Empty buildings could fill vacancy fund

The city is considering a new reserve fund that would use vacant building fines to improve enforcement and expand programming to help owners maintain their residential properties.

The creation of the Vacancy to Vitality reserve could serve as a dedicated funding source to tackle Winnipeg’s empty buildings, including hiring staff to scale up enforcement and collection efforts, the city’s community services manager of licensing and bylaw enforcement said.

“Vacant and derelict buildings can affect safety, neighbourhood appearance, and community confidence,” Winston Yee wrote in a report to be discussed by city council’s property and development committee July 6. “The proposed Vacancy to Vitality reserve would help the city move from policy direction to action. It would provide a clear way to use empty building fee revenue to support enforcement, redevelopment, and prevention efforts.”

The city handed out 857 empty building fee invoices from 2020 to 2025, totaling $4.04 million. Twenty-eight per cent of those invoices have been paid, resulting in $878,761 being collected.

The fees are intended to discourage property owners from keeping buildings vacant over the long term.

If 25 per cent of the fees handed out for 595 vacant residential buildings in Winnipeg were collected this year, it would put $890,000 into the reserve, based on a count of vacant buildings in April.

That amount would be enough to fund the next phase of operations, which would target necessary remediation work on vacant buildings and encourage reoccupancy, the report reads. If the establishment of the reserve is approved, this work could begin in early 2027.

The third and final phase, which would be launched when the reserve has a cash balance of $2 million, would fund vacancy prevention programming, possibly through financial assistance to residential property owners or expanding remediation efforts.

Property and development committee chair Coun. Evan Duncan said the city has learned “there needs to be a mechanism, including actual boots on the ground” in place to fund further enforcement of negligent building owners.

“We want to bring these buildings back into use, or have them repaired, have them redeveloped, but what is not going to be an option moving forward here is to let them sit there and rot and invite trouble in their communities,” Duncan (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood) said Monday.

The reserve requires full council approval to move forward. Mayor Scott Gillingham said he was supportive of the idea.

“Any funds that we take in, funds that are related to penalties, to be able to turn around and repurpose those funds to incentivize property owners to develop their properties, I think, is a good use of those funds,” Gillingham said.

The report recommends the reserve fund an additional legal services staff position to take on invoicing vacant building owners, a new building remediator inspector position, and an additional vehicle for carrying building inspection equipment.

The legal staff hired through the reserve would also support the Taking Title Without Compensation enforcement process, which allows the city to take control of vacant buildings if owners are not following compliance orders.

The process is “intentionally lengthy and time intensive, as it is designed to provide property owners with the maximum opportunity to achieve compliance and retain ownership of their property,” wrote Yee, noting it requires a conviction in court to proceed.

The empty building fee was restructured this year to reduce the number of yearly inspections required for a property to be subject to the fee from three to one, and changed the dollar amount from a flat rate of two per cent of the building’s value after three years to one per cent of the property’s value after one year of vacancy. It rises by an additional one per cent each year, up to a maximum of five per cent.

Applications for the new vacant building grant, which will provide up to $35,000 to property owners looking to purchase and redevelop vacant or derelict buildings into housing, open Thursday. The city has set aside a one-time total of $3 million.

“If we can use a combination of carrot and stick, so be it,” Gillingham said of the grant. “This really is the carrot approach, where we would provide those property owners the opportunity to revitalize and renew their property.”

— with files from Joyanne Pursaga

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca