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+-- Forum: Land Development and Real Estate (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Urban Areas (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=5)
+--- Thread: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours (/showthread.php?tid=8)
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RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - ijmorlan - 05-09-2017
(05-08-2017, 10:10 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Admittedly $200K does seem like a rather lowball offer.
Not sure why someone would offer that given that everyone should know that the city can't accept it anyway.
Utterly ridiculous. So the city can’t take a property that isn’t worth its outstanding taxes? But except for weird cases like dead owners and the like, wouldn’t the owner typically sell or otherwise deal with any property that is worth its taxes? Do we, or do we not, have to pay our taxes? Should I be contaminating the ground under my house until its sale value is $0, then stop paying my taxes?
I wonder what happens if the city expropriates the property. Fair market value is apparently $200,000, less taxes, leaves $0 for the owner. Of course then the city is on the hook for cleanup expenses, but that seems unavoidable at this point anyway.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - Viewfromthe42 - 05-09-2017
It also goes to show you that when there are costs ($1,000,000+ for back taxes, remediation due to soil contamination, heritage impact study for any future planned changes), sometimes you can be too restrictive (limited by heritage concerns in what you can build, density challenges to get any kind of per-unit profit) to get anything done.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - MidTowner - 05-09-2017
I've probably said this before, but the municipal government needs to proactively upzone it, and deal with the heritage concerns, to increase the value of the lot. Otherwise no one will be able to afford the clean-up.
Given the choice between a deteriorating old building with soil contamination, or a nice new development of townhomes and an eight storey apartment building, the logical choice is the latter.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - Viewfromthe42 - 05-09-2017
You would think that, and yet over on the ODC page, residents are suggesting the best use of a similarly close-to-LRT residential site is to become nicer looking clones of the homes they live in. *facepalm*
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - tomh009 - 05-09-2017
ODC page?
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - Coke6pk - 05-09-2017
(05-09-2017, 08:50 AM)tomh009 Wrote: ODC page?
Ontario Die Company
http://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/showthread.php?tid=716
Coke
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - MidTowner - 05-09-2017
You have to remember that it's a quote from one resident, chosen by a newspaperman who wants to sell papers by making it seem like the City is about to do something that residents are strongly opposed to.
I think the Electrohome building is a different situation. No one is happy with the status quo here.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - clasher - 05-09-2017
Eventually someone will burn it down and that will at least take care of the heritage concern.... bringing back the 90s style of urban evolution.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - Viewfromthe42 - 05-09-2017
Just because people don't like what's currently in some situation, doesn't mean they'll accept any reasonable alternative. The electrohome building, I'm sure the residents would happily see the city take a million-dollar hit to sell the building for $1, and would accept zero heritage preservation to turn it into 2-3 homes identical to theirs, but that's not reasonable, even if the current situation is not reasonable either.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - darts - 05-09-2017
How many years of not paying taxes did it take for them to rack up $1 million in back taxes?
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - tomh009 - 05-09-2017
OK, so I found my answer as to what can they do next:
What happens to the property if the Municipality does not receive any tenders?
The Municipality has two years from the date of the failed tax sale to vest the property to the Municipality or re-advertise the property for sale.
The city should be able to take over ownership at this point, so from that point of view the tax sale could even be viewed as a success as the city will now have full control over the property. Assuming I understood this correctly!
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - jgsz - 05-10-2017
I was at Frederick Mall yesterday and noticed that a Walk-In Clinic opened. For better or worse, Frederick Mall is now mainly a medical centre.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - MidTowner - 05-10-2017
If the City takes ownership of the Electrohome building, it will be on the hook for big clean-up costs. But hopefully it has greater wherewithal than a private company would to access funding from other levels of government for the clean-up (I am assuming there are funding programs for this).
Get ready for big arguments about what "should" be done with this if it's suddenly a City property. A lot of neighbours will argue that it should be a park or even a community since we're "under-served" (we're probably not). Of course there will be those talking about the heritage aspect, and how deep they feel the City's pockets are. I think it will be a long process.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - Smore - 05-10-2017
(05-10-2017, 07:22 AM)MidTowner Wrote: If the City takes ownership of the Electrohome building, it will be on the hook for big clean-up costs. But hopefully it has greater wherewithal than a private company would to access funding from other levels of government for the clean-up (I am assuming there are funding programs for this).
Get ready for big arguments about what "should" be done with this if it's suddenly a City property. A lot of neighbours will argue that it should be a park or even a community since we're "under-served" (we're probably not). Of course there will be those talking about the heritage aspect, and how deep they feel the City's pockets are. I think it will be a long process.
I think you'll find the City leery to take ownership, there are some not insignificant liabilities for the off-site impacts, once you own the source...
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - nms - 05-11-2017
Given how long the City has taken to do something with the Kitchener Legion property, the Electrohome property may be a while yet. Speaking of heritage buildings, does anyone have an idea of how the property parcels work around the current Kitchener train station? VIA, GEXR, Metrolinx, Region, or some combination thereof?