City to act on vacant storefronts
The city’s urban planning guy says there are plans for a new bylaw to discourage keeping commercial storefronts vacant. About time.
La Presse has a piece about conditions on the Main, between new buildings and abandoned properties.
mare 12:05 on 2023-01-10 Permalink
Building owners should be able to ‘circumvent’ the law by allowing to rent their stores with temporary low rent leases to (visual) artist to be used as studios. They do that in the Netherlands and it adds lively shops to a street and on top of that the artist can promote their work in the store windows. The leases (technically you loan the space, and don’t have a lease) can be cancelled on short notice (often a month), but often the organization that manages these have a new space for you. Regularly having to move sucks, but can also provide new inspiration.
I have friends that do this, and some of them are in the same place for years. In the Netherlands it actually applies to all buildings, residential and commercial (even offices!), that can otherwise be legally squatted after a few months (six?) of being left empty.
Ephraim 12:34 on 2023-01-10 Permalink
We need a new tax rate on vacancies. Vacant buildings, vacant housing, vacant storefronts. If it’s not used, it should cost more
Janet 12:52 on 2023-01-10 Permalink
I spent fifteen wonderful years on the top floor of that building on the corner of Duluth. Seeing it featured as the face of decrepitude and neglect is like coming across an old lover homeless begging on a street corner.
Already back in the 80s and 90s, the landlord showed zero interest in the building. I always wondered what he was hanging onto it for.
Ephraim 13:04 on 2023-01-10 Permalink
@Janet – The appreciation in the value of the building/land. It’s like hotels, there are two types of hotel owners, those who invest and keep on making their hotel/building better and those who run it into the ground and sell it to someone to redo… and end with McGill buying it for housing or independent dorms.
Michael 19:04 on 2023-01-10 Permalink
We need to lower municipal taxes on semi commercial buildings. These taxes gets passed on to storefronts and the city charges absolutely usury level rates for semi commercial buildings.