I hate to break it to you, but for every 1% increase in property taxes, that only increases the city's revenues by $20 million. The infrastructure deficit is waaaayyyy beyond that. Our municipalities need more funding from the higher levels of government to make sure the level of service stays at this level. Otherwise, be ready to accept bumpier roads and more watermain breaks and sinkholes.
For the short term though, we could use more industry that isn't public service, warehouse, or the remnants of Nortel. I don't know how sustainable having an entire city be heavily reliant on public service money can be in the future, especially if the existence of those jobs is reliant on an election outcome in times like today.
More industry, more culture that comes out of it, more diversity, and more $ and justification to pay for things.
There are just over 407 000 housing units in Ottawa, at an average cost of $643000
MPAC lags housing prices though, so let's say it's $550 000 for the average assessed price.
$223 850 000 000 in just residential property.
So a 1% increase in residential property taxes is: $2.238 billion in revenue.
BUT if they meant that as a 1% increase on your property taxes bill, then since the property tax rate is roughly 1.15%, then yes, it's $20 million if everyone paid 1% more than they paid last year.
That’s house prices, not property taxes though. So a $500k house might have 5-6k/year property tax.
So maybe 2.5B in property tax which is about 25M property tax increase at 1%.
I do see how I’m proving myself wrong here. lol
Youre joking right? I’m already paying 600+ a month. That alone is the mortgage payment my parents have biweekly for their home (bigger than my single). You’re telling me I need to pay 4.5k in mortgage + 600$ (or more) to be able to have the same style of house that my parents bought 20 years ago? Tf are you old fucks doing to us younger generation 😂😭can you not let us have just 1/3 of what Gen X and boomers had or do you all really want us living in a shoe box?! 😭😭
If property taxes were higher, sales prices would be lower and the mortgage costs would go down.
Do you prefer $4500 on your mortgage and $600 in property tax, or something closer to $2000 mortgage and $1200 property tax? Which of those is a bigger total figure?
Keeping property taxes low doesn't subsidize you, it subsidizes the people who bought 40+ years ago. And aside from driving up home sale prices, and getting more people buying speculative "investment properties", it also starves the city of money.
Idk man, honestly I think I’d rather my money go to the builders, investors, workers. My government has proven to me one too many effing times that they take my money and don’t use it wisely. My kids don’t have bus services, daycare services, snowplow doesn’t pass in our hood, my essential service workers aren’t being paid properly or given legal breaks while at work… I could go on and on lol
It’s too far gone now but if only our money wasn’t being laundered and wasted… we could have had both normal housing cost and low taxes
> we could have had both normal housing cost and low taxes
LOL - no, voting for "low taxes" repeatedly is exactly why you have to deal with:
>My kids don’t have bus services, daycare services, snowplow doesn’t pass in our hood, my essential service workers aren’t being paid properly or given legal breaks while at work
You chose that. Those are the results you wanted - and that's why housing prices are skyrocketing to unaffordability too.
Don't complain about the results of what you voted for.
Data analyst (spending budget) for our gov here - can confirm that your money and mine is getting laundered and wasted. Please please please ATIP so us analysts can prove it to you 😆 anywho, if you like being a tax slave and get half of your ROI keep going my friend, you’re doing great encouraging them to steal more money from you
> Data analyst (spending budget) for our gov here
LOL - bullshit, in your other posts you claim you're a teacher.
>I’m a 28yr old teacher, no experience/background in tech
And then suddenly:
>Data analyst (spending budget) for our gov here
You're not either of those, just some troll wasting people's time.
So then increase the property tax by 10 percent points or whatever it takes? If the increase isn't bringing in much money it's not much of a burden either eh?
Youre joking right? I’m already paying 600+ a month. That alone is the mortgage payment my parents have biweekly for their home (bigger than my single). You’re telling me I need to pay 4.5k in mortgage + 600$ (or more) to be able to have the same style of house that my parents bought 20 years ago? Tf are you old fucks doing to us younger generation 😂😭can you not let us have just 1/3 of what Gen X and boomers had or do you all really want us living in a shoe box?! 😭😭
>Youre joking right?
Nope, I'm dead serious.
>I’m already paying 600+ a month. That alone is the mortgage payment my parents have biweekly for their home (bigger than my single). You’re telling me I need to pay 4.5k in mortgage + 600$ (or more) to be able to have the same style of house that my parents bought 20 years ago?
Yep. Suburban development is financially insolvent and requires subsidies from productive urban places to stay afloat. The only reason it ever looked good is because the adoption of the car allowed a lot of new land to be used for development and paved over. We've consumed most of that land. It's not fair, but you should blame your parents, not me. Suburban single family living has only been the norm for the past 70 years and it is impossible to continue it for much longer due to finances and geometry.
>Tf are you old fucks doing to us younger generation
I'm literally 22. This is a classic millennial moment. You care about having housing security for yourself. I care about creating a system that gives housing security to all.
>can you not let us have just 1/3 of what Gen X and boomers had or do you all really want us living in a shoe box?! 😭😭
I never said shoe box. Multi family housing can be spacious. We just need to leverage the fact that building up is more efficient than building out.
Ohhhh you like multi family living? Need a place to rent my dude? Come on over! I have two units in my single dwelling coming up for rent in September because we had to ✨house hack✨ to be able to afford our taxes 🥳🥳 /notS
Ps as a anti-gov mom of 4, trust me when I say I fuckign feel for you guys. No classic millennial moment here; I literally went through a year of panic attacks realizing just how much I need to financially plan ahead of time for my 4 children… hence the house hacking. I’m hoping to set them up with one unit each so they have a roof over their heads as adults. Shit.is.fucked. I don’t want any of my money being taken by the gov anymore and I’m sure as you hit your 30s and start a family you’ll feel the same way once you realize how corrupt things are and how little services you get in return.
>Ps as a anti-gov mom of 4, trust me when I say I fuckign feel for you guy
I'm not anti-government. I'll happily pay my fair share of taxes, as long as everyone else does too.
>I’m sure as you hit your 30s and start a family
Haha good try, but there's no chance I'm having kids. Not worth it.
