Posted on 01/24/2019 7:40:05 AM PST by rey
When people see the empty storefronts that have multiplied in San Francisco the past few years, they often blame competition from online vendors for the death of small retailers.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin sees another culprit: landlords who intentionally keep their properties vacant until they can extract higher rents from potential tenants. Now he wants to repopulate those storefronts by taxing property owners with consistently empty units.
“This is by no means meant to be a revenue generator,” Peskin said Tuesday. “It’s meant to be a behavior changer.”
Under Peskin’s proposal, owners of commercial properties in Neighborhood Commercial Districts — areas where stores and services are clustered — that are vacant for more than six months would face a fine of at least $250 per day. And while storefronts are the visible face of the long-term vacancy problem, Peskin wants to target residential properties as well. Landlords with three or more units that are vacant for six months would also pay $250 per unit per day until the unit is leased.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfchronicle.com ...
What I don't understand is while landlords should be free to do as they please with their property, why would they leave high rent property empty. Certainly some revenue is better than none? Some claim the tax system makes this profitable but it is hard to imagine a write off for losses being higher than the actual losses incurred. If that were true, no business would ever do anything other than show a loss. Rents, from what I understand, are $70-$100 a square foot. In my business, if people cannot pay my price, I adjust it. If it falls too low, I do something else, I don't operate at a loss.
Of course, these councilmen are socialists and view everything as belonging to them to be used as they see fit. They have no respect for private property, which is the cornerstone of all freedom.
Because people who would pay high rent won't pay any rent for properties where they have to hose human sh!t off their doorstep every firckin' morning.
The silver lining is that finally they are honestly admitting that to Democrats the tax code is all about punishment and not revenue.
Feces, bums, drunks, loonies, and needles have NOTHING to do with high storefront vacancy rates. Nope, nothing at all. It’s a real Democrat paradise, ideal for raising families.
Baghdad Bob, is that you?
Unintended consequence - abandoned and burned out properties.
>>“This is by no means meant to be a revenue generator,” Peskin said Tuesday. “It’s meant to be a behavior changer.”<<
Liar.
My bet is that this is an effort to help some well connected property developers buy these properties for a song.
Henry George in the late 19th/early 20th century had a similar scheme. Tax property on what it could be worth thus forcing property owners to develop their properties to the full extent and thus solve all of society’s ills.
This is a very simplified view of George’s plan that had a lot of popularity amongst non-property owners. I don’t think it was ever implemented anywhere.
Talk about self fulfilling prophecy?
‘This is by no means meant to be a revenue generator,’ Peskin said Tuesday. ‘It’s meant to be a behavior changer.’
No. Taxes are to produce revenue. They are not to change behavior.
Municipalities looking to redevelop their downtown areas have been pushing developers to build mixed-use projects that have retail space on the ground floor and 2-4 floors of residential apartments or condominiums above them. In some cases, the municipality will grant zoning waivers to allow larger buildings if the developer agrees to build these things.
A lot of good projects like this were built over the years, but between the post-2008 real estate collapse and the rise of online retailing I've seen an interesting scenario unfold -- where a developer builds a project like this simply to get high-end residential units that generate $3,000+ per month in rent and guarantee a hefty profit even if the retail space remains vacant.
I finally figured out an interesting angle to this: In towns that command exorbitant rents for apartments, the retail space is often seen as a nuisance because of pedestrian traffic, trucks making deliveries, odors within the building from restaurants, etc.
Or maybe business owners don’t want to set up shop in a s-hole.
Or… why not tax them less so they can afford to rent their properties for less, thus generating more business, which increases sales which generates more in taxes? Socialist all think the same way.. When in doubt, tax businesses out of existence.
Ping.............
Sutton’s Law....
Convert the buildings to bed and breakfast facilities for airbnb?
Ah, Dimbulbcrats.
A tax can fix anything.
We need to design a very special guillotine for these folks to use following the inevitable Civil War II.
POINT!
it is hard to imagine a write off for losses being higher than the actual losses incurred.
*****
See Kramer on “Write-offs.”
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