General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[ijmorlan]

I'd like to see them consider a vacancy tax for commercial property as well. Maybe there's some reason it's not feasible... But naively, it seems like persistently vacant storefronts impose negative externalities on their neighbors and should be taxed accordingly.

It’s very hard to write a definition of vacancy which works. Somebody who wants to leave a store vacant will likely be able to have a facade of a store which isn’t really different from an empty store. On the other hand, they presumably would at least have to make it look active even if it’s not; but that’s an improvement on an obviously-vacant storefront.