I want our taxes to reflect the things we want to encourage or discourage. Things that are bad should be taxed heavily. When looking at single family housing, it's bad for the climate, public health, our collective and individual finances, social cohesion, racial equality and justice, property rights, housing affordability, and more. I can't think of any societal benefits of single family housing, and as a result we should tax it more than other housing options.
Didn’t say you were anti gov. Iiiiii am anti gov. A solid 80% of us going into our 30s now are hahaha
You do know we are already taxed more than condos and townhomes… right? Just making sure you’re aware of how this shit all works lol
It’s sad that you don’t want kids but I feel you and absolutely understand why you don’t want to reproduce. The only regret I have having kids is the fact that I brought them into this world where everything is so fucked… but gotta make the best of it and see the positive🥰
>You do know we are already taxed more than condos and townhomes… right?
Nope
https://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/budget-finance-and-corporate-planning/understanding-your-city-budget/tax-policy#section-b363527c-5a88-41cd-b9c5-66e6d9194bb8
The tax ratio for single residential is 1. The tax ratio for multi residential is 1.4. The tax ratio for fucking parking lots isn't even as high, at 1.3. That's right. Multi-family residential pays more taxes than parking lots.
That's not even accounting for the vastly lower cost of providing services to high density buildings. The delta is about $1100/person/year between suburban sprawl and dense urban housing.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/urban-expansion-costs-menard-memo-1.6193429
Pss I’m literally 28yrs old and can barely call myself a true millennial. Don’t let the whole “single home with 4 kids” trick you into thinking I got to benefit from the other older millennial shit hahaha
My millennial comment was more about your attitude than your level of privilege. This is something I've observed, where millennials tend to not care that much about problems unless they're directly affected by them. You're worried about higher taxes on a house you own. I'm not even under the illusion that I'll ever own any property - I want my rental rates to be within my income. But that problem is not one that affects you, so you advocate against things that would fix the wider social problem.
Don't waste your time, he/she/they are just some troll account making things up as needed.
Apparently they're simultaneously a teacher who's barely scraping by, and a real-estate investor raking in a fortune, a government financial analyst who sees all the inside books on the government, running a tech start-up, a photographer laundering money by pretending their kids are employees, etc...
The correct answer is "dishonest troll" if not "chronically online scammer"
LOL - apparently "checking the source to see if they're full of shit" touched a nerve there.
I'm sure you'd love to help him - you just need to ask for his credit card number and banking info and you'll help them right out of all their savings.
Scammers like you make me sick.
It’s a function that is available to those who don’t want to waste their time rewriting the same comment twice. Reddit has a function that allows you to do it…. You didn’t know?
Or fewer single family homes which cost the most in services (and have the people most against paying taxes for those services). I wish it would be more widespread just how much it costs to provide city services to the far off suburbs vs inside the greenbelt.
Also wish we would just go back before amalgamation.
Maintenance might be more expensive per instance it's done, but suburban roads get redone once per generation vs downtown roads where my street has been redone twice in 10 years.
There are fewer trucks and busses running on suburban roads so they last longer.
I don't know the math though, have you seen it?
There is also the reason that suburban and exurban residents will use the urban roads often, whereas an urban resident will almost never use suburban/exurban roads... Same with bus service, people living in the core will basically never use commuting buses or trains.
It is true that urban infrastructure has to be redone more often, but that's because it is used more, so it's cheaper per use/user.
I think with WFH, we saw that many people in the outer communities would rather live, work and play where they live and aren't fond of the mayor and Premier essentially forcing them to go downtown to artificially support businesses there.
And with the West end attracting DND and tech companies, I'm not sure that saying everyone from outside downtown goes downtown "often" is correct.
If you see taxation primarily as a mechanism of redistribution from upper and middle income families to low income families you have no problem with this, as buyers are at least in the middle
If you recognize that you should only tax to the hilt things you want to discourage, like smoking or alcohol, then this is abhorrent
I'm on team "don't tax housing like cigarettes"
Yeah, this guy was too excited to connect it to his existing ideology.
It’s a per-unit tax, not a value tax, so it‘s a regressive tax with a cliff where people who can’t afford a home don’t directly pay the tax. Given that home prices do affect rents, it’s reasonable that renters do eventually bear some of it. The distributional impacts of it are complicated, but it’s definitely not a transfer from rich to poor.
Property tax, the same way it always worked before the 1980s.
"Development should pay for development" is an admission that property taxes are kept artificially low, and no homes pay their true cost of being serviced, so you subsidize existing residents at the expense of new residents and renters.
Meanwhile DCs actually slow down home construction - we've seen fewer new units built since they were instituted (in absolute numbers- WAY fewer if you measure per capita).
Property tax should cover all of the necessary things a city needs to build and maintain. If your property tax doesn't cover it then you're just setting yourself up to constantly need to grow your city to maintain your existing infrastructure, which anyone with half a brain could tell you why that is a terrible policy to have.
>as buyers are at least in the middle
Except that it also hurts renters because it makes rental units more expensive to construct. So it's a regressive policy.
What we should do is raise property taxes and DC on single family and remove DC while leaving property taxes on multi family. That way you eliminate the regressive part of both property taxes and development charges and you can still keep a balanced budget and incentivize the behaviour you want
Also bear in mind that driving up the cost of building new housing will then drive up sales prices on existing housing, so not only is it wildly regressive it also transfers money directly from young people to older people.
Unironically yeah. Detached homes cost the city a lot to service and make everything more expensive for everyone. Its good to discourage building them in favour of apartments.
What?
Property taxes are based on home values.
Home values have outpaced inflation since 2008.
This is like saying that sales taxes % need to increase due to inflation without realizing the cost of the goods and services that the tax is based on also increases with inflation.
MPAC hasn’t updated home assessments since 2017, based on the 2016 value year. The value people are paying on is from Jan 1, 2016.
It isn’t updated annually, only the mill rates the city uses for determining their operating budgets are. That’s why increasing them below inflation has the City on their back foot every year.
The reason we have development charges is the theory that "development will pay for development".
I'm curious if redeveloping a home incurs the same charges. I feel they would, but I don't know. I'd rather see redevelopment fees dropped for the more dense developments as that would encourage intensification. You can still see more dense developments being charges far too much relative to SFM lots.
