Why Montreal should appoint a vacancy czar

   A vacant or boarded-up commercial space is an open wound in any neighbourhood.

   Neighbourhood stakeholers, in the form of landlords, businesses and tenants, selfishly attempt to advance their own interests by making their area nicer. 

   They want their surroundings to improve for their own vanity, peace of mind and financial gain and that is a good thing.

   But those desires are undermined by vacant units, commercial units in particular, that are allowed to sit fallow and become dilapidated firetraps that only serial killers in clown makeup could really love. 

   Those vacancies send a signal that the area is unpleasant, unsafe or in decline, even when it is not. 

   The geographically-based issues inspired by commercial and residential rental property mamagement raise many ethical issues, some of them portryed in the old film Do The Right Thing, which asks to what degree a capitalist commercial enterprise should be expected to reflect the neighbourhood in which it's located. 

    In a free market you can choose where you spend your cash, but if you have a serious grievance against your corner store, you've got a big problem because there's usually not two of 'em really close by.
   The ideal of of peaceful co-habitation among neighbours doesn't always get nourished by the free market system. 

   I propose an unofficial play clock on how long a property owner can be tolerated to allow a building to rot. 

   There are various reasons that a landlord leaves a peroperty empty. He's not getting his price, can't afford some necessary repair, is distracted by illness or some other thing and is too wealthy, busy or distracted to really care.
   In some cases landlords leave a residential building empty to allow it to be transformed into condos or divided co-properties. Verdun, for exaple requires that a building go unrented for three years.  

   A triplex near to Coolopolis Towers has sat empty for about three years simply because the owner is already wealthy and just doesn't want to bother dealing with it and he's not interested in selling. 

   Another example: the Picasso's restaurant on St. James St. W., closed in Feb. 2009  after years of serving famished late-night drunks and strippers from the downstairs peeler joint, as well as calorically-unihibited brunchers. The eatery was ironically killed off by stiff competition by another bar on property owned by the same landlord, Peter Sergakis' PJ's Pub. 

   Sergakis has repeatedly urged or promised its revival but still nothing. 

   I can't help but think that it's a wasted resource that should be filled by some other facility.

   For example, Toronto has three Laser Quest facilities and Montreal has one, the Picasso would make a great laser tag site, a place kids enjoy plenty.

   Filling a vacant commercial space is usually a good thing, it brings jobs, services and weatlh and often gives opportunity to immigrant entrepreneurs who have been shunned by the not-so-subtle racist nature of the corporate hiring system. 

   It can also bring good memories and good times, in short: it brings life to an area. (Although, admittedly if it's a disruptive business like a polluting factory or a biker bar, that would not be the case.)    

   My neighbourhood was rejuvenated when a long-abandoned greasy spoon was rented out to a lowbrow pizza joint, a useful thing for this area. But meanwhile, the little bar two doors down closed and is now a boarded-up eyesore, adding to the broken-window effect, upsetting the delicate urban ecosphere.

   I suggest the mayor create a new post of vacancy czar, someone who could pester a landlord to get his vacant property filled, and put it into the hands of a tenant or mom n' pop entrepreneur and do similar things with empty residential units.

  Capitalism can be beautiful and organic and compel people to do good things, but when it comes to combining it with geography and neighbourhood ideals, a little intervention and prodding could go a long way to improving things.