Whitby residents vote in favour of ending second home ownership

Shelter is or should be a basic human right. Hoarding of housing should thus be viewed as a human rights violation.<p>Between second homes (and third, fourth and fifth homes), AirBnB&#x2F;VRBO&#x2F;etc, the ultra-wealthy parking money in real estate, real estate markets catering to the ultra-wealthy by mostly or entirely building properties for the ultra-wealthy, rampant NIMBYism, institutional buying of residential housing and protecting property values becoming a political goal we have a complete mess on our hands.<p>Let&#x27;s start with this:<p>1. PUnitiviely taxing any property held by a non-individual as an owner. I&#x27;m talking at least 10% of the property&#x27;s value every year;<p>2. Banning AirBnB in any case where the owner isn&#x27;t living on the property;<p>3. Treating all owners as residents in that city, state and country for tax purposes and taxing their worldwide income accordingly. Let New York be for New Yorkers;<p>4. Ending tax abatements for ultra-wealthy property development;<p>5. Properties above 200% of the median value should also be taxed at a much higher rate;<p>6. Property that isn&#x27;t occupied the majority of the year should also be taxed punitively.

As someone who has little to no understanding of how UK laws work, what is the enforcement mechanism for this? A person can’t own two homes in Whitby? Or a person can’t own a home in London and Whitby?<p>&gt; The results of the vote, which saw just under a 23% turnout, do not carry any legal weight<p>Wait, all they did was conduct an official opinion poll?

I&#x27;ve always wondered why there aren&#x27;t more restrictions or disincentives for second homes. Empty second homes generate a ton of economic waste. And a high percentage vacation&#x2F;rental homes can completely ruin a local culture.

&gt; The results of the vote, which saw just under a 23% turnout, do not carry any legal weight...

So, these people — who supposedly own a home there — voted to keep any current homeowners (owning homes anywhere in the country) out of buying homes in their district, cutting a huge chunk of the home buyers from buying a home there. By drastically limiting the demand, they just sent their home prices down, making themselves potentially poorer (or <i>much</i> poorer) as a result. In a nutshell, they&#x27;ve just voted to rob themselves of money.<p>Are there some ideals at work here, or is it a case of people not fully grasping the future consequences of their current actions?

This is a classic example of &quot;lets ask only half the interested parties&quot;.<p>If you could magically track down every person who would in the future purchase a new-build home in Whitby, and did a vote of <i>those</i> people, then they would presumably be massively against having their home under a restrictive covenant forcing someone to live there the whole time.

This world is immensely entitled.<p>Humans are owed &#x2F;nothing&#x2F; not a single solitary thing. We &#x2F;strive&#x2F; for things, such as equality, and freedom of speech.<p>Placing blame on X for Y&#x27;s suffering is a straw-man argument, with straw-man solutions that fail spectacularly when trials are performed.<p>Basic income? Yup 3 countries tried it, and ditched it immediately.<p>Basic housing? Yup countries, counties, and states have tried this, and it failed miserably.<p>------<p>Morality, which is what the &#x27;everyone deserves a house&#x27; mentality is, cannot be legislated; ever.<p>Change comes by doing, not by forcing others to do for you. This world needs a giant enema.

This should be easy to do in any community with a stigma against renting. No second homes in the community means no poor people stinking up the street and lowering property values

It looks like a great ruling for increasing the wealth of current homeowners. By only restricting the purpose of new housing, you will increase demand and by extension, increase prices of the existing homes.<p>Basically, it seems to be a great scheme for resident to have a new home built at little cost by reselling their existing older home at an increased value.

Need this in Vancouver

Hooray for Whitby!<p>Bernie Sanders should be asked for his opinion on the matter.