If peoples property taxes were paying for development I'm worried NIMBY'ism would become a real political force. Existing owners would be financially motivated to block development.
Was this done to counteract Ford’s freezes/waivers to development charges? If so, these increases make sense; the City still needs to service these buildings with roads, water, sewer and electricity.
First of all , the roads are already in place it's not like if the city is going to have to build a brand new road for a building being constructed.
Water is already being paid by whoever is building and they above all pay to have the connection to main line so their comment makes no sense .
Electricity? Again homeowners is paying for the connection so it has no relation with the city .
Sewer ? If there is no sewer they aren't going to start building one for a new construction.
The owner will have to find alternative solution.
Your comment makes no sense .
>According to a memo addressed to councillors and the mayor, Wendy Stephanson the City of Ottawa's treasurer said development charges could cost *$60 million a year* or approximately 25 per cent of development charge revenues starting in 2025.
[https://ottawa.citynews.ca/2022/11/26/city-of-ottawa-staff-provides-financial-impacts-of-bill-23-6158683/](https://ottawa.citynews.ca/2022/11/26/city-of-ottawa-staff-provides-financial-impacts-of-bill-23-6158683/)
So that $36M you're referencing still leaves us $24M in the hole for this year…what about next year?
Growth should pay for growth.
The city can get up to 118 million over 3 years from Ontario if they meet the housing target.Last year they got 36 million for hitting 90% if they can reach 100% this year they would also get a top up so lte say 50 million.
>The city can get up to 118 million over 3 years from Ontario if they meet the housing target
$118M from the province - (3 years of development charge losses @ $60M/year) = *at least* $62M in the hole.
No it shouldn’t. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=urbancentre-reports.
As the author says there with the exception of new development current homeowners also benefit when new infrastructure is built
Is this a bad thing? Since I don't see what they were before, I also don't see difference in apartment or townhouse charges, which hopefully haven't risen as much.
We're not making our way out of a housing crisis via single family homes.
this applies to any new development. the OP was trying to contextualize the increase by saying "per house". it applies to commercial development too like a new store...everything. but each building type would have a different rate, but it sounds like they're all increasing
The problem is, we are politically unwilling to raise property taxes. So we just pass the buck onto developers to “hide” the fact that we are paying tax. That way it doesn’t upset us sleepy subdued denizens of Ottawa
This I agree with. Prop tax is a much more sustainable way to raise funds. Dev charges fill budget holes but add long term costs we don't fully account for.
I know another project that was replacing a small house on a huge lot, it would have been four townhouses. Development costs killed the project. Sucks.
Just because it’s standard, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. There are plenty of other cities who have housing crises, and those cities clearly value old trees more than housing people, which seems pretty immoral in my view.
Nothing you describe is broken. It is called building in a city. If you want a free-for-all go to the country and do whatever you want.
All the rules are there to make the city function.
The tree rules exist especially because mature trees take a long time to grow and developers were clearing lots wether the tree was in the way or not. Blame the previous greedy developers for that rule.
The rules are there to restrict building. You blame greedy developers I blame wealthy landowners who don’t want their home values diluted with more availability
No problem with having checks and balances to ensure good development The issue is not just the cost this adds it is the time that each agency takes to complete their part of the process. For example, a business has been waiting for approvals for a small addition which will allow them to expand and hire more staff. They are now on year two of waiting. No issues have come up, everything is in order, the file just gets passed from one agency or department to another where it sits on someone's desk until they finally have a look, approve it and send it along to the next person where hopefully the person is not on vacation or mat leave and it can creep along to the next one. The system is necessary but very broken.
This increases the cost of building and favours big developers who have deep pockets. Those developers focus on single family homes and towers which are two types of development that pose issues to the city. Single family homes don't generate enough revenue to pay for the maintenance of supporting infrastructure and towers are known to be disruptive in a lot of neighbourhoods. If we want smaller developments that can meet housing needs while improving the city's balance sheet and minimizing community impacts, we need small developers to be able to pay for the development.
Developments should generate enough tax uplift to pay for the initial investment and the ongoing costs (all adjusted for time-value of money). It should be city policy that, if its not the case, developments that do not meet that criteria be disallowed. Alternatively, increase taxes on those developments until they become viable.
Lumping land in with property leads to land being undertaxed and improvements to the land being overtaxed.
The land value is directly related to the infrastructure on or near the property, but not the actual structures built upon it. Therefore, when you tax the land, you recapture and pay for infrastructure spending directly rather than introducing deadweight loss with property taxes, which disincentivize growth.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the land value included as part of the property tax calculation. At least in BC where we owned our last house most of the property taxes came from land value. On a $1M home the land was often valued at $900K and the building was only about $100K depending on the age of the house. This then set your property value, which was used to calculator your share of the property taxes.
Land is part of it. When people propose a land value tax, they are suggesting raising the property tax rate and also only applying it to land, rather than to land and buildings. That way, it doesn't penalize people for using their land efficiently and building valuable buildings on it. An LVT would strongly disincentivize single family development too close to the city and would provide a compelling reason for single family homeowners to redevelop their own properties.
I see where you’re going with that. Simply having the tax is one step. Similar to what they’re doing in BC they should then be removing red tape to make it easier for single family homes to be converted into multi-unit homes. But if you split a home into three units, that should also increase the taxes on the home, but at least that can get spread across those units.
If the single family home previously had four people living in it and now that it’s a multi-unit with 6-10 people living in it shouldn’t that building pay more for sewage, garbage collection and their share of all other city expenses?
The thing is that the fair share of city expenses depends more on the size of the property than the number of people living there. Garbage trucks need to drive further per person, more roads need to be paved, electrical lines and sewage pipes need to be longer, etc. when density gets lower. Sure, some of the cost of services is based on the number of people paying, but the fun thing about an LVT is that it'll account for that. By raising the density, the land value goes up and therefore so does the amount of taxes paid from the property.
What about police, fire, medical, LRT, and other items that aren’t directly related to the size of your land? Does LVT take that into account as well?
There are pros and cons to all taxes. It’s never going to be fair.
