City to hold hearings on vacancies
CTV has a brief piece about retail vacancies more or less as a frame around a reminder that hearings will be held into the problem next month, and there’s a survey about it on the city website (link in story).
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Kate
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Dominic 05:52 on 2019-12-30 Permalink
Really interesting survey, hopefully some of the tick-boxes that are available as answers are things the city are legitimately going to look into.
Kate 09:40 on 2019-12-30 Permalink
Yes, but I found one item troubling. I’m not going to walk back through it to quote precisely, but one question had a response along the lines of “improve the street – better benches and trash bins, remove litter and homeless people.”
Our streets are not dirty, that’s not the problem. The questionnaire is dancing around the fact that one company has bought up a lot of the commercial frontage on several of our neighbourhood main streets and hiked the rents out of reach of independent businesses, but is fat enough to sit back and allow storefronts to sit empty, even if this damages the vibe of the street and the viability of adjoining businesses. In fact, that could even be a business strategy: drag the street down so you can buy up more of it. It’s predatory.
Daniel 11:12 on 2019-12-30 Permalink
I took the survey. One of the answer possibilities regarding what I’m looking for in a store/shopping area — beyond the dubious “fewer homeless people” that you mention, Kate — was whether I prioritized some sort of in-store virtual reality experience.
Uh, no. It’s safe to say I don’t care about that. There were some good answer possibilities and I’m glad they’re making it easy to register an opinion but, as always, the results are only going to be as good as the questions that are posed and I’m a little wary of some of these. (That said, some gave me hope. More temporary exhibits or pop-up/pilot stores, for instance.)
Kate 11:27 on 2019-12-30 Permalink
Daniel, I agree with you. Some of the answers seemed odd, but the possibility of pop-ups, events and exhibits is a good one.
Spi 11:47 on 2019-12-30 Permalink
I couldn’t disagree more with your statement that our streets not being dirty. At times they are absolutely filthy, some people and business don’t even put in the minimum amount of effort in disposing of their trash/recycling. Cardboard (mostly amazon) boxes that are just left all over the place until they are trampled or driven over until they start decomposing into a disgusting brown mulch.
More than once this week I’ve noticed what looks like soil from potted plants/indoor planters just dumped at the base of a tree outside, just like everything else in this city just dump it on the sidewalk.
david100 12:12 on 2019-12-30 Permalink
Three things they should do:
1) default to a conditional use occupancy permit on chain shops (those with more than, say, 7 outlets) in most neighborhoods, with a special derogation requirement for any such proposed shop wherein the applicant must show “extraordinary need” for the chain’s services/products – this will hammer landlords who raise rents/evict with a plain to move a chain in which, in turn, would lower the value of street level commercial properties;
2) chain shop restrictions should bring the assessed value of commercial property down, which will bring property taxes down, which is good for lessors, but also could mean the spaces sit empty longer if landlords bide their time, so the city should also enact a steep vacant storefront charge to encourage landlords to use their space – call it a nuisance fee, and structure it so that, to the maximum extent possible, it cannot be written off as a business loss (a lien on the property, maybe?); and
3) the city should massively slash its bureaucracy around getting a small business up and running – inspections should be outsourced with city audits so that businesses can started fast and correct issues identified by inspectors rather that suspend operations waiting on inspectors, fees should be cut, and there should be a council subcommittee tasked with finding ways to cut the costs of doing business in Montreal. It used to be a snap in Montreal – cheap rents, low inspection – and it made for a hotbed of entrepreneurialism and eclecticism. As Montreal has increasingly adopted the Canadian style of governance, its storefront offerings have increasingly come to resemble those of a Canadian city – with chain stores making up an increasing share of commerce, empty storefronts increasing on escalating rents, and worse.
It’s not too late!
Douglas 17:41 on 2019-12-30 Permalink
The commercial taxes for retail properties are way too high. But the city makes so much money from these retail taxes that there is no incentive to reduce it.
Commercial taxes can account for up to 1/3 of the actual rent.
Commercial tax rates are also 4x the residential tax rates.
The city of Montreal is like an overweight fat pig when it comes to taxes. It wants taxes, and more taxes, and ever more taxes. It also wants vacancies to reduce….
david100 19:29 on 2019-12-30 Permalink
This is true, but there’s no obvious solution, aside from cutting services.
Canadian cities do not have the taxing powers that Americans have – they’re not a level of government, they’re semi-autonomous administrative departments of the province.
Anyway, dropping the multiplier on commercial tax wouldn’t do much to deflate the cost of commercial rents – even if some became more viable for owners to lease at lower costs, most would pocket that difference. Rentierism, like we have in the residential sections of Montreal where building is prohibited by law.
There could be a rebalancing though – empty space fines could be slotted into the general fund and commercial property taxes on non-offending properties could be reduced by the corresponding amount.
Douglas 19:41 on 2019-12-30 Permalink
Owner wouldn’t pocket the difference in the majority of cases.
The rent is fixed, with commercial tenant responsible for the commercial tax bill. Meaning they pay the portion of the bill directly, whether it goes up or down.
The city of Montreal has a massive surplus, plus they love throwing money at pet projects that make people feel good. The poor fat pig Montreal can’t find ways to cut expenses to reduce taxes? Well too bad, let these vacancies pile up. Who cares.