CANDIDATES SOUND OFF
Issues include using tax rates to spur redevelopment
Throughout Ward 6, revitalization projects like Rogers Place and the Quarters live alongside sprucedup heritage homes and historic properties. But empty lots and derelict houses can be a blight on the changing face of the area.
The city charters are expected to give Edmonton the ability to use tax rates to encourage redevelopment on vacant commercial land, such as the empty lots that line arterial roads such as 124 Street and 111 Avenue in Ward 6.
Kajsa Buck of the Westmount Community League said Edmonton could be doing a better job with privately owned publicly accessible spaces (POPS).
The city needs to do a better job of identifying POPS and she suggests a tax incentive as a way to help.
“Vacant lands could perhaps be turned into temporary POPS with a tax incentive to the owners that they only pay land-value tax if it is a beautiful shared space,” Buck said.
She adds it’s unfair she pays more in taxes for a well-maintained home than an unpainted home with a tarp-patched roof.
When resident Kim Krushell was a councillor she wanted a housing jurisdictional team, similar to programs that incentivize safe bars and penalize unco-operative establishments.
“People need to be housed but, at the same time, we can’t have slum landlords and we can’t have derelict housing because that’s what upsets neighbours and that’s what also makes them very reluctant and get agitated when they hear we could be looking at social housing in their neighbourhood,” Krushell said.
She added shutting down houses mean people can instantly become homeless, so it needs to be handled with sensitivity and mechanisms to rehouse displaced residents.
The city has the ability to ensure projects are built within a certain period of time and bylaw officials should be called at “eyesore” properties where construction is halted. But property owners are given time to rectify the situation and have a right to fight in court.
“Edmonton has the most aggressive bylaws in place when it comes to housing that is unsafe,” Krushell said. “The challenge is, property owners have quite a lot of rights for obvious reasons.”
Ward 6 hopeful Tish Prouse said the city should use the potential tax incentive to push for developing large swaths of land that have sat empty in Rossdale, Boyle, Oliver and Downtown.
“These spaces have been vacant for decades, or purposely held by their absentee or large-corporate landlords to wait for the highest and best-possible price to sell,” Prouse said.
“This has resulted in the waning of interest in these key areas of our city’s centre. We should enact bylaws that tax vacant land at much higher levies than other land uses in our city’s core, which will enable real development to take place at sensible prices.”
He also wants to see a stay of infill development in mature neighbourhoods until the vacant land is developed.
“Current council has, unfortunately, created a huge backlash to the development of our urban core, and I aim to remedy this by ensuring that the powers granted us in the new city charter help preserve what we have, and generate growth in the vacant spaces for new opportunities and people,” Prouse said.
Incumbent Scott McKeen said a campaign of tax penalties against landowners is not the way to deal with derelict housing and vacant lots.
“Piling on by government is heavy-handed and might send the wrong message about Edmonton to the market,” McKeen said.
“But vacant lots and rundown buildings send all the wrong messages about a neighbourhood or commercial area. After a reasonable amount of time, fines or tax penalties must be applied to the land to motivate these property owners, many of whom live elsewhere. But with sticks must come carrots. Upgrading vacant land to even properly maintained informal parks or urban gardens, I’d suggest, would end the blight and stave off penalties.”
McKeen said the city must consider unintended consequences.
“Civic policies from decades back caused much of the warehouse district to be demolished to reduce tax bills,” McKeen said. “Some of these derelict buildings might have life in them yet. So the city must move assertively but prudently to end blight and uplift neighbourhoods.”
Ward 6 candidate Adil Pirbhai said he would have to ask residents how they feel about such a tax rate, but believes they would be against it.
“I must tell you many residents in my ward feel developers are getting a free ride at the council,” Pribhai said. “I will only support such a thing if the residents of my ward approve through holding town hall meetings.”
Candidate Bill Knight did not respond to a request for comment.
People need to be housed but, at the same time, we can’t have slum landlords ...