Credit city Comptroller Scott Stringer for flagging how “onerous regulatory hurdles” are a major reason so many storefronts sit empty. Too bad his report shies away from offering real answers.

How bad is it? Vacant retail space doubled from 2007 to 2017, to 11 million square feet, as the number of empty stores rose from 4% to 5.8%.

Part of this, as Stringer notes, is the “Amazon effect” — internet shopping is murdering brick-and-mortar stores. And rising commercial rents also force closures.

But landlords also lose if they set rents so high that they can’t get a tenant. As Stringer points out, new businesses can move in: restaurants, bars or shops selling other web-unfriendly services and products.

That’s where the regulatory burdens come in: These conversions could happen a lot faster if the city’s permitting processes weren’t a swamp. Stringer raps the Department of Buildings for its glacial pace of OKing alterations, for example.

Then there’s the gantlet of liquor-license applications. Approval time has jumped citywide “from roughly 50 to about 75 days, an increase of nearly 50%.”

Yet Stringer’s solutions are pretty anticlimactic. He suggests “tax credits for independent retailers to help lower the cost of space in retail corridors with persistently high vacancy rates.” How about looking to reduce other factors that boost rents, like the regular property-tax rate?

Stringer also wants a “multi-agency task force staffed with customer service representatives to assist new businesses by coordinating and expediting the necessary regulatory actions.” Why not call for pruning the city’s endless regulations, so entrepreneurs don’t have to jump through as many hoops in the first place?

Finally, he wants “an analysis of retail demand and inventory” required “in discretionary approvals of any major development proposal or rezoning.” In other words, add a new hurdle to other city approvals — further burdening already-slow rezoning and development OKs. Are empty or dilapidated lots supposed to be better than empty storefronts?

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s answer is even worse: a tax on vacant commercial space, which is guaranteed to have perverse effects as landlords who find they can’t rent take drastic action.

Neither Stringer nor de Blasio, nor the City Council, considers the impact of all the recent laws slamming smaller businesses, from minimum-wage hikes and paid-leave mandates to micromanaging both hiring and scheduling shifts.

Someday, some New York politician will consider the possibility that the answer to some problems isn’t more government “help,” but less.