Suppose 30% of your city’s downtown storefronts were vacant? This candidate’s counterintuitive solution – raise taxes.

Photo above - Omar Fatah (left), Somali refugee/socialist/Muslim is running for mayor of Minneapolis, trying to unseat incumbent mayor Jacob Frey (right). Go Fateh . . .

Full disclosure – I’ve never been to Minneapolis, but I can’t imagine it’s that much different from Philadelphia, a few miles from where my mom lives. Entire blocks of decrepit, vacant townhomes. Abandoned stores where shoplifters and drug dealing have made conducting a retail business impossible.

Those buildings are vacant for a reason – nobody wants to occupy them at the prices they’re offered at. Omar Fateh – democrat candidate for Minneapolis mayor has an answer: raise real estate taxes on vacant buildings.

Of course, this isn’t going to summon a tsunami of renters or buyers. Just the opposite. It’s intended to force landlords into making repairs, obtaining occupancy/safety certificates, and luring legitimate occupants.

But that’s never really going to happen. Those properties are decrepit shitholes because the slumlord owneers have zero money for maintenance and repairs.

Omar Fateh isn’t saying the quite part out loud, however. For his plan to work, Minneapolis will have to aggressively prosecute landlords for unpaid – higher rate – property taxes. And then take over the vacant properties through eminent domain, tear them down, and sell the raw land to new investors with deeper pockets. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, a lot could go wrong. Hooked up landlords, who are brothers- in-law or cousins of Minneapolis city council members, will no doubt “find a way” to tie the city up in court for eons, while the buildings continue to crumble, and while those landlords await some sort of hail mary situation where new renters miraculously appear on the horizon.

The other problem is that candidate Fateh will probably need to nuke entire city blocks – multiple blocks, even – at the same time. People still won’t want to build 10 story affordable housing apartments next door to a rat-infested empty warehouse which has not yet been seized for back taxes.

Okay, let’s give Fateh credit for what he gets right, and not the obstacles that will be placed in his path by career politicians. For a refugee from Somalia who got a Master's Degree after arriving here, he’s on the right path. It’s the entire Minneapolis city council which is likely going down the wrong path.

Omar, good luck. I’d donate money if I thought you had a chance in this election. And if I thought the fate of Minneapolis was of greater urgency to me than all the vacant mall storefronts right here in Tampa.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Mayoral candidate's idea to fill empty shops: Tax the landlords

Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40

If they look deeper into it they might well discover that the buildings where they are owed excessive amounts of property tax are vacant and rapidly becoming more and more derelict because the owners have in actual fact had their money out of them and have now abandoned the buildings.

They will therefore actually be doing exactly what the owners want which is for them to take possession and then either refurbish or demolish the derelict buildings.

Because once they take possession 'risk and reward" passed to the new owner as do all the costs involved.

It basically is a clever way they rid of something you know has become a liability and you cannot dispose of it yourself. Abandon and leave the local authorities to clear up behind you.
Especially if there are other issues in the area as you mentioned.

The problem is they are then also stuck with land etc that nobody wants and in some cases their own restrictions on land use or change of get in their way.

I have seen cases where cities did this and ended up not only with the original clearing costs etc, but ended up selling the land off for 10 cents in the $, just to get it off their books as the costs of keeping it soon spiral.

More and more tax payers money down the toilet.

exchrist · 36-40

I did a years long research project in late high school and early college mapping all the abandoned residential properties in my states capital city Albany. Nearly half (more than) of the city was abandoned homes built prior to 1960. this was just after the big market crash in 2007. Urban blight is a national phenomenon
I’ll be back to finish my response.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@exchrist great reply. albany - like the rest of new york - is not only burdened with abandoned older residences, but high property taxes which deter people from rehabbing or simply rebuilding.

a friend of mine bought a 1935 house in "bronxville" new york (not bronx, it's well outside the city). the repair costs were about 10% of the purchase price, in order to make it habitable. the property taxes are equal to about 10% of the homeowner's combined incomes.