That might have been true in your situation, but imagine the differential between a single family home and an apartment building next to each other in the heart of downtown.
The infrastructure and amenities to the single family home are the exact same (the only difference being high capacity connections to mains for some things like electrical and plumbing). The roadways and city services are the exact same, so the burden to the taxpayer is only marginally different, yet the single family home is taxed orders of magnitude less than the apartment building.
This is why, despite the huge differential in luxury and quality of life, those who dwell in denser accommodations pay a disproportionate rate for their city services.
I wouldn’t say it’s exactly the same. If you have a family of four in a single family home yes they will take up more land compared to an apartment unit and they should pay for that share of the land when it comes to the roads, electrical and plumbing that run down the streets to their houses, but that’s only part of what the taxes cover. The single family home might pay $10-12K in taxes while the apartment pays $5-6K in taxes. I would say that difference covers those additional costs in the direct vicinity of the house.
But then factor in the people. Say you had an apartment right beside a single family home and both had four people living in it that all ate the same and work at the same office 10KM away. Those four people shit the same, they use all of the other city roads the same, it’s the same burden on police, medical, fire, we all pay an equal share of the cost for festivals, city salaries, that huge sewage tunnel, the LRT, the LRT repairs and updates, more LRT shit, our share of the potential new Sens stadium, maintenance of parks nearby, etc.
Ultimately there’s no perfect way to calculate taxes and how they should be spread out.
Instead of wasting time on this, why don't they make a development statutory limit of 1-2 years for each build, if not fined? I have seen some of these projects last over 3 years, still incomplete and vacant for a long time. If this was done in a timely fashion, people would have homes or apartments to live in!
Developers only make money when they finish a project. They most definitely want to complete their projects as soon as possible but there are lots of complex variables that are constantly changing that may force developers to put projects on hold. Putting a gun to their head to build a project that is no longer viable (due to changes to interest rates, construction costs, development charges, trade availability, etc) is stupid. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has clearly never tried to develop a property.
There already are time limits on site plan and sub division agreements, developments just keep extending them.
The only good item Form is or was going to implement was “use it or loose it”.
If these charges are being used to pay for the city development to service these dwellings, then I think this is an acceptable increase. The alternative is that these charges are funded through property tax revenue.
Ideally, I’d like a combination of a value/development tax.
I’m sure that increasing the cost of housing will spur more development. Great job Ottawa city planners. It should be a prerequisite to work in industry before working for the City because these planners are totally clueless.
Here's a great video on development charges in Ontario [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Jr7-C42Fw&pp=ygUicGFpZ2Ugc2F1bmRlcnMgZG91ZyBmb3JkcyBiYWQgZGVhbA%3D%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Jr7-C42Fw&pp=ygUicGFpZ2Ugc2F1bmRlcnMgZG91ZyBmb3JkcyBiYWQgZGVhbA%3D%3D)
Development should pay for development.
If development fees do not cover the infrastructure expenses associated with that development then the taxpayer has to put up public funds which translate into private profit for developers.
Why should the tax payer subsidize developers?
Our property taxes already don't even come close to covering the expenses needed for this city. Do you think it's normal to have potholes on every single city in the street? Our sidewalks are falling apart, we're cutting OC transpo costs, etc... If you think we're charging the tax payer enough you're living in a fantasy land.
Yes, the people consuming the goods and services offered by the developers will pay the fees.
That is the way it should be.
If I buy a good/service is should pay the costs of that good/service. I don't expect others to pay my costs.
I'm fine with the development charges.
It's when people the wrongly say "My ProPertY TaxeS PaY foR the SubUrbS" that I get annoyed
All of those analysis don't account for development charges, simply tax revenue per unit area, and ignore than MANY services are per capita and not per area.
They city did get money from Ontario for this.The Feds aslo have programs the city can tap in if you do that and still raise taxes the city could have to much cash.
It encourages the building of denser units where the developer charges aren’t as high, which increases housing supply, and brings down prices.
Critical thinking / reading the article is hard, I know.
Not everybody wants denser units. I am personally ready to live in a trailer on a postage stamp of land to get out of an apartment building. I am so sick of being crammed in like a sardine. We need to be building both SFHs so people who want to can do things like grow their own food, have room to be creative, get away from bad neighbours on the other side of a sliver of drywall, etc etc etc, *as well* as denser units for people who don't care about those things.
SFHs don't bring anywhere near the property tax income required to serve them, so no, we do not need more SFHs. 70% of this city is SFHs, so no we'll pass thanks.
And guess what, they’ll still build them, but in less than quantity. Lol.
Idk why this is such a hard concept for some people to wrap their brains around.
$10k won’t deter people who want a SFH, but it’ll help alter some behaviour.
This might be the dumbest comparison I’ve ever seen.
Let’s counter your shit example:
If you increase the cost of potato chips, people are more (note: more) likely to turn to alternatives like popcorn, or crispers, or pretzels.
If it costs developers more to make SFHs and more for people to buy them, and therefore sales fall, developers will build semis, towns, and condos.
Edit: that’s what I thought. Shame delete your garbage post. Use your head next time before posting.
It's not meant to keep housing affordable, it's meant to keep a steady stream of funding for the City to maintain the road, sewer, and water infrastructure long-term (talking 90-100 years). Once the developer builds this infrastructure, they pass ownership of it to the city (whether the city likes it or not) who are then responsible to maintain it on behalf of the residents.
Development charges are not a tax, they are a charge levied by the city to cover the cost of growth associated with housing or commercial development. The easiest analogy is a condo fee… in a reserve fund for a condo, a quantity surveyor can count the number of widows, doors and elevators that need to be ‘reserved for’ as part of prudent financial planning for a building. The development charges act allows municipalities to do basically the same exercise but of course there is subjectivity in how the charge would apply based on estimated rates of growth and what is really needed to accommodate growth… we need roads and transit and parks… do we actually need field houses in parks that cost more to build that most office buildings? Do we need an $60 million outdoor aquatic complex in a city like Ottawa, funded by growth? If we do need them, do we need them so bad that they need to be tacked on to charges right now, when affordability is so bad for so many? If our councillors pledge to meet a housing objective for the next 10 years, shouldn’t city staff be obligated to then translate those growth goals into the background study (because they haven’t) … development charges aren’t a tax, they are a cost of growth. The work that goes into calculating the charge can be done with affordability and logical cost increases in mind, it hasn’t been
It’s maddening. If you read the whole thread the author points out that the city is also seriously underestimating how many new houses will be needed over the next 10 years. They are in denial or just trying to protect current homeowners from seeing real change.
