It’s nonsensical that the B.C.’s Residential Tenancy Act doesn’t protect renters with fixed-term leases from exorbitant annual rate hikes.

It would be one thing if, on principle, the government refused to control residential rents. But it doesn’t and it hasn’t.

Since 2002, British Columbia has had a two-tiered system where fixed-term renters get no protection, while those who rent month-to-month do. The legislation restricts landlords with monthly renters to a set annual increase. This year, the cap is 2.5 per cent.

Yet landlords who have the benefit of long-term tenants get the added bonus of being able to set whatever price they want when the term is up. It can lead to gouging, particularly now when the vacancy rate in Vancouver is virtually zero.

It means that renters are left with a lousy choice: Take a short-term rental and risk being asked to leave with only 30 days’ notice or sign a lease and risk having the rent skyrocket at the end of the term.

There are egregious examples of this price gouging, as The Sun’s Bethany Lindsay has reported.

When Adam Saint’s yearlong lease was nearing its end, the West End building’s owner Gordon Nelson Inc. jumped the price to $1,850 from $1,550. That’s close to a 20-per-cent increase and eight times what landlords with monthly tenants are allowed.

In 2008, that same management company tried to increase rents in another West End apartment building by 73 per cent. The province’s Residential Tenancy Branch reduced it to 38 per cent, a stunningly high increase that could only seem reasonable in a universe where 73 per cent was attempted.

When the tenants went to court, a B.C. Supreme Court justice didn’t buy the company’s argument and refused to allow any increase. So, the company evicted the tenants and landed back at the Residential Tenancy Branch, which fined it.

The two-tier system is an inequity that could easily be fixed by a willing government, which the B.C. Liberal government clearly isn’t, even though since it passed the Residential Tenancy Act 13 years ago, the vacancy rate in Metro Vancouver has rarely even hit 2.5 per cent. It’s currently at 0.02 per cent.

But the dual issues of rent control and egregious rent increases are only part of the larger problem of housing affordability.

Yet despite the almost daily hand wringing in the media about the cost of buying homes, there’s been much less attention paid to the crisis in rental housing, even though the two issues are inseparable.

Demand for rentals is increasing as more people move here, even though fewer people every year are able to afford to buy a home.

As Royal Bank of Canada reported in June, it takes 85.6 per cent of a typical household’s monthly, pre-tax income to buy a standard bungalow. Even a condo apartment eats up 32.9 per cent of the average household income.

It’s a situation that RBC has described as “extreme,” even as it noted that the high demand is continuing to force the prices up, particularly for detached homes.

Increased demand for rentals has been exacerbated by the failure of various levels of government to help ensure that the supply of rental stock increases and that the existing stock is preserved.