City Hall - London Ont. (Angelique Guerard/XFM News)
London, like any other city, has vacant homes. The question is, how many?
That is the question council has now taken steps to try and answer. London’s vacancy problems have had many solutions offered, with the latest of the proposed solutions being a tax on empty homes. The hope with such a tax is to encourage owners to sell or rent the properties.
All council members except Mayor Holder and councillors Turner, van Holst and Van Meerbergen opposed hiring a consultant to uncover exactly how many homes are vacant in the city.
Estimates on the amount of empty homes vary. City hall knows of 62 from previous complaints. But if rates are comparable to other cities, it could be up to 780.
Ward 2 Coun. Shawn Lewis said the data that would be collected here would be the main part to making a vacancy tax like this work.
“We’re not a capital city. We are not a city near a large body of water or we don’t have a major port into the the community,” Lewis said, explaining the differences between London and other cities with vacancy taxes.
“But I think getting a better handle on the scope of the problem is an important step.”
Ward 4 Coun. Jesse Helmer agreed with a vacancy tax, sharing how there are multiple properties within his ward that are maintained and in great shape, but have been vacant for “very long periods of time.”
“We can create more housing in the sense of now it’s available and on the market instead of empty by putting in that disincentive at the beginning, and making it more expensive for owners to leave them empty,” Helmer said.
“And so I do think there’s value in looking at it.”
Mayor Holder, who originally refused any vacancy tax or a vacant homes strategy, again refused to accept the tax.
“It’s always helpful to have that information, but it comes at a cost…If we’re trying to use this data for the purpose of understanding, affordable housing and how that can assist us. This doesn’t do that,” said Holder during the most recent council meeting.
“I think here we’re identifying a solution that’s looking for a problem.”
City staff has recommended against the tax, saying it would cost more to implement then it would make.
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