23 September 2024
By Mary Bermingham
mary@TheCork.ie
Cork City Council is inviting the public to have their say on rates paid by owners of vacant commercial properties in the city.
Green Party Cllr Oliver Moran highlighted this on his social media.
Currently, property owners receive a 50% reduction on commercial rates when a property is empty. The argument for this is not to charge property owners when a business is idle.
Unfortunately, like with housing, there seems to be an interest in keeping some commercial properties empty. That can have a very negative impact on an area.
The effect is that the current scheme can act in a perverse way to encourage vacancy, when vacancy should be discouraged.
A public consultation is now open on whether this should continue or be modified in some way.
Other urban local authorities have been moving away from the idea of giving a reduction to owners to keep a property empty. Last year, Dublin City Council did away with it altogether. It’s possible to apply the scheme in a more nuanced way too, so that it’s not just a blanket 50% reduction.
The consultation that’s open now is asking the public for their opinion in a very open-ended way. This will feed into the eventual decision on commercial rates in the city budget in November.
To have your say, simply email vacancy@corkcity.ie before Monday, 30 September, letting officials know what you think of the current scheme and how you would modify it or do away with it entirely.