Vacant House Taxes have been tried throughout Canada and are generally ineffective. They are just a distraction.
The main reason why they don’t work is fairly obvious: Why would someone own property to keep it vacant?
Sure, there are some people with vacation homes, or second homes where they frequently visit (heck, I might have to get an apartment where my office is located now we’re being forced to return to the office). Oh the Urbanity has a great video where they point out the vast majority of “Vacant Homes” are either students who don’t permanently live there, in the process of a move, under renovation, etc.
I think we also need to discount and ease new construction - NIMBY bullshit shouldn’t be allowed to prevent densification and we either need direct subsidies or material subsidies of construction materials.
Many of the times I’ve heard this sentiment, it’s been to either ban Mom&Pop landlords, or ban rental houses completely. These options seem to benefit potential homeowners by screwing over renters. I’m not sure if you mean something different?
“apartments built by thr public or coops” is right there. Don’t look at a package proposal and treat each part of it as unrelated or judge it in a vacuum.
I am fully supportive of public housing and coops, but that doesn’t explain how a “limit 1 house per family” rule would work or what it’s intending to achieve. If you or @Sunshine@lemmy.ca want to expand on that you can even explain it in the context of a whole system, I’m happy to hear it. I am a policy wonk and just want to understand this proposal.
We need:
-limit 1 house per family
-serious rent control
-4-storey apartments built owned by the public and cooperatives
-Stronger renter protections
-Aggressive tax on empty properties/units
Aggressive and escalating.
The longer you leave a residential property vacant, the higher the tax rate becomes.
Speculating on residential housing needs to become costly - more expensive than making it livable and available for people to live there.
Vacant House Taxes have been tried throughout Canada and are generally ineffective. They are just a distraction.
The main reason why they don’t work is fairly obvious: Why would someone own property to keep it vacant?
Sure, there are some people with vacation homes, or second homes where they frequently visit (heck, I might have to get an apartment where my office is located now we’re being forced to return to the office). Oh the Urbanity has a great video where they point out the vast majority of “Vacant Homes” are either students who don’t permanently live there, in the process of a move, under renovation, etc.
I think we also need to discount and ease new construction - NIMBY bullshit shouldn’t be allowed to prevent densification and we either need direct subsidies or material subsidies of construction materials.
When new builds are all mcmansions from developers with deep, unethical, ties to politicians it doesn’t really help much either.
Looking at you Doug Ford.
Can you explain what you mean by
Many of the times I’ve heard this sentiment, it’s been to either ban Mom&Pop landlords, or ban rental houses completely. These options seem to benefit potential homeowners by screwing over renters. I’m not sure if you mean something different?
“apartments built by thr public or coops” is right there. Don’t look at a package proposal and treat each part of it as unrelated or judge it in a vacuum.
I am fully supportive of public housing and coops, but that doesn’t explain how a “limit 1 house per family” rule would work or what it’s intending to achieve. If you or @Sunshine@lemmy.ca want to expand on that you can even explain it in the context of a whole system, I’m happy to hear it. I am a policy wonk and just want to understand this proposal.