Owners of vacant homes need to pony up

April 12, 2017 · 0 Comments

Ringing in on the vacant home situation in Aurora.
I think that there should be a special municipal property tax imposed on vacant homes in Aurora. We have more neighbours calling into the Bylaw office complaining about property violations (garbage and papers left all over the property, lawn and garden going below Town standards, grass growing longer than eight inches, etc.) now with homes being left unkempt.
The town then incurs higher costs with the higher volume of bylaw officers having to go out to follow up and inspect and then the time and personnel needed to follow up with the owner to get things rectified and then going out for a re inspection to make sure things were done.
This costs the rest of the community and we are all then having to share the additional cost burden.
This is not fair and so the owners need to pony up to cover this as they are clearly not either understanding our bylaws for property maintenance in keeping with the neighbourhood, or simply not caring about it as they are not here.
Alternatively, there should be fines imposed for violations which could get added to their tax bill.

Michelle Boyer
Aurora