Councillors request downtown economic summit
Posted Jan 16, 2017 7:15 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Two councillors are asking to take a good look at the economic situation in Calgary’s downtown hub Monday.
As property taxes rise elsewhere in the city due to weakness downtown, Councillors Druh Farrell and Evan Woolley are looking to organize a summit.
Farrell tells CityNews, vacancies in the core are currently around 30 per cent.
“The buildings that are vacant are ‘B’ and ‘C’ grade buildings. They’re expensive to heat, they’re incredibly expensive to retrofit and renovate, and they’re expensive to demolish. Demolition is very costly and so they are kind of in stasis,” she said.
“We need to come up with a whole host of ideas of how to solve this problem. We can’t do it alone,” she told CityNews.
She says industry and other orders of government need to help come up with strategies.
Farrell says they also need to examine Calgary’s tax system and develop a more stable way to raise revenue.
