Halifax needs an empty-lot tax: councillor
HALIFAX, N.S. — With over 1,000 people now actively homeless in Halifax Regional Municipality and rental vacancy at record lows, it’s tough to watch an empty lot sit undeveloped for years.
Halifax South Downtown Coun. Waye Mason says an empty-lot tax would incentivize developers to keep housing until the last minute before demolishing and building something new.
“The hard part of development is we have a housing crisis and we need 10,000 units today, but a lot of what we see being built around Halifax is what was approved six or seven years ago,” Mason said during a recent interview.
“The question is, if you know as a developer it’s going to take three to five years to get to a point where you’re able to get the crew on site and start digging a hole, it probably makes more sense from a societal point of view to keep the rentals there and have places for people to live during a housing crisis until the last possible minute.”
At the last council meeting in August, Mason asked municipal staff to investigate how they could disallow demolitions (under normal circumstances) until a building permit has been issued and establish an empty-lot tax in the serviced area of HRM. This would involve permission from the provincial government.
Cheaper taxes on empty land
Right now, if a developer demolishes structures on a property to get it ready one day for a build, the property taxes are assessed as having a lower value, so it’s cheaper.
“What we’re seeing is there is too long of a gap between when a building is torn down and a new building is being built,” Mason said. “We’re seeing a lot of speculative buying and levelling of lots around Robie and Coburg, and while we want to see higher-density buildings get built there, no one has any permits in to build anything right now.
“The idea is if you have an empty-lot tax, it may make a lot more sense to leave the buildings there until right before you’re ready to build and continue to rent them and generate revenue and have housing.”
Wouldn’t make sense in some areas
Coun. Paul Russell (Lower Sackville) said when it was brought up at council that he was concerned HRM will end up with a lot of properties like the former Bloomfield School, which has sat vacant for several years.
“We get a building that is basically falling down and they don’t have a building permit, so they’re not going to try for a demolition permit and they’re just going to let it fall down, and it will take years,” Russell said.
Staff will investigate best practices from other cities but Mason said he doesn’t see this working in some areas of HRM.
“I don’t see having an empty-lot tax on rural (properties),” he said. “There’s a lot of empty land in rural (areas). I think it’s only going to be in a serviced area, not something you’re going to do in greenfield sites where you’re building a new subdivision, like in Bedford West or Port Wallace.”
It’s also not something for properties where the HRM would encourage developers to turn a strip mall into apartments, like at the former Penhorn Mall in Dartmouth.
In a newsletter to residents, Mason said the additional revenue HRM receives from the empty-lot tax could be used to fund affordable housing programming.
