Dealing with empty storefronts

With its elegant stone buildings, soaring church steeples and the Grand River running through it, the Galt area of Cambridge is blessed with one of the most scenic and historic downtowns in southern Ontario.

Yet despite its surplus of so many good things, the Galt core struggles with one major deficit — it has far too many empty retail storefronts.

Some of these buildings have been vacant for eight, even 10 years.

Many are not nearly as well maintained as neighbouring shops with active businesses.

The chipped paint, blank signage, dusty windows and graffiti on many of the vacant storefronts give the impression downtown Galt is struggling, even depressed.

They’re blots on the streetscapes, the equivalent of missing teeth that spoil a shining smile.

They give people less reason to go downtown — which hurts other businesses. And as more businesses fail, more vacant storefronts appear.

Something needs to be done, and Cambridge city Coun. Pam Wolf has come up with an idea that’s worth trying.

She wants the city to scrap the open-ended property tax break given the owners of vacant storefronts not just in Galt but throughout Cambridge.

The city currently reduces the property tax bill to vacant storefronts by 30 per cent.

Coun. Wolf wants the city to end that tax break after a storefront has been vacant for a year, and after that point landlords would pay full property taxes if the store is still unused.

With the Galt core in transition as the Gaslight District and old post office projects proceed, some of the owners of vacant storefronts may just be waiting for the right time to sell.

Why fix up the property to attract new tenants today if it’s more profitable to sell in a few years — especially when the city’s tax break makes this kind of reasoning easier?

Scrapping the tax break could convince some landlords to improve their properties, work harder to get them rented or even subdivide the properties to make them easier to lease. Or they might sell at a reduced price to someone who’s ready to run a business.

There is, of course, a possibility that axing this tax break could deter some prospective buyers from purchasing one of these empty storefronts. The greater the risk, the fewer people might want to invest.

That’s something Cambridge staff should consider as they study Wolf’s proposal.

But so far, it looks like ending the tax cut would do more good than harm, and the rest of city council should be receptive to Wolf’s plan.

However much they want to help, city governments have limited financial resources and few economic or legal levers to pull when it comes to revitalizing core areas.

Kitchener, for instance, has spent decades and tens of millions of dollars searching for a downtown renaissance that is only now happening.

The beauty of Wolf’s plan is that instead of costing the city, it could bring in more revenue.

Perhaps some of that money could be reinvested in Cambridge’s downtowns.