Oakville Council Votes Down A Vacant Home Tax

Homeowners in Oakville will not be paying an extra tax on empty houses. Town council voted to abandon a proposed vacant home tax, ending a review that had been running for months.

The model the town studied would have added one per cent of a property's assessed value to the bill of any home declared unoccupied. Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Guelph, Windsor and Sault Ste. Marie all run a version of it, usually to push owners to rent out, live in or sell the properties sitting empty.

The math is what stopped it here. A staff report received by council on Aug. 10 put the cost of setting the program up at as much as $500,000, with another $800,000 to $900,000 a year to administer it. Net revenue was projected at somewhere between $2.17 million and $6.01 million a year, but that range rests entirely on how many Oakville homes turn out to be vacant. The low end assumes 332 of them, the high end 760.

There is a second problem with counting on that revenue. A vacant home tax is designed to reduce the number of vacant homes, so the money it brings in shrinks as it works.

Oakville had been looking at running its own program after Burlington, Milton and Halton Hills all declined to take part in a Halton-wide version. A consultant's modelling for the region found too few vacant properties across Halton to make the program financially viable.