Reply to Tony Williams takes DC Govt to task for failing downtown and budget mismanagement

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Reply to "Tony Williams takes DC Govt to task for failing downtown and budget mismanagement"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]

Anonymous wrote:
The DC Council responded. Pinto and Henderson introduced a bill to provide 35 YEAR! property tax abatement for any commercial office conversions downtown for other uses. That is the full IRS depreciation schedule for commercial real estate. They need to do something, but this seems wildly irresponsible. 
https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2022/1...office-vacancy-incentives.html

You need to encourage businesses to come to DC or for landlords to convert their vacant property into something useful. There are no signs that people are going to move out of DC or stop buying homes to move in to DC so there's no need to offer any incentives to residential property owners. In fact, more of the DC budget is going to have to come from sales taxes and residential property taxes.
[/quote]

While well-intentioned, I'm not sure that this legislation will make a significant difference in the distressed downtown commercial real estate market.  It is very expensive, and often impractical, to convert a mid-block office 30 to 40 year old office building to residential use---the interior column structure of many of these buildings is not conducive for residential layouts.  Not to mention that it is difficult to convince people to move downtown with its current safety and quality of life issues.  I'm not sure that the boost from the property tax savings can overcome those factors.   [/quote]

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