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Empty stores, empty coffers
The revelation at Township Council Monday (see our story on page 13) that taxation of commercial and industrial property in this province is based on income, as opposed to the commercial value of the property, may go a long way to explaining why shut-up storefronts along Brock Street, or in other areas of Uxbridge for that matter, often stay shut up for considerable periods of time.
We may be wrong, but we sincerely doubt whether this particular policy is common knowledge among the general populace. If you own a house in Uxbridge, it doesn’t matter if your family suddenly falls on hard times, if you lose a job or have some other emergency that unexpectedly makes it very difficult for you to pay your property taxes (or any other taxes for that matter). MPAC, the provincial body that decides what your property is officially worth, couldn’t care less. There is an appeal process, but the grounds for the appeal have nothing to do with the state of your financial health.
What’s sauce for the private citizen, however, is definitely otherwise for the commercial or industrial property owner. In many cases, of course, the property owner is also the owner of the business which inhabits it. In those cases, there is little incentive for letting the land lie fallow; keep up the property, bring in the customers, sell the goods and services.
But just for a minute, put yourself in the shoes of the absentee landlord who loses a commercial tenant on Brock Street. The landlord may even have played a significant role in the tenant’s decision to vacate, by charging an uncompetitive level of rent. But that apparently doesn’t figure into MPAC’s reasoning; it doesn’t matter why Mr. Landlord’s income from the property suddenly decreased, only that it did. Within a short period of time, his assessment will be reduced, and presumably the longer the space remains unproductive, the less property tax he will be obliged to pay.
If Mr. Landlord has several properties, he will inevitably pick and choose his priorities. If his property in Aurora is home to a booming business, he will probably choose to invest in improvements there, rather than clean up his vacant property in Uxbridge, on which he’s paying a decreasing tax assessment. And the more difficult the property is to clean up, the less likely he is to make the effort. A suddenly vacated dress shop is re-rented much sooner, for example, than a restaurant, especially a greasy spoon like the Sanrash, or Uxbridge Cookhouse, which seems like it’s been shuttered for decades.
And can it be a coincidence that the former home of Double H Cleaners on Brock Street and the all-too-brief home of Prestige Cleaners in the Hillside Plaza across from Zehrs, both remain locked and bolted after many, many months? There are even clothes still hanging up in the Prestige location that the landlord’s made no effort to find a home for, or even throw away. That’s how interested he is in re-renting the space. But cleaning up after a dry cleaner must be very messy and expensive. Where’s the incentive to do it?
As long as this taxation policy remains in place, small town main streets like ours will continue to be plagued by ugly, empty storefronts. It’s not just a matter of lost tax revenue, it’s a matter of civic health and pride. A compromise needs to be found.
July 14, 2011
