Abandoned limestone house on Montreal Street

[Valley]

On the east side of Montreal Street, north of the railway overpass, lies a large parcel of land with an abandoned limestone house. The house has been left open to the elements for several years - see below.

How does the city secure abandoned property?

[Lydia]

Does anyone know the owner of this property? Is this one of the properties that taxes have not been paid for? It would certain be interesting to know the history about this house.

[nstn]

This may be a City of Kingston tax sale property due to unpaid municipal taxes. There was a proposal for building medium density housing on the property but the project did not proceed.

[keoadmin]

This question has been referred to Councillor Sara Meers.

[Bill(2)]

And has anything ever been heard more about this?

[Lydia]

Have not heard anything about this property. It is only an example of why people get upset when it comes up. I believe that the legal department doesn't want this issue to be aired for some reason. This is an example of a few more properties that the tax department didn't handle correctly.

[Bill(2)]

Reading this morning about the Montreal Street fire earlier this week I came across an interesting note. It seems that by the city not taking ownership of properties due to failure to pay back taxes they are doing us a favour. It has to do with contaminated lands. If the property is contaminated, the owner is responsible for the clean up. If the city seizes the property that is then found to be contaminated, then the city now has to foot the bill to clean it up for sale or use.

Ahh, it is a nasty Catch-22 I think. If the owners won't pay the back taxes, then how would the city ever collect clean-up fees? Perhaps the best way to deal with it is the current method - and offer as an incentive to a buyer that back taxes (which have not been collected anyway) would be written off provided the site was cleaned up. How to make this work in a legally binding way? I'm not sure, but I do have a few ideas. Obviously some form of tie between clean-up costs and taxes, but that is as far as I can think right now.

[Dogma]

Being that similar "risk" property has been the discussion between Kincore and the City to re develop the water front area (North) and that insurance , backtaxes and contaminated areas have been worked out between them. The same could apply in this case. But, I have no problem with the public taking some responsibility in the first place for allowing such contamination to be allowed. Its not like some aliens did it!

We accepted the process or lack their of to take care of the environment at the time. We are responsible for some of the cost to the clean it up! Or at least the testing of the area.

[Lydia]

DITTO

I agree fully and understand why the city doesn't want to take over this type of property. These properties should be identified, cleaned up, and dealt with immediately with both developer and public finances.

What I would love to see is that the By-law and tax department work together to identify potential problem establishments. Both should never wait to enforce their powers. Once an establishment defaults on even ONE year's taxes then the process to seize it should begin immediately. Once an establishment has been identified as potential environmental issue than the owners should be forced to clean it up and their assets should be taken away from them in order to get funds for the city to clean up the property if they don't start to clean up their properties

Gentleman, this is what i was refer to when i said that the tax department hadn't done us justices. I wonder when they knew of the problem and what power they had to solve the issue.

What bothers me is that businesses that did default are still doing business. However, I do believe that disaster and unforeseen situations happen in business. The public was never informed of these businesses doing things to repair their reputation and we still don't know if they ever paid up their back taxes.

[Bill(2)]

It is all well and good to take the stance that if the property owners don't clean up the property then the city will do it and pass the charges on to them. But, keep in mind that these property owners have not, and have no intention of paying their taxes - so how effective will making a larger bill for them to pay be? The city certainly could not count on seeing the money. And if they were sued, and the judgement goes in the favour of the city (heaven forbid) then there comes the fun part - collection. Again, if they didn't pay a properly issues Tax Invoice, then why would the pay attention to a court decision. Remember, the courts make the decision - you still have to collect on your own. Fail to get paid? No problem, back to the courts. And the circle continues.

No, sorry Dogma and Lydia, I must non-concur with you at this point. Based on what I know today, I think that by not seizing the lands the city is being quite prudent, and avoiding a sticky :rolleyes: situation.

Oh yes, why did these lands degrade to this level in the first place. Keep in mind that a lot of the contaminants were probably legal at the time of their use. Perhaps some may have been illegally dumped but I think that for the most part people were working withing the law, as it stood at that time.

I look forward to your rebuttal.

[Lydia]

You are totally correct about the going round and round in the courts with these type of people. That is exactly the reasons the City doesn't want to go that direction.

I wonder, however, what would happen if the City placed leans on everything that these people owned, bank accounts, automobiles, etc. (Keep in mind I am only talking about companies who have not paid taxes THIS YEAR).

I agree fully with you Bill, that the people decided to give up their property because of the governments changing standards regarding environmental issues. We can't fault those people because it wasn't their doing that changed the legal issues and we need to suck those expenses up, unfortunately. However, since the governments (federal or Provincial) created this problem than there should be a fund established to cover this type of problem.

I call mine HOUSE INSURANCE. lol lol. I only know one thing that if I owed taxes on my home, it wouldn't take the city long to acquire it in lieu of taxes.

p.s. Did I ever tell you as a General Accountant, you get to do CREDIT AND COLLECTIONS for companies??? I was a General Accountant before retirment.

Now seriously, you are total correct about having to go back and forth in courts only to never get money from those type of people.