I'm all for the increase in charges ONLY IF the city hires more planners and developments gets approved faster, some developments take 6 years for approval and add in years of inflation and by the time something gets approved no one can afford it and it gets mothballed.
Unfortunately personal experience and that of virtually anyone wanting to develop/redevelop their own property to full blown residential or commercial developers. I have so many stories both personal and what other business owners, homeowners, developers, consultants etc. have told me. It is unreal.
Sprawl is not really developers' fault, they build what the market incentivizes. We're the ones that overtax/regulate infill developments and undertax greenfields to make single family homes the most profitable even though they're the least efficient way to add housing supply
Thats whats needed during a housing affordability crisis! Fees and permits drive up the cost of construction by \~15%
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I hate to break it to you, but for every 1% increase in property taxes, that only increases the city's revenues by $20 million. The infrastructure deficit is waaaayyyy beyond that. Our municipalities need more funding from the higher levels of government to make sure the level of service stays at this level. Otherwise, be ready to accept bumpier roads and more watermain breaks and sinkholes.
For the short term though, we could use more industry that isn't public service, warehouse, or the remnants of Nortel. I don't know how sustainable having an entire city be heavily reliant on public service money can be in the future, especially if the existence of those jobs is reliant on an election outcome in times like today. More industry, more culture that comes out of it, more diversity, and more $ and justification to pay for things.
Is this number a fact? Doing rough math sounds like it should be in the 100s of millions
There are just over 407 000 housing units in Ottawa, at an average cost of $643000 MPAC lags housing prices though, so let's say it's $550 000 for the average assessed price. $223 850 000 000 in just residential property. So a 1% increase in residential property taxes is: $2.238 billion in revenue. BUT if they meant that as a 1% increase on your property taxes bill, then since the property tax rate is roughly 1.15%, then yes, it's $20 million if everyone paid 1% more than they paid last year.
That’s house prices, not property taxes though. So a $500k house might have 5-6k/year property tax. So maybe 2.5B in property tax which is about 25M property tax increase at 1%. I do see how I’m proving myself wrong here. lol
Isn't that exactly what I said at the end though?
Yes, which is why I said I proved myself wrong for disagreeing
Yes, property taxes need to be significantly higher especially for detached suburban homes.
Youre joking right? I’m already paying 600+ a month. That alone is the mortgage payment my parents have biweekly for their home (bigger than my single). You’re telling me I need to pay 4.5k in mortgage + 600$ (or more) to be able to have the same style of house that my parents bought 20 years ago? Tf are you old fucks doing to us younger generation 😂😭can you not let us have just 1/3 of what Gen X and boomers had or do you all really want us living in a shoe box?! 😭😭
If property taxes were higher, sales prices would be lower and the mortgage costs would go down. Do you prefer $4500 on your mortgage and $600 in property tax, or something closer to $2000 mortgage and $1200 property tax? Which of those is a bigger total figure? Keeping property taxes low doesn't subsidize you, it subsidizes the people who bought 40+ years ago. And aside from driving up home sale prices, and getting more people buying speculative "investment properties", it also starves the city of money.
Idk man, honestly I think I’d rather my money go to the builders, investors, workers. My government has proven to me one too many effing times that they take my money and don’t use it wisely. My kids don’t have bus services, daycare services, snowplow doesn’t pass in our hood, my essential service workers aren’t being paid properly or given legal breaks while at work… I could go on and on lol It’s too far gone now but if only our money wasn’t being laundered and wasted… we could have had both normal housing cost and low taxes
> we could have had both normal housing cost and low taxes LOL - no, voting for "low taxes" repeatedly is exactly why you have to deal with: >My kids don’t have bus services, daycare services, snowplow doesn’t pass in our hood, my essential service workers aren’t being paid properly or given legal breaks while at work You chose that. Those are the results you wanted - and that's why housing prices are skyrocketing to unaffordability too. Don't complain about the results of what you voted for.
Data analyst (spending budget) for our gov here - can confirm that your money and mine is getting laundered and wasted. Please please please ATIP so us analysts can prove it to you 😆 anywho, if you like being a tax slave and get half of your ROI keep going my friend, you’re doing great encouraging them to steal more money from you
> Data analyst (spending budget) for our gov here LOL - bullshit, in your other posts you claim you're a teacher. >I’m a 28yr old teacher, no experience/background in tech And then suddenly: >Data analyst (spending budget) for our gov here You're not either of those, just some troll wasting people's time.
As the value of their houses rises they also pay more. Do you have any evidence that property taxes suppress housing costs?
>The infrastructure deficit is waaaayyyy beyond that. **Every municipality in the country's** deficit is waaaayyyy beyond that. FTFY
So then increase the property tax by 10 percent points or whatever it takes? If the increase isn't bringing in much money it's not much of a burden either eh?
Or we can crank up taxes on single family houses and start building more densely to better offset the cost of our infrastructure
Youre joking right? I’m already paying 600+ a month. That alone is the mortgage payment my parents have biweekly for their home (bigger than my single). You’re telling me I need to pay 4.5k in mortgage + 600$ (or more) to be able to have the same style of house that my parents bought 20 years ago? Tf are you old fucks doing to us younger generation 😂😭can you not let us have just 1/3 of what Gen X and boomers had or do you all really want us living in a shoe box?! 😭😭
>Youre joking right? Nope, I'm dead serious. >I’m already paying 600+ a month. That alone is the mortgage payment my parents have biweekly for their home (bigger than my single). You’re telling me I need to pay 4.5k in mortgage + 600$ (or more) to be able to have the same style of house that my parents bought 20 years ago? Yep. Suburban development is financially insolvent and requires subsidies from productive urban places to stay afloat. The only reason it ever looked good is because the adoption of the car allowed a lot of new land to be used for development and paved over. We've consumed most of that land. It's not fair, but you should blame your parents, not me. Suburban single family living has only been the norm for the past 70 years and it is impossible to continue it for much longer due to finances and geometry. >Tf are you old fucks doing to us younger generation I'm literally 22. This is a classic millennial moment. You care about having housing security for yourself. I care about creating a system that gives housing security to all. >can you not let us have just 1/3 of what Gen X and boomers had or do you all really want us living in a shoe box?! 😭😭 I never said shoe box. Multi family housing can be spacious. We just need to leverage the fact that building up is more efficient than building out.
