Costante targets bricked-up houses with a new tax on vacant homes

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The West End councilman is applauding the council’s unanimous passage of a new excise tax on vacant homes, believing it will help force a solution to the dozens of bricked-up homes “left to rot” by Ambassador Bridge.

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“Yesterday was a very public notice to the CTC (Canadian Transportation Company, the company that controls the bridge) and any owner or owner who leaves their property vacant that we are moving forward with a new tax regime,” Fabio Costante of Ward 2 told the Tuesday, referring to Monday’s decision to develop a Vacancy Residential Unit Tax Program. Effectively, it would include a new municipal tax, in addition to the regular municipal tax everyone already pays, on vacant residential properties that are not a person’s primary residence. Under current statutes, a home is considered unoccupied if it has been vacant for at least 120 days. A list maintained by the city has 240 vacant properties, 165 of which are residences.

A report to the council suggests a number of possible tax rates, between 0.5% and 2% of the assessed value. For a home with an appraised value of $ 120,000, the tax could range from $ 600 to $ 2,400.

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For a homeowner like the CTC, who owns about 30 bricked-up homes on Indian Road, Edison Street, Bloomfield Road, and Rosedale Avenue (about 90 others located within the footprint for a proposed second tranche have been torn down), the tax could encourage them. a Fix the properties or sell them to people who will, which will ultimately result in occupied houses, said Costante. The bridge company “has shown total disregard for the neighborhood in which it operates,” he said, expressing hope that the new tax will help force his hand.

“I don’t apologize for that. To say that I am addressing them is perhaps an exaggeration, but the bridge company is on my mind every day. “

This new tax was recently allowed in 2017 by the previous provincial government as a way for municipalities to address the affordable housing shortage and discourage speculators from buying property and keeping it without tenants.

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It came at a “fortuitous moment,” according to Costante. He asked for a report on the imposition of the vacant housing tax in 2019.

“And the intention was primarily to go after the houses owned by CTC and secondly all the other vacant houses in our community where we are seeing a housing crisis.”

The bridge company began purchasing the houses in the late 1990s, with the intention of demolishing them to make room for the twin span and related expansion plans. The city responded by creating the Sandwich Heritiage Conservation District to prevent massive demolitions. The end result is a blighted neighborhood with blocks of vacant and unsightly properties.

An attempt to reach bridge company president Dan Stamper on Tuesday was unsuccessful.

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At Monday’s meeting, Deputy Treasurer Janice Guthrie told councilors that there are many details and public consultations to complete before the plan is finalized. One of the big challenges will be determining how to identify which homes are vacant.

When Costante asked if houses owned by CTC would be subject to the tax, she said it would ultimately be up to the council to decide what meets the definition of a vacant house. The fact that many of CTC’s homes are not habitable may rule them out.

But Chief Construction Officer John Revell said that under current statutes, anything that is vacant for more than 120 days is considered vacant.

“So with respect to those CTC properties, they would not be exempt,” he said.

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Once Windsor develops a vacant home tax, it will still need to be approved by the province. The administration report says the municipality’s new power to tax vacant properties “is aimed at stimulating affordable housing.
attractiveness to a property owner to allow a residential property to remain unused. “

While there are currently no municipalities in Ontario designated to impose this tax, Toronto and Hamilton are further along in the process and Windsor is looking to them for ideas. Vancouver has already implemented a similar program to address reports that about half of its condos are unoccupied.

The management report, which does not specifically mention CTC homes, says that if there are 250 to 500 vacant properties in Windsor, a one percent tax could generate $ 300,000 to $ 600,000 in annual revenue. But he adds that “given the current housing market in the city, this estimate is likely to be high.”

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The housing need in Windsor is significant with more than 5,000 households on the waiting list for affordable and social housing, the report says, adding that making these vacant homes available would help with the supply of rental housing. “Adding these vacant units to the housing stock within Windsor Essex County could help address the need for housing in our community, thereby helping the homeless.”

Costante said the tax is not intended to be a source of revenue for the city. Rather, it is one of several tools the city has to repair and occupy vacant homes, including CTC homes. He said the bridge has no reason to leave the houses empty and in ruins, as all the rest are off limits for its second span.

“The biggest intention behind this is to try to activate these houses again,” he said.

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