Kansas City leaders explore incentives, deterrents for vacant land [Video]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A lunchtime post on Mayor Quinton Lucas’ social media accounts shed a little bit of light on conversations that had already started around City Hall and City Council about what to do with vacant properties and buildings in the city.

A “vacant land tax,” the post writes, “would allow us to activate blighting/vacant lots and abandoned structures throughout the City that are neglected often by resourced owners banking land, creating long-term harms for all, not by those lacking means.”

“On streets where we’re seeing all types of improvements, Troost Avenue, Prospect, Independence, and beyond, you still see lots of vacant properties, properties that have been abandoned, properties that could be put to a better use,” Lucas said in a follow up interview Monday.

It is especially true for Indian Mound resident Steven Shafer who has lived his whole life in Northeast Kansas City and says the neighborhood has slowly become harder to recognize.

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