{"id":7731,"date":"2014-08-13T17:16:28","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T21:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=7731"},"modified":"2014-08-20T11:14:56","modified_gmt":"2014-08-20T15:14:56","slug":"vacant-lot-owners-could-face-a-tax-hit-to-stimulate-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/vacant-lot-owners-could-face-a-tax-hit-to-stimulate-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Vacant lot owners could face a tax hit to \u201cstimulate\u201d development"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vacant lots dotting the Yonge Street landscape could soon come into focus.<\/p>\n

Council approved a motion from Councillor John Abel tasking staff to investigate alternatives to how Aurora can tax vacant lots on what is often considered to be Aurora\u2019s \u201cmain street.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his motion, he described these vacant lots, zoned for commercial uses, as \u201cneglected\u201d and creating an eyesore to the economic viability\u201d of the area.<\/p>\n

Other municipalities, he said, impose a higher tax rate on vacant lots to \u201cstimulate development\u201d, and Aurora should consider the implications of following suit. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis was found to be effective [and] it stimulates as soon as we see something moving forward,\u201d said Councillor Abel. \u201cContrary to when you see something overgrown, it really doesn\u2019t help business interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

The motion caught the support of Councillor John Gallo, who said similar measures had been implemented successfully elsewhere.
\n\u201cI believe we did this very thing along Industrial Parkway South and it stimulated a lot of those new condo units,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While Councillor Michael Thompson also said he supported the project, he said it should not be examined in isolation. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to keep it in the context of a bigger initiative and strategy,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the desire here is to stimulate the development, let\u2019s focus on that, but it would also be nice within the context of the report to have other means and initiatives [that could be identified] to spur development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan Elliott, Treasurer for the Town of Aurora, said a report on possible tax measures could come forward over the summer. <\/p>\n

Councillor Sandra Humfryes, on the other hand, said communication is also important to explain why this might be coming down the pipeline, but Councillor Evelyn Buck questioned what might be at the base of the issue. In her view, there were four lots that could possibly come under this category, but each one is taxed. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know that each one of these lots is problematic as far as development is concerned, [but] we don\u2019t know who is coming to the planning department asking for advice on how they may develop a lot or what advice they are getting from the planning department, but I do know that three of those lots are problem lots. <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we should be looking at acquiring those lots ourselves and making use of them that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vacant lots dotting the Yonge Street landscape could soon come into focus.<\/p>\n

Council approved a motion from Councillor John Abel tasking staff to investigate alternatives to how Aurora can tax vacant lots…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-20H","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 00:57:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}