Essex County wants to get rid of an incentive for property owners to keep their parcels vacant.
Essex County Council voted Wednesday night to move forward the process of eliminating the vacancy tax rebate, which consists of a tax break for landlords who keep their properties unoccupied.
Essex Deputy Mayor Richard Meloche says the rebate may have been useful once, but now is the time for the county to discourage the practice.
"I'm sure at one point in time there was a reason for wanting to have that kind of a program in place," says Meloche. "But moving through the years, what we've found is that there's a lot of buildings. There's no incentive in some instances for some landowners to find a tenant."
The rebate has been around since 2001 when it was included in the Ontario Municipal Act, and landowners in commercial and industrial zoned areas are eligible. Under the current rebate, commercial property owners receive a 30% rebate, while industrial landowners are entitled to 35%. Recent amendments to the act allow municipalities to review the program's successes and failures.
According to the report presented to county council Wednesday, six of the seven municipalities in Essex County had a value of vacancy rebates in 2016, with only Amherstburg not showing one. The rebates range from over $10,000 in Kingsville to over $105,000 in Tecumseh.
The report says applications for the vacancy rebate have declined recently. Meloche says it's normal for municipalities to have a small number of vacant properties, but it's time to stop touting something that could be detrimental to a town's business district.
"What we don't want to do is promote it so that all of a sudden you're getting into a 15% or 20% vacancy rate in a downtown area," says Meloche. "People visit the downtowns and they look and say 'Oh, what's going on here with this town? It must not be a happening place or something.'"
The target time for eliminating the rebate is 2018. Although there is no set timetable, Meloche says it's something he would like to see done soon, rather than spread out over a period of time.
The public will have a chance to express their views on the plan. An online survey is available on the Essex County official website. There is also an open house scheduled for Wednesday, September 27 from 4pm to 7pm at the Essex County Civic Centre.