Tax on vacant buildings raised to force owners to accept tenants

Fresh moves are being made to kickstart our city heart as vacancies in ground floor tenancies in two key inner-city blocks reach as high as 70 per cent.

FRESH moves are being made to enliven our wounded city heart as vacancies in ground floor tenancies in two key inner-city blocks reach as high as 70 per cent.

The figures have been obtained by a Bulletin survey finding there are 26 vacant street-front tenancies in 37 properties on Flinders Street between Denham and Stanley Streets.

It does not include vacant arcade tenancies — like the former Metway arcade or Alexandra House — off the main street or office vacancies in higher levels of multistorey buildings.

While as much as $70m in council, state and federal moneys was spent a decade ago to open that section of the former Flinders Mall to traffic, upgrade drainage and beautify the street, vacancies are worse, not better.

CBD struggles

Regardless, even opponents of opening the mall, like the street’s antique dealer Ian Fleming of Speckled Hen, says an update of the then 30-year-old mall was needed.

“What they have done is a fair compromise between having a mall and a street. Like all compromises, it did not solve all demands,” Mr Fleming said.

Commercial property agents, Peter Wheeler of Colliers and Graeme Russell of Ray White, reject suggestions the money spent was wasted.

“It’s a definite improvement. That (work) needed to be done. But that alone was never going to save the city,” Mr Wheeler said.

Mr Russell said the reintroduction of traffic was a “good thing” and that the “bones are much better than they were”.

An old poster of a city heart redevelopment in Flinders Street, Townsville, that is yet to arrive.

The Property Council of Queensland is revisiting the issue of how improvements can be made with a workshop of stakeholders on March 15 and a Reactivating Regional CBDs luncheon event on March 16.

Mr Wheeler said having more people living in the city was one solution.

Empty multistorey buildings could be repurposed to have people living upstairs with commercial space on the ground floor.

“We need to turn it into a suburb of its own so we can create critical mass. You will see those shops fill up with businesses that will service the needs of that city suburb,” Mr Wheeler said.

An upstairs arcade in the Citilink building in Flinders Street, Townsville, is largely vacant.

Mr Russell said “more people, more bodies on the street, living and working in the city” was needed but added that the high insurance costs affecting strata properties had to be reduced.

“I think people (in high rise buildings) are being penalised unfairly,” Mr Russell said.

Mr Fleming said recreation, leisure and tourism uses were solutions to reactivate the street but he also raised the concept of taxing building owners for leaving buildings vacant.

He said this was done in the United States and that the council would likely need to have the State Government pass laws to do it.

“Where properties are empty, then charge a tax over it until the owner gets someone in, even if it’s just a pop-up shop so the thing doesn’t look so dreadful,” Mr Fleming said.

Among his other suggestions were to relocate the city’s museum in Pimlico into the city and to make a feature of the beautiful but disused state-owned former city railway station.

He said Dunedin had done a superb job creating a museum and art galleries at its railway station and Townsville could use that idea.

An old steam train could be relocated to the railway station land, creating a place for families.

“I know the council is trying but they should get on to the state government and say, let’s do something about this, rather than leave it sit there,” Mr Fleming said.

Originally published as Tax on vacant buildings raised to force owners to accept tenants