To the Editor:
With all the talk about the housing shortage, not only Canada wide but also in our city of Cornwall. I have the perfect solution for ten families in the city at absolutely no cost to the city , in fact there should be a good financial return for their investment.
“Impossible you say” but let me further explain. You see there are ten good vacant bungalows on Marleau Avenue from Alice Street, Guy Street and Carleton Street. The city being proactive many years ago, expropriated these perfectly good homes to make way for “future expansion” of Marleau Avenue of which there is no immediate plans to have shovels in the ground and begin work on said expansion. I would guess that the city purchased these homes at roughly three hundred thousand each. Do the math, that comes to three million dollars of our tax money, then there is the loss of up to three thousand dollars of revenue loss in property taxes per year. All the while the homes could be rented out at a minimum of two thousand or more per home. You see here how financially we are spending and losing revenue from each of these homes. Why could these properties not be rented out at a fair market value, with the understanding that when actual work begins, they will have to leave. How soon will the work begin? Maybe years. Remember that when the Seaway was being built, many much bigger homes were moved intact by house movers. I understand that proactive work must be done in advance but how long will it be before the next phase will begin. That’s a heck of a lot of money being wasted, while we wait for the project to begin.
Gilles Lamothe
Cornwall, ON
