Strengthening local businesses and retail main streets through a vacant storefront tax - by Councillor Brad Bradford, seconded by Councillor Paula Fletcher

Toronto faces a unique challenge where our City's growth and buoyant real estate market sometimes creates a perverse incentive to keep a store vacant rather than renting it out to the people willing to invest in our communities. Small business owners are often local heroes, creating gathering places and local landmarks through the investment they bring and community they build. With independent businesses accounting for 74 percent of Toronto's retail stores and 647,843 people being employed by our local independents, it's imperative we take every possible step to strengthen our main streets. We have to create the right tax policies to incentivize landlords to make retail space available for independent businesses at an affordable rate. Keeping retail vacant for land speculation should not be an option. A vacant storefront tax could be an important part of a suite of solutions including ongoing work started to address issues with Municipal Property Assessment Corporation's highest and best use valuation approach, incentives for small business owners, and exploring new tax bands to lower tax rates for main street buildings.

policy options for a vacant storefront tax such as the length of vacancy prior to a tax being applied, a potential range of vacancy tax amounts, and the property class or classes to which a vacant storefront tax might apply to reduce the number of retail vacancies; c. analysis of other jurisdictions using vacant storefront taxes to reduce main street retail vacancies; d. estimated staffing and/or other resource requirements needed to implement a vacant storefront tax; and e. estimated timelines to implement a vacant storefront tax.