Victoria City Council decided not to move forward on a proposal that would have explored implementing incentives for some cultural facilities to provide a portion of their parking for overnight sheltering.
Mayor Marianne Alto's motion identified 13 churches, non-profits, and cultural centres in the city that could consider using their surface parking lots for temporary overnight shelter space in exchange for a property tax break: phasing out property taxes on the parking lot portion of the property by 20 per cent per year over a five-year period.
"As everyone is aware, the city is in the midst of quite a dramatic crisis and is trying to do pretty much everything it can to address housing, homelessness, disorder, destruction of social services," Alto said while introducing the background of the motion at today's meeting.
She described the motion as an invitation for community organizations to do more to help the current situation. The motion comes after council decided in 2021 to decrease the tax exemption of some organizations with parking lots covering more than half of their property.
The motion was defeated 5-4 at today's committee of the whole.
Councillor Marg Gardiner was one of the votes against the idea. She was on CFAX 1070 a few hours before the meeting and shared her concern that this could further anchor problems associated with mental illness, addictions and brain injuries across the city.