If you walked through Portland, Tacoma, or Seattle today, you would no doubt note the vacant, seemingly abandoned parcels of land sitting collecting weeds and litter. You might also note the empty storefronts and “For Lease” signs that have become permanent fixtures of the streetscape. This leads one to wonder: who owns these properties, why are they empty, and what could they be better used for?

By Q4 2025, Colliers reported Portland, Oregon reached another post-pandemic high of downtown office vacancies – 27%. Consequently, the City of Portland has been considering implementing fees on vacant commercial properties in an effort to drive prices down since 2025. 

Further north, Seattle saw its highest commercial vacancy rate since the pandemic, with reported rates falling between 25% and 34.7%. As part of her campaign, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson pledged to consider a “well-designed vacancy tax or fine” as a means to drive small businesses back to the downtown core. As major cities in the Pacific Northwest consider commercial vacancy taxes, there is a question about the results and what it would look like for cities like Tacoma. 

Taxes as a Means of Development

The economic model of vacancy taxes works in theory: property owners are taxed for their vacant properties and therefore incentivized to sell or rent the vacant property at a market occupying rate. In reality, properties are still vacant for a number of reasons including, high rents or high costs to convert the property to housing. Policymakers want to lower commercial rents and increase focus on adding housing downtown. A vacancy tax could help further those aims. 

By taxing a property with a long-running vacancy, the property owner is incentivized to lower their asking rent or sell the property to a new owner who may put it to a better use. The cost to keep the property vacant and off the market altogether as a speculative asset becomes too great.

The idea is not new, and it has been implemented in several municipalities across North America. In 2018, Washington, D.C. implemented a tax on vacant residential and commercial properties at a rate of $5.00 for every $100 of assessed value, and increases to $10.00 for every $100 of assessed value for properties identified as blighted. As goes the economic theory, the intention for the tax by the D.C. Department of Buildings is to “bring vacant and blighted properties back into productive use.”

In 2020, voters in San Francisco passed Proposition D which applies a tax on ground floor, street facing commercial properties vacant for six months out of the year. San Francisco’s commercial vacancy tax is $250 per linear foot of frontage in the first tax year the vacancy occurs. 

Taxes on the land and property are the tools of many municipalities, and one of the few progressive revenue generating options available to cities in Washington. Leaving that tool on the table could put at risk a municipality’s ability to raise the required revenue they need to encourage small business growth and housing development. 

Vancouver’s Gold Standard

When looking at vacancy tax case studies, the most regionally famous would have to be Vancouver, B.C. In 2017, Vancouver implemented an “Empty Home Tax” (EHT) – a tax on vacant homes of 3% of a property’s assessed value. The province of British Columbia followed suit, implementing a Speculation and Vacancy Tax (SVT). With both taxes in place, the Vancouver model is one of the most studied cases for North American cities. The implementation of both taxes discouraged speculation and the removal of residential properties from the long-term rental markets. 

With the combination of Vancouver’s EHT combined with the province’s SVT, the taxes are credited with reducing the residential vacancy rate to 0.49% by the end of 2024, according to the city’s annual assessments. By comparison, Seattle’s vacancy rate by the end of 2024 was 6.6% for apartment buildings according to data from Kidder Mathews and Simon Anderson Team. 

Vancouver’s problem was that would-be domiciles were kept off market for speculation, rather than housing. The intention of both the EHT and SVT in Vancouver is not to raise funds, but to address and disincentivize vacancy. However, that does not mean the revenue was nothing. By 2024, Vancouver collected over 202 million Canadian dollars (~US$150 million) in tax revenues from the EHT, with annual collections of around 30 million Canadian dollars (~US$22 million). While this is dwarfed by Vancouver’s total budget of $3.8 billion, it is still a proven revenue stream for affordable housing projects. 

However, Vancouver’s case is limited in its effectiveness. The C.D. Howe Institute introduced a study in 2024 that cast doubt on the effect on rents. While the tax reduced the number of empty homes without impacting new housing construction, it did not appear to affect average rent, counter to the supply-side narrative. This shows that while the tax improved housing availability, it did not address affordability, indicating a need for further measures to address the wider housing crisis. 

A feature of the EHT is that it focuses on residential properties, not commercial spaces. The SVT similarly does not include commercial spaces. Commercial properties are not subject to the same rules as residential properties, the thinking goes, because their leases are longer and can be taken off the market for renovations and improvements to the property. Additionally, a longer lease tenant could go bankrupt during a longer-term lease, leading the landlord to evict or take action in court, leaving the property vacant. This could be seen as overly detrimental to the landlord. 

