City seeks ideas for empty home taxation revenue
With the City of Vancouver’s empty-homes tax having apparently already raked in millions of dollars — and with supposedly more to come — the discussion has turned to, “what now?”
As in, “what should we do with all this money?”
The tax has been in place for a year and the city estimates that they’ve already collected $17 million, and expect to collect another $13 million.
Thursday, the city launched an online platform that will allow Vancouver residents to have a say on how the net revenue from the tax should be invested into affordable housing.
“I’m really pleased with the results we’ve seen from the first year of the emptyhomes tax,” Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a news release.
“We’re expecting $30 million will be collected, and council mandated that all net revenue from the tax must go into affordable housing. Now it’s time for Vancouverites to share their ideas on how best to invest this money in ways that will benefit people who live and work in Vancouver.”
Between April 26 and May 17, people can submit their ideas and provide input on various affordablehousing options on the city’s website: vancouver. ca/eht-ideas.
Feedback collected by the site, as well as from other city-engagement events, will be used in city council’s deliberations on how to spend the revenue, the city says.
City officials will review the public’s ideas and a set of recommendations will be presented to council in June.
As part of taking inventory for who would have to pay the empty-homes tax, the city said more than 98 per cent of homeowners in Vancouver completed declarations on the occupancy status of their home. Nearly 8,500 properties were found to be unoccupied or under-utilized. Data released in February found a large percentage of the empty properties were condos in Yaletown.
The empty-homes tax, a nationwide first, was approved by councillors in 2016 as a tool to spur owners to rent out their empty homes (Vancouver has a rental vacancy rate of near zero).
Any property owner that failed to declare their property ’s status by March 5 is subject to the tax, plus a $250 fee.
Declarations are subject to an audit process and false declarations could result in fines of up to $10,000 per day, according to the city.