Empty storefronts are killing neighbourhoods
I've thought about this for a long time.I grew up in a town that had a booming downtown strip for as long as I can remember growing up.Then around 2008 you started noticing stores closing up.Word on the street was that rent was just too high to make a profit, and a lot of the retailers who had been in the same store downtown for decades closed up shop forever.Fast forward to today, all of those stores and more are shuttered... the rent is still too damn high... and the absentee landlords that own these buildings are actually rewarded with property tax benefits for keeping them EMPTY!How crazy is that?Some rich guy owns almost every single building downtown, is asking $75/foot, and gets property tax breaks when his buildings sit vacant... slowly smothering the downtown vibe with an air of death.The value of his building's keep increasing so he doesn't care. He doesn't live here.IMHO retail properties should be taxed MORE if they sit vacant for too long, and that increased tax burden should go up exponentially every year that the building sits vacant.A vacant retail building should be the landlord's problem, not the town's.