Comment 73573

By seancb (registered) - website | Posted February 01, 2012 at 08:37:56 in reply to Comment 73521

Thanks for the kind words :-)

Maybe we can get creative here and deal with this ourselves:

  1. Identify zones where we need to address absentee landlord-ism and demolition by neglect

  2. Raise the base rate across all commercial properties within the zone

  3. Create tax rebates based on occupied percentage of the building (there could be a grace period for "in between tenants" or for buildings undergoing renovation)

Because we could have fine control over the zones, we could tailor the rebates so that current occupied buildings see their taxes go down, and the fully vacant ones go way up...

I don't know. It's not ideal but it could work. At any rate we have to do SOMEthing.

We also need to deal with the bylaws that add further restrictions and basically disallow renovations. For example, Treble Hall - there is basically no way for them to put residential there because there is not enough physical space inside or outside of the building to put the right number and size of stairways. This in a building that you can see from the firehall.

I vote down for offensiveness and up for humour. I cast no votes based on my level of agreement.

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