Additionally, with the shift to remote work during the pandemic, office vacancies remain stubbornly high in many cities. The same Collier report this article opened with states, “Portland’s prolonged commitment to remote work, ongoing concerns around tenant safety, and high tax rates compared to nearby locales hamper the downtown office market and cloud occupancy projections.” Even if a vacancy tax pushed landlords to drop office rents significantly, demand may remain too low to fill empty offices.

What Vancouver reveals is a potential for Washington State and its municipalities to adopt a similar taxation scheme. One of the few mechanisms available to local governments are property taxes, with property tax revenues financing 15% of the state’s budget. But the intention of a vacancy tax in the style of Vancouver would be to increase supply, and drive housing to market. However, if applied to commercial spaces, there might be a similar result. 

San Francisco and the Commercial Vacancy Tax

As alluded to earlier, the San Francisco commercial vacancy tax serves as an experiment in the taxation of vacancy commercial properties. There are notable exemptions for construction and improvements, getting around the disincentives applied to properties’ improvements were they to become vacant. Kidder Mathews reports that in Q1 2026 office and retail vacancies have been reduced - from 6.8% in Q1 2025 to 6%. 

However, the current data is difficult to analyze, as its impact is mixed with post-pandemic recovery efforts, muddying the waters. Vacancies were indeed reduced, but rents remain high, increasing 5.9% from 2025 to 2026. If the point is to fill the vacancies, then a commercial vacancy tax seems like a viable option with the current data. 

Commercial vacancy taxes are rarer, leaving less data to analyze to ascertain their effectiveness. 

Washington’s legal barriers

Without question, Washington reformers will run into legal challenges. Honolulu and San Francisco both tried to implement a variation of a vacancy tax, targeting residential properties and empty homes, and both faced barriers that killed their momentum. Honolulu’s most recent EHT effort was shelved after their City Council, adding to several attempts that faced community pushback, constitutionality questions, and implementation concerns. San Francisco’s tax was struck down in 2024. Washington’s Constitution is no less troublesome, as the fight over the millionaires income tax has shown. 

The trouble comes from the Uniformity Clause. Article VII, Section 2, states “The legislature shall provide by law a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation on all property in the state,” with all real estate constituting one class, intertwining land and buildings atop of it as a single taxable entity. However, a section prior, the Constitution reads: “All real estate shall constitute one class: Provided… [s]uch property as the legislature may by general laws provide shall be exempt from taxation.”

With exceptions allowed by the Legislature, there are workarounds, where the Uniformity Clause is not the barrier to the exception of property. In 1995, the Legislature passed SB 5387, which established the Seattle Multifamily Housing Tax Exemption (MFTE) program. The program enabled cities to exempt property for new multifamily housing developments. Under the same scheme, a vacancy tax would appear to pass legal muster and could be applied universally by the Legislature, exempting occupied units from the tax. 

Any local vacancy tax would hinge on the Legislature’s approval. While unable to meet the “gold standard” in British Columbia, it would be a step toward adoption of the tax. 

Realities and Local Perspectives

With a re-emergent interest in vacancy taxes, Pacific Northwest cities are exploring new territory as they contemplate commercial vacancies and the continued housing crisis. In Washington, the housing crisis still dominates conversation in Olympia. Meanwhile, Seattle leads the nation in falling office rents, which has been attributed to the city’s high vacancies. Foot-traffic and retail activity is only now starting to recover to pre-pandemic levels. 

Vacant lots are peppered throughout Tacoma, but vacant homes, buildings, or parcels are not catalogued by the Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer outside of tax delinquency. Representatives of Tacoma Public Works’ Real Property Services confirmed with The Urbanist they have no current method of ascertaining what buildings or lots are considered vacant. Pierce County’s Assessor-Treasurer’s Office noted similarly that unless there was a change in ownership like a title transfer or sale to change the tax burden, there is no audit conducted on parcels’ vacancy status. 

Tony Herrmann and Elijah Piper from Kidder Mathews provided information on the residential occupancy trends in Pierce County between 2022-2026. From 2022, there was an increase in housing stock through construction, resulting in a drop in the occupancy rate as those units were gradually absorbed. However, the vacancy rate since 2023 has stayed stable. As of March 2026, Tacoma’s vacancy rate for multifamily residential properties was 6%. According to another Kidder Mathews report, Pierce County rents increased 2% year over year. 

“I am alarmed that we have so many vacant properties around Tacoma that are detrimental to the community,” Tacoma Councilmember Latasha Palmer said in a statement to The Urbanist. 

