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While Ali Farasat agrees some landlords are motivated by greed, he has found that apathy rather than avarice is more often to blame. A shame, he said, because the formula for renting properties is not complicated.

“On St-Laurent Blvd. there are a lot of old families who have had old buildings in the family for a long time,” said Farasat, president of Yuliv Properties, which owns or manages 49 properties, including 12 on St-Laurent. “They don’t have mortgages and they don’t care because they have a lot of money and they’re lazy, so they just put up a sign and don’t do anything else.”