Yeah, there's two houses across the street from me that are both "being renovated" by the same owner, but I see people in there maybe once a week for an hour or two at a time. One's been vacant for about two years now, the other, even longer than that.

Another small home down the street has also been vacant since we moved in. There's a plan to build a large duplex on the lot (which included an unpaved driveway beside the house... very rare in this neighbourhood) but they only got around to doing some sewer and water connection work last fall; at least it seemed related to the property.

And I'm not sure if this is a valid complaint or not, but we had no notice that the water would be shut off for this work; it was off for several hours too. I know it's necessary, but especially with people working out of their homes a little notice would have been nice. It's not like this was an emergency situation with a burst watermain. For me, it just meant waiting to fill up a kettle. Had I been in the shower though, about to rinse off soap... ugh.

It's a fine line between taking your time renovating and being vacant though.

The city isn't particularly quick sometimes with approving some requests.

Here's a more extreme example but features some quotes. I remember when this house was in the globe and mail years ago. Neat to see a follow up.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamil...shed-1.6334106

There's a bunch of vacant houses (investment hoarding) in my neighbourhood, Stinson. Whether they're just waiting to move in, take forever to renovate or waiting for city permits, who's to say? That would be the tough part in a vacant property tax dispute.

Either way there's definitely a lot of investment monies (second mtg's / rental properties / investment properties, home holding corporations, AirBnb or equivalent alternative) being dumped into the city. Even areas that a few years ago would be lucky to get $350-400K for a house in a less gentrified area shall we say, is going for $600K+ or more if they've been home depot'd reno flip (which always blows my mind, since they look so shitty and sterile). Nutty times.

If anyone's curious about the Vacant Tax issue, you can find the report here