Tacoma Councilmember Kristina Walker and former-Councilmember Kiara Daniels had collaborated and explored the possibility of a vacant property tax.

“Vacant properties and empty lots are a serious concern for the City,” Walker said. “We are missing an opportunity to convert these types of properties into more housing for people across our city, space for local businesses, and so much more.” 

Tacoma Councilmember John Hines shared his interest in shrinking the vacancy rate through incentives. Hines worked with the City of Spokane and state lobbyists on SB 5884 last legislative session. The bill, sponsored by Senators Marcus Riccelli and Yasmin Trudeau, would have established a sales and use tax deferral program to stimulate the redevelopment of underdeveloped properties, effectively granting a tax break to developers as a landlord-friendly alternative to a vacancy tax. 

“Tacoma has a number of underdeveloped properties that we want to see turned into housing and active commercial space,” Hines said. “Another area that I am focused on is helping to connect our current vacant commercial spaces with tenants.”

Tacoma Mayor Anders Ibsen expressed interest in vacancy taxes when he was on City Council in the 2010s, and optimism about what could be done at the municipal level in the future. 

“The Council had previously looked into vacancy taxes as an idea, but it was determined to be legally questionable because taxes have to be uniform,” Mayor Ibsen said. “However, a higher fee specific to a particular property that pays for directly-related services – like more proactive code enforcement – is within the realm of possibility. I’m currently exploring that.” 

Councilmember Palmer echoed interest in this idea. 

“We need to take more robust action with our code compliance team to let property owners know that leaving vacant properties uncared for is unacceptable. I think a vacancy tax could also be very helpful, and I was disappointed to learn that state-level legal issues prevent Tacoma from adopting this type of tax. Our most important goal with vacant properties is to get them back into use.”

Vacancy Taxes in Tacoma and the Evergreen State

While land speculation may be less of a problem in Tacoma, that does not mean a variation of the tax would be worthless. As Seattle’s mayor campaigned on, a vacancy tax might be a solution to economic development that Puget Sound cities are looking for when wanting to protect their small businesses and downtown cores. While code compliance is the focus of many on Tacoma Council now, under the right legal framework, a vacancy tax may find traction in the Grit City.

Ibsen and Palmer Prevail in Tacoma, Pledging Housing, Safe Streets Push » The Urbanist

# Tacoma’s recent election elevated two urbanist-backed progressives, which could buoy efforts to expand housing, roll out street safety upgrades, and improve transit. The Urbanist chatted with Tacoma Mayor-Elect Anders Ibsen and incoming Councilmember Latasha Palmer about their plans.

The UrbanistCarolyn Bick

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This weekend, history repeated itself on the unnecessarily pyrotechnic stage of Eurovision as singers from Israel and another country waited to hear which would be crowned the winner of the increasingly contentious song contest. In the end, the Bulgarian banger "Bangaranga" by singer Dara edged out Israel's "Michelle" by singer Noam Bettan. Last year, Austrian singer JJ served as a similar spoiler with his operatic "Wasted Love." Now Eurovision, it would seem, plans to proceed as if everything were normal, announcing the competition will take place next year in Bulgaria. But, of course, something is rotten in the state of Eurovision, a competition where many fans find themselves in the harrowing position of rooting not for their favorite song, but for anyone but Israel.

In recent years, artists, fans, and governments have protested the competition's inclusion of Israel over its genocidal war on Gaza. The the ongoing boycott against the competition is the largest in its 70-year history. Last September, the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the song contest, promised to vote on Israel's participation. But the vote was postponed after a ceasefire was announced, per the New York Times. When the broadcasters gathered again in December, after Israel violated the ceasefire nearly 600 times, they skirted the vote once again through a bureaucratic loophole that allowed Israel to remain in the competition.

In response, five countries—the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia, and Spain, one of the "big five" countries in Eurovision—pulled out. The Swiss singer Nemo, who won the contest in 2024 with "The Code," a song about discovering their nonbinary identity, returned their trophy to Geneva. "Israel's continued participation, during what the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry has concluded to be a genocide, shows a clear conflict between those ideals and the decision made by the [European Broadcasting Union]," Nemo said in a statement posted to Instagram. "The contest was repeatedly used to soften the image of a state accused of severe wrongdoing, all while the EBU insists Eurovision is 'non-political,'" they continued.

The tech trial of the year, Musk v. Altman, was ultimately a fight for control. Elon Musk argued that Sam Altman, with whom he helped found the now-massive company OpenAI, shouldn't direct the future of AI. Altman's lawyers, in turn, poked at Musk's own credibility. A jury came to a verdict on Monday after just two hours of deliberation, dismissing Musk's claims due to the statute of limitations.

