Dudas Condemns Vacant Unit Tax

Orleans West-Innes Councillor Laura Dudas put this message on Facebook:

Today at finance and planning committee, city staff provided an update on Ottawa’s Vacant Unit Tax (VUT) program and included new recommendations for the coming years.

To those that have followed my articles and posts on the VUT, it will come as no surprise that I voted against the report. While the report offered new exemptions for certain rural properties, as well as new medical exemptions, it did nothing to address the myriad of other issues. 

Over the past two years, I have heard from residents across the city sharing their personal stories of how they have been caught up in a bureaucratic nightmare, on the hook for thousands of dollars, and have nowhere else to turn. 

To the supporters of the VUT, let me unambiguous: the noble intentions of a VUT as a means of returning vacant properties to the market, is admirable. However, I continue to have grave concerns with the administration of the VUT. To continue to force every single property owner (more than 300,000 in our city), to file their declarations every year is a complete overreach. As well, as of this past year, if you are late on filing your declaration – regardless of whether your property is vacant, it will also earn you a $250 fine. 

The VUT continues to cast such a wide net that seniors, rural farmers, family cottages in our rural wards, families with in-law suites that have long been repurposed into part of their living space, and so many more, are still being caught up.

It should not be the responsibility of a senior who has lived in their home for 40+ years to annually remind the City that they are still in fact living in their home. The City can figure out how to collect taxes from property owners, they can figure out how to track down decade’s old water bills, it may require out of the box thinking, but the City must be able to come up with an alternative method that keeps the onus on the municipality. 

The report, approved at Committee against my, and a few other Councillor’s objections, will soon see a new tax scale introduced that will lead to people being charged a full 5% of their property’s value. To be clear, that is not 5% of their tax bill, it is a full 5% of their property’s total value. A $500,000 home will soon be charged $25,000 – every year!

If the VUT were administered in such a way to only go after those that are sitting on properties for investment purposes, or those who own multiple properties, both choosing to leave them vacant instead of providing much needed housing, you would not hear such complaints, sadly, that is demonstrably not the case in Ottawa.  

To put it simply, we all have our own unique living situations, and this tax is so broad in its application, that too many innocent people are being vilified and on the hook for thousands of dollars, every year.  While I can appreciate aspects of the staff report that was before us today, in particular increasing exemptions, at the end of the day, I cannot support the report because I do not believe assuming our residents are “guilty until proven innocent” is the right thing to do.

This excerpt is courtesy of the city-wide community group Your Applewood Acres (And Beyond) Neighbours

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