The property owners of these buildings are not bad people, they system is flawed and includes incentives for them to keep the buildings vacant. I will work to remove those incentives, including the ability to write their losses off against profits elsewhere. I would also work to impose a fee on businesses that hold land and buildings in our town centers that they do not make available to the community. It should not be more profitable to keep a vacant building, than a vibrant one.

Another reason buildings go unused is the difficulty in getting a modern use permit when the building was designed and constructed under different rules and regulations. This puts a very high bar on a new business, with limited assets, that is trying to get started. They need to first secure rights to the building, then invest heavily upfront to upgrade the building, all before they can even begin to do business. Many of these new regulations are important for health and safety. However, many of these changes can also be phased in over a planned schedule, with funds set aside over time from the business owner. This would jump start new businesses, while simultaneously providing new valued services to the community, and investing the profits from that business into improving the town center.

Critical services have been forced to close down or move out from our rural communities, leaving a variety of “service deserts”: from childcare, healthcare, and groceries. I would work to develop a state grant program for local communities to apply for that would allow them to incentivize these critical services to return to the community. These grants would be used to further remove the barriers to use, accelerating a small businesses ability to start, while ensuring the money is used to lasting effect.