In a strictly legal sense, three weeks of testimony added up to nothing. But the trial offered a more damning broader takeaway: Almost nobody in this saga seems worth trusting. Some of the most powerful people in tech seem temperamentally incapable …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Even by the standards of shocking Michael Jackson jokes, it was a shocking joke. “Michael Jackson did nothing wrong,” Michael Che, a co-anchor of Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update,” said during last night’s episode. “He was right to molest all those kids.” This was delivered with palpable surprise at the words coming out of his mouth, but Che kept going: “They were lucky. I would have paid him to do it. And I did! That’s right, when I was 10 years old, Michael Jackson molested me, and the only thing it gave me was a fetish for middle-aged white women.” He then smiled and said, almost as an aside, “That is not why I have that.”

Che, of course, wasn’t saying what he actually thinks about the late pop star or his own personal sexual preferences. He was participating in a tradition where he and co-anchor Colin Jost each write “Weekend Update” material that the other man has to deliver cold, without seeing the joke ahead of time. The goal is to make their co-anchor look as crass, offensive, and stupid as possible, and Jost had crafted a real doozy for Che to read. But the joke wasn’t just about shocking the audience or innovating in the seemingly spent arena of Michael Jackson jokes—it also demonstrated how the right context can make grotesque humor sing, by turning the discomfort of the joke teller into the real gag.

In an interview with the comedian Mike Birbiglia, Che said that the stunt was inspired by the “Update” jokes they’d written that had bombed during dress rehearsal. (Che recalled how one groaner was greeted with a woman loudly saying “no.”) But for one episode, Che and Jost decided to recycle those same jokes for the other man to say. To Che’s surprise, the act of telling the audience that they were aware that these jokes were in bad taste “made them laugh hysterically.” Jost pushed for them to do it again, but without knowing the jokes ahead of time; Che admitted that he became worried that Jost was going to surprise him, “so I wrote new ones that were horrific.”

This has since evolved into a biannual tradition—and one of the best parts of the past decade of SNL. Highlights have included Jost getting Che to call Kendrick Lamar “the biggest bitch of them all” during the height of his feud with Drake, and Che writing a joke about Jost’s wife, Scarlett Johansson, that was so beyond the pale he later apologized to her on air.

The tradition has endured partly because of the sheer shock value of the jokes, which almost guarantees they go viral, but also because it’s very sweet, in a very strange way. After working together for a decade, the two men understand each other on an artistic and personal level. For Che, writing his jokes means leaning into Jost’s straight-laced vibe and the idea that he seems like a guy who would enjoy racist material, such as this line he was made to recite about the Oscar-winning film Sinners: “A Black vampire is just like a white vampire, except the only thing it sucks dry is the welfare state.” In contrast, Jost loves to make Che look like some sort of louche sexual deviant, as seen with the Jackson joke.

[Read: Time comes for Colin Jost—and for all of us]

It all comes down to the two men’s anguished delivery, which itself becomes the joke. In the interview with Birbiglia, Che noted that people worry they will “get in trouble” for laughing at jokes they know are wrong, so the secret is to give them permission. This is how jokes that on paper read as merely sexist and racist really become about two friends trying to make each other really, really uncomfortable.

The latest joke swap arrived just after Netflix’s recent roast of Kevin Hart, which was filled with nasty, not-all-that-winky exchanges between the featured comedians. Take one particularly vicious back-and-forth between Shane Gillis and Chelsea Handler, where Gillis cracked about Handler partying with Jeffrey Epstein and Handler returned fire by bringing up Gillis’s history of telling racist jokes. The environment wasn’t that fraternal. Maybe everyone was in on the joke, but the event certainly seemed like it was filled with people who despised one another, and who wanted to demonstrate that they were the edgiest and most callous person in the room.

In comparison, Jost and Che’s one-upmanship clearly comes from a place of deep affection. At one point, Jost was made to joke about a new album by Ye (formerly Kanye West): “Please try to separate the art from the artist, and remember that Ye can make awful music and still be right about Hitler.” At the end of “Weekend Update,” he said that to atone for this particular bit, “I’d like to sacrifice the most important thing in my life: my beautiful, award-winning, world-famous hair.” A barber entered the set from behind, pulled out his clippers, and draped Jost in a black cape.

But right before the clippers made contact, Che intervened with a passionate No! “You was really gonna do it?” he asked in seemingly genuine disbelief. “Man, you are the greatest comedian of all time,” he added, dropping the bit for a second and simply telling his friend how much he loved him.