St. Catharines council has endorsed the concept of taxing vacant homes and is asking Niagara Region to investigate the idea.

Councillors voted 6-2 to approve Merritton Coun. Greg Miller's motion Monday, which was aimed at encouraging property owners to rent out vacant homes while at the same time allowing the Region to collect revenue for social housing projects.

"Obviously I was pretty happy that we were a little bit bold and showed leadership on it," Miller said later. "I hope some regional councillors want to do the same."

At issue is a high demand for social housing that's left some residents in St. Catharines and Niagara on wait lists of more than 10 years. That's coupled with low apartment vacancy rates, rising apartment costs and growing house prices.

Miller said a vacancy tax was successfully implemented in British Columbia to encourage real estate speculators to rent out their vacant properties.

But St. George's Coun. Sal Sorrento was concerned about penalizing homeowners with another tax.

Sorrento said property owners already pay taxes in which a portion goes to Niagara Region for social housing.

"To me, that's a double tax," he said in council. "It's not a motivator. It is punitive to the homeowners and to the investors."

Sorrento also questioned how the city would be able to capture the data for the total number of vacant units when it doesn't even know how many illegal basement apartments or home businesses there are.

He said in some cases homes are vacant because they are part of litigation, and in other cases people hang onto family homes because they have an emotional attachment.

"Should this motion ever become a bylaw, it would appear that the logistical enforcement of this would be outrageous," he said. "I don't even know how they would do it."

St. Patrick's Coun. Mat Siscoe, who also voted against Miller's plan, said there are a lot of people who own rental properties in the city and are using the income to fund their retirement years.

Siscoe said it isn't fair to take away their right to charge whatever they feel is a reasonable rent by telling them if they don't take whatever is offered, they will be slapped with a tax.

"It's overly punitive and eliminates the ability of people to make sound decisions about their own investments," Siscoe said. "I don't think that's the role of the city or the region."

But Miller said houses are built for people to live in and council's priority should be ensuring the residents of St. Catharines and those who want to live in the city can afford to do so.

"Our priority should not be on protecting the profits of landowners and homeowners."

Miller's original motion calling upon the Region to "investigate, create and implement" a vacant-home tax was amended after St. Andrew's Coun. Joe Kushner asked that they limit the request to an investigation for now.

Mayor Walter Sendzik requested the Region also explore a tax for vacant residential lands, which was added to the motion.

How they voted:

Yes - Williamson, Phillips, Miller, Kushner, Garcia, Sendzik;

No - Sorrento, Siscoe

Declared conflict - Littleton, Townsend, Dodge

Absent - Harris, Porter

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