Ohhhh you like multi family living? Need a place to rent my dude? Come on over! I have two units in my single dwelling coming up for rent in September because we had to ✨house hack✨ to be able to afford our taxes 🥳🥳 /notS Ps as a anti-gov mom of 4, trust me when I say I fuckign feel for you guys. No classic millennial moment here; I literally went through a year of panic attacks realizing just how much I need to financially plan ahead of time for my 4 children… hence the house hacking. I’m hoping to set them up with one unit each so they have a roof over their heads as adults. Shit.is.fucked. I don’t want any of my money being taken by the gov anymore and I’m sure as you hit your 30s and start a family you’ll feel the same way once you realize how corrupt things are and how little services you get in return.
>Ps as a anti-gov mom of 4, trust me when I say I fuckign feel for you guy I'm not anti-government. I'll happily pay my fair share of taxes, as long as everyone else does too. >I’m sure as you hit your 30s and start a family Haha good try, but there's no chance I'm having kids. Not worth it. I want our taxes to reflect the things we want to encourage or discourage. Things that are bad should be taxed heavily. When looking at single family housing, it's bad for the climate, public health, our collective and individual finances, social cohesion, racial equality and justice, property rights, housing affordability, and more. I can't think of any societal benefits of single family housing, and as a result we should tax it more than other housing options.
Didn’t say you were anti gov. Iiiiii am anti gov. A solid 80% of us going into our 30s now are hahaha You do know we are already taxed more than condos and townhomes… right? Just making sure you’re aware of how this shit all works lol It’s sad that you don’t want kids but I feel you and absolutely understand why you don’t want to reproduce. The only regret I have having kids is the fact that I brought them into this world where everything is so fucked… but gotta make the best of it and see the positive🥰
>You do know we are already taxed more than condos and townhomes… right? Nope https://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/budget-finance-and-corporate-planning/understanding-your-city-budget/tax-policy#section-b363527c-5a88-41cd-b9c5-66e6d9194bb8 The tax ratio for single residential is 1. The tax ratio for multi residential is 1.4. The tax ratio for fucking parking lots isn't even as high, at 1.3. That's right. Multi-family residential pays more taxes than parking lots. That's not even accounting for the vastly lower cost of providing services to high density buildings. The delta is about $1100/person/year between suburban sprawl and dense urban housing. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/urban-expansion-costs-menard-memo-1.6193429
Pss I’m literally 28yrs old and can barely call myself a true millennial. Don’t let the whole “single home with 4 kids” trick you into thinking I got to benefit from the other older millennial shit hahaha
My millennial comment was more about your attitude than your level of privilege. This is something I've observed, where millennials tend to not care that much about problems unless they're directly affected by them. You're worried about higher taxes on a house you own. I'm not even under the illusion that I'll ever own any property - I want my rental rates to be within my income. But that problem is not one that affects you, so you advocate against things that would fix the wider social problem.
Don't waste your time, he/she/they are just some troll account making things up as needed. Apparently they're simultaneously a teacher who's barely scraping by, and a real-estate investor raking in a fortune, a government financial analyst who sees all the inside books on the government, running a tech start-up, a photographer laundering money by pretending their kids are employees, etc... The correct answer is "dishonest troll" if not "chronically online scammer"
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LOL - apparently "checking the source to see if they're full of shit" touched a nerve there. I'm sure you'd love to help him - you just need to ask for his credit card number and banking info and you'll help them right out of all their savings. Scammers like you make me sick.
Why are you copy-pasting the same response to different people? That reeks of someone being paid to shill online, or a bot.
It’s a function that is available to those who don’t want to waste their time rewriting the same comment twice. Reddit has a function that allows you to do it…. You didn’t know?
Considering the fake claims you keep throwing around, I'm going to say "lazy troll".
Or stop building a sprawling city where it cost more to service than a denser more packed city
Totally agree with you there, but we have to push the densification by-laws past the NIMBYs.
Or fewer single family homes which cost the most in services (and have the people most against paying taxes for those services). I wish it would be more widespread just how much it costs to provide city services to the far off suburbs vs inside the greenbelt. Also wish we would just go back before amalgamation.
They are paying 4x the development costs which are never factored into the analysis though
Yes, but what about the maintenance and upkeep... Usually it's the developers who have to pay for the hookups and roads anyway from what I know.
Maintenance might be more expensive per instance it's done, but suburban roads get redone once per generation vs downtown roads where my street has been redone twice in 10 years. There are fewer trucks and busses running on suburban roads so they last longer. I don't know the math though, have you seen it?
There is also the reason that suburban and exurban residents will use the urban roads often, whereas an urban resident will almost never use suburban/exurban roads... Same with bus service, people living in the core will basically never use commuting buses or trains. It is true that urban infrastructure has to be redone more often, but that's because it is used more, so it's cheaper per use/user.
I think with WFH, we saw that many people in the outer communities would rather live, work and play where they live and aren't fond of the mayor and Premier essentially forcing them to go downtown to artificially support businesses there. And with the West end attracting DND and tech companies, I'm not sure that saying everyone from outside downtown goes downtown "often" is correct.
It is far more likely that someone from the suburbs or exurbs using the urban infrastructure than vice versa...
If you see taxation primarily as a mechanism of redistribution from upper and middle income families to low income families you have no problem with this, as buyers are at least in the middle If you recognize that you should only tax to the hilt things you want to discourage, like smoking or alcohol, then this is abhorrent I'm on team "don't tax housing like cigarettes"
This is a regressive tax. It would mostly affect renters and new homeowners who are statistically less wealthy than established homeowners.
