Downtown

[SarcasticMarmot]

What exactly is the silver bullet for that? We're seeing more residents, increased foot traffic from workers and students.

Commercial Rent rates need to crash hard. The fact that over a third of downtown retail units are vacant and yet rent is still crazy high is proof the free market supply and demand model is broken. You should be able to take a risk at starting a retail, cafe, etc business in downtown Edmonton without starting in the hole by thousands of dollars a month. The building owners are too consolidated and comfortable sitting on empty units.

 

[thommyjo]

Empty store front tax?

‘It's something that we really have to look at’: City councillors teaming up to enact Vacant Storefront Tax

A couple of municipal councillors from Windsor and Ottawa are teaming up to engage all Members of Provincial Parliament about a proposed Vacant Storefront Tax as a way to revitalize downtown cores across Ontario.

windsor.ctvnews.ca

 

[Barnaby]

Empty store front tax?

‘It's something that we really have to look at’: City councillors teaming up to enact Vacant Storefront Tax

A couple of municipal councillors from Windsor and Ottawa are teaming up to engage all Members of Provincial Parliament about a proposed Vacant Storefront Tax as a way to revitalize downtown cores across Ontario.

windsor.ctvnews.ca

Taxing land at the pre-demolition value would be the only way to implement this, otherwise you're incentivizing demolition of vacant properties.

The Arlington site comes to mind. A replacement building would be there right now if the property wasn't allowed to be reassessed post fire. The assessed value is a ridiculously low $1,655,500. Not a big tax burden for the absentee owners.

I think the owners of empty storefronts are more helpful to the city than field and parking lot owners. Due to the backwards property tax structure in this province, this would be penalizing the wrong people.