OPINION: Vacant Home Tax a Chilling Thought
It may not be snowing outside, but the snow job continues at City Hall.
Salida Community Development Director Dan Osborn presented “Regulating Short Term Rentals” at the February 8 City Council work session. The topic “Fees on vacant homes” was listed for possible discussion. This fee, which actually is a tax, would be assessed to second home owners whose homes are mostly vacant. I believe the rationale is that vacant homes don’t contribute to the economy or to the neighborhood; nor do they contribute to Salida’s depleted rental pool. So let’s assess additional taxes on them.
I’d never heard of a vacant home tax, so I Googled on it. I could not find anywhere that it had been implemented. A County Supervisor in San Francisco brought up the idea, but it went nowhere. France tried to put a vacation home tax on the Brits who owned second homes in France, but that got thrown out.
And how would a vacancy tax be enforced? Would the city hire a vacancy code enforcement officer? Would there be a tax for each day the property is vacant, just as there is an occupancy tax for each day a short-term rental is occupied? Or would there be a set tax if the homeowner doesn’t occupy the property a certain number of days each year?
Osborn’s explanation of vacancy tax:
“What I’ve provided here is an idea of what other communities are doing. Within that I had mentioned a vacant property assessment, or some sort of tax on that. That’s something many communities have been doing for years. Something that’s fairly easy to find on the internet. Typically what they’ve done in the past around those vacancy assessments, typically those are for buildings that have been abandoned, typically for blight. And what we are seeing is, now communities are using that for VRBOs or short-term rentals that are used solely for commercial purposes. They would put that assessment on typically in the range of $5-10 per $1000 assessed value, and that’s where they come up with that.”
Huh? What does a vacancy tax on blighted buildings have to do with a tax on vacant second homes? Then Osborn said the vacancy tax is applied to short-term rentals, with no mention of unrented vacant homes. So short-term rentals pay both an occupancy tax and a vacancy tax?
Osborn’s explanation is nonsensical, yet not one council member asked him what the heck he was talking about. Glibly-presented hooey goes right over council’s head. Snow jobs by staff are common occurrences, and have reached avalanche proportions in their rush to fulfill their agenda.
It’s ironic that City staff has worked tirelessly to make Salida a vacation destination. Some would say their success has encroached on the quality of life for residents. Now staff and council are considering creative ways to tax the very people and businesses they enticed to our town. Shame on second home owners for buying into Salida’s PR.
Meanwhile I’ll keep searching the internet for the ephemeral home vacancy tax.