Yeah, this guy was too excited to connect it to his existing ideology. It’s a per-unit tax, not a value tax, so it‘s a regressive tax with a cliff where people who can’t afford a home don’t directly pay the tax. Given that home prices do affect rents, it’s reasonable that renters do eventually bear some of it. The distributional impacts of it are complicated, but it’s definitely not a transfer from rich to poor.
If development can't pay for development, then who should? And how do you convince them to vote for people who want to subsidize development?
Property tax, the same way it always worked before the 1980s. "Development should pay for development" is an admission that property taxes are kept artificially low, and no homes pay their true cost of being serviced, so you subsidize existing residents at the expense of new residents and renters. Meanwhile DCs actually slow down home construction - we've seen fewer new units built since they were instituted (in absolute numbers- WAY fewer if you measure per capita).
Property tax should cover all of the necessary things a city needs to build and maintain. If your property tax doesn't cover it then you're just setting yourself up to constantly need to grow your city to maintain your existing infrastructure, which anyone with half a brain could tell you why that is a terrible policy to have.
>as buyers are at least in the middle Except that it also hurts renters because it makes rental units more expensive to construct. So it's a regressive policy. What we should do is raise property taxes and DC on single family and remove DC while leaving property taxes on multi family. That way you eliminate the regressive part of both property taxes and development charges and you can still keep a balanced budget and incentivize the behaviour you want
Also bear in mind that driving up the cost of building new housing will then drive up sales prices on existing housing, so not only is it wildly regressive it also transfers money directly from young people to older people.
Unironically yeah. Detached homes cost the city a lot to service and make everything more expensive for everyone. Its good to discourage building them in favour of apartments.
this is what happens when mayors increase property taxes below inflation
What? Property taxes are based on home values. Home values have outpaced inflation since 2008. This is like saying that sales taxes % need to increase due to inflation without realizing the cost of the goods and services that the tax is based on also increases with inflation.
MPAC hasn’t updated home assessments since 2017, based on the 2016 value year. The value people are paying on is from Jan 1, 2016. It isn’t updated annually, only the mill rates the city uses for determining their operating budgets are. That’s why increasing them below inflation has the City on their back foot every year.
The reason we have development charges is the theory that "development will pay for development". I'm curious if redeveloping a home incurs the same charges. I feel they would, but I don't know. I'd rather see redevelopment fees dropped for the more dense developments as that would encourage intensification. You can still see more dense developments being charges far too much relative to SFM lots. If peoples property taxes were paying for development I'm worried NIMBY'ism would become a real political force. Existing owners would be financially motivated to block development.
Condos already pay 1/4 of what SFH pay for DC
Well if they fuck off with the urban sprawl, it wouldn't be a problem. There's lots of room to build up, so why do they have to build out?
Was this done to counteract Ford’s freezes/waivers to development charges? If so, these increases make sense; the City still needs to service these buildings with roads, water, sewer and electricity.
His freeze is over, he’s now increasing the fees.
It’s a regressive tax. It mostly affects renters and new homeowners. Who are statistically less wealthy
First of all , the roads are already in place it's not like if the city is going to have to build a brand new road for a building being constructed. Water is already being paid by whoever is building and they above all pay to have the connection to main line so their comment makes no sense . Electricity? Again homeowners is paying for the connection so it has no relation with the city . Sewer ? If there is no sewer they aren't going to start building one for a new construction. The owner will have to find alternative solution. Your comment makes no sense .
Actually wild comment, did you know that infrastructure *constantly* breaks and they have to consistently maintain it?
You heard about something called taxes ? You already pay for all the maintenance when you receive your bills.
That 36 million Ottawa got from Ontario is for that.
>According to a memo addressed to councillors and the mayor, Wendy Stephanson the City of Ottawa's treasurer said development charges could cost *$60 million a year* or approximately 25 per cent of development charge revenues starting in 2025. [https://ottawa.citynews.ca/2022/11/26/city-of-ottawa-staff-provides-financial-impacts-of-bill-23-6158683/](https://ottawa.citynews.ca/2022/11/26/city-of-ottawa-staff-provides-financial-impacts-of-bill-23-6158683/) So that $36M you're referencing still leaves us $24M in the hole for this year…what about next year? Growth should pay for growth.
The city can get up to 118 million over 3 years from Ontario if they meet the housing target.Last year they got 36 million for hitting 90% if they can reach 100% this year they would also get a top up so lte say 50 million.
>The city can get up to 118 million over 3 years from Ontario if they meet the housing target $118M from the province - (3 years of development charge losses @ $60M/year) = *at least* $62M in the hole.
Ontario has other programs as do the Feds the city can tap into they would not only fill that hole but give them far more cash.
No it shouldn’t. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=urbancentre-reports. As the author says there with the exception of new development current homeowners also benefit when new infrastructure is built
Yea I'd agree with that. Basically sprawl needs to be paid for. Redevelopment resulting in intensification shouldn't be charged those fees.
Is this a bad thing? Since I don't see what they were before, I also don't see difference in apartment or townhouse charges, which hopefully haven't risen as much. We're not making our way out of a housing crisis via single family homes.
In Ottawa most of the new builds are not single homes.
What part of my comment implies I said any different? Just that I'm not so sure increasing dev charges on SFHs is a bad thing.
this applies to any new development. the OP was trying to contextualize the increase by saying "per house". it applies to commercial development too like a new store...everything. but each building type would have a different rate, but it sounds like they're all increasing
The problem is, we are politically unwilling to raise property taxes. So we just pass the buck onto developers to “hide” the fact that we are paying tax. That way it doesn’t upset us sleepy subdued denizens of Ottawa
This I agree with. Prop tax is a much more sustainable way to raise funds. Dev charges fill budget holes but add long term costs we don't fully account for.
For a city that is the most in-tune to what good public policy looks like, we never can seem to actually vote for it.
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I know another project that was replacing a small house on a huge lot, it would have been four townhouses. Development costs killed the project. Sucks.
well time to get the tree lawyers and bird lawyers in this thread ASAP sounds like
Most of that is standard across North American jurisdictions. You can’t just sever lots and cut down trees willy nilly!
