Duplex owners in Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie will no longer be allowed to convert their rental units into condos, the borough has decided.

Even though the Quebec government has placed a moratorium on converting duplexes into condos, the borough used to offer exemptions to the rule.

After denying two applications for conversions over the summer, elected officials in Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie decided to pass a motion earlier this month stating that it will no longer be approving the requests.

"We thought it would be best to just put our cards on the table, and say that, given the fact that the vacancy rate is so low, and it's so difficult to find apartments, that we would not be allowing for these derogations," said city councillor Christine Gosselin.

The borough has a vacancy rate of 1.5 per cent — lower than the Montreal average of 1.9 per cent.

It's a step in the right direction, said Martin Blanchard, a community organizer with the Petite Patrie Housing Committee.

"It's always been a problem that we are taking rental apartments from the market and putting them in another sector," he said.

Right now, he said that the average one-bedroom apartment in the Petite-Patrie neighbourhood now costs about $1,500.

But Blanchard said that not many duplexes are left on the market in the area and he would like to see the municipality extend their decision to other types of housing, like triplexes and five- and six-unit buildings.

"We will lose a lot of social and economic diversity in Petite-Patrie," he said. "We see that there is a loss of tenants, a loss of parental families, a loss of poor people."

Gosselin said that while the motion is only for duplexes, that doesn't mean that applications for bigger buildings will get approved.

She said that duplexes were the most common type of conversion they saw, so the borough wanted to be "transparent" about their refusal.

"There would be much less tolerance for converting a multiplex," she said. "That would be refused outright."