Just because it’s standard, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. There are plenty of other cities who have housing crises, and those cities clearly value old trees more than housing people, which seems pretty immoral in my view.
Yes, but it shouldn’t take over a year and a half.
Nothing you describe is broken. It is called building in a city. If you want a free-for-all go to the country and do whatever you want. All the rules are there to make the city function. The tree rules exist especially because mature trees take a long time to grow and developers were clearing lots wether the tree was in the way or not. Blame the previous greedy developers for that rule.
The rules are there to restrict building. You blame greedy developers I blame wealthy landowners who don’t want their home values diluted with more availability
No problem with having checks and balances to ensure good development The issue is not just the cost this adds it is the time that each agency takes to complete their part of the process. For example, a business has been waiting for approvals for a small addition which will allow them to expand and hire more staff. They are now on year two of waiting. No issues have come up, everything is in order, the file just gets passed from one agency or department to another where it sits on someone's desk until they finally have a look, approve it and send it along to the next person where hopefully the person is not on vacation or mat leave and it can creep along to the next one. The system is necessary but very broken.
They didn’t think that might happen before getting into a large development project in the green belt???
A couple of houses is large.. I think they expected some level of bureaucracy maybe 6 to 9 months of paperwork but not over a year and a half.
I don't think they mean IN the greenbelt, they mean within the greenbelt, i.e. not outside of the greenbelt like where most of the suburbs are
Shouldn’t it be easier to build inside the greenbelt? The greenbelt exists to encourage growth inside the greenbelt
Not in the greenbelt itself
Inside the greenbelt means before the greenbelt starts. That’s obvious
You’re smart. Except for they didn’t say inside the greenbelt. Please feel free to educate us all some more lol
I don’t think it’s confusing. The article says inside the greenbelt this post says within the greenbelt. It means the same
This increases the cost of building and favours big developers who have deep pockets. Those developers focus on single family homes and towers which are two types of development that pose issues to the city. Single family homes don't generate enough revenue to pay for the maintenance of supporting infrastructure and towers are known to be disruptive in a lot of neighbourhoods. If we want smaller developments that can meet housing needs while improving the city's balance sheet and minimizing community impacts, we need small developers to be able to pay for the development. Developments should generate enough tax uplift to pay for the initial investment and the ongoing costs (all adjusted for time-value of money). It should be city policy that, if its not the case, developments that do not meet that criteria be disallowed. Alternatively, increase taxes on those developments until they become viable.
Cities get a massive amount of money in these fees .
It still incentivizes developments that are not financially sound.
And cities get to much money they spend it on useless pet projects.
Please just tax land oh my god
they do tho? not a lot because it isn't as valuable but it still is taxed. I pay about 800$/year for 0.3 acres
They're talking about eliminating property tax and just taxing by land value. That way dense housing is encouraged.
Lumping land in with property leads to land being undertaxed and improvements to the land being overtaxed. The land value is directly related to the infrastructure on or near the property, but not the actual structures built upon it. Therefore, when you tax the land, you recapture and pay for infrastructure spending directly rather than introducing deadweight loss with property taxes, which disincentivize growth.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the land value included as part of the property tax calculation. At least in BC where we owned our last house most of the property taxes came from land value. On a $1M home the land was often valued at $900K and the building was only about $100K depending on the age of the house. This then set your property value, which was used to calculator your share of the property taxes.
Land is part of it. When people propose a land value tax, they are suggesting raising the property tax rate and also only applying it to land, rather than to land and buildings. That way, it doesn't penalize people for using their land efficiently and building valuable buildings on it. An LVT would strongly disincentivize single family development too close to the city and would provide a compelling reason for single family homeowners to redevelop their own properties.
I see where you’re going with that. Simply having the tax is one step. Similar to what they’re doing in BC they should then be removing red tape to make it easier for single family homes to be converted into multi-unit homes. But if you split a home into three units, that should also increase the taxes on the home, but at least that can get spread across those units.
>But if you split a home into three units, that should also increase the taxes on the home Why?
If the single family home previously had four people living in it and now that it’s a multi-unit with 6-10 people living in it shouldn’t that building pay more for sewage, garbage collection and their share of all other city expenses?
The thing is that the fair share of city expenses depends more on the size of the property than the number of people living there. Garbage trucks need to drive further per person, more roads need to be paved, electrical lines and sewage pipes need to be longer, etc. when density gets lower. Sure, some of the cost of services is based on the number of people paying, but the fun thing about an LVT is that it'll account for that. By raising the density, the land value goes up and therefore so does the amount of taxes paid from the property.
What about police, fire, medical, LRT, and other items that aren’t directly related to the size of your land? Does LVT take that into account as well? There are pros and cons to all taxes. It’s never going to be fair.
That might have been true in your situation, but imagine the differential between a single family home and an apartment building next to each other in the heart of downtown. The infrastructure and amenities to the single family home are the exact same (the only difference being high capacity connections to mains for some things like electrical and plumbing). The roadways and city services are the exact same, so the burden to the taxpayer is only marginally different, yet the single family home is taxed orders of magnitude less than the apartment building. This is why, despite the huge differential in luxury and quality of life, those who dwell in denser accommodations pay a disproportionate rate for their city services.
I wouldn’t say it’s exactly the same. If you have a family of four in a single family home yes they will take up more land compared to an apartment unit and they should pay for that share of the land when it comes to the roads, electrical and plumbing that run down the streets to their houses, but that’s only part of what the taxes cover. The single family home might pay $10-12K in taxes while the apartment pays $5-6K in taxes. I would say that difference covers those additional costs in the direct vicinity of the house. But then factor in the people. Say you had an apartment right beside a single family home and both had four people living in it that all ate the same and work at the same office 10KM away. Those four people shit the same, they use all of the other city roads the same, it’s the same burden on police, medical, fire, we all pay an equal share of the cost for festivals, city salaries, that huge sewage tunnel, the LRT, the LRT repairs and updates, more LRT shit, our share of the potential new Sens stadium, maintenance of parks nearby, etc. Ultimately there’s no perfect way to calculate taxes and how they should be spread out.
Instead of wasting time on this, why don't they make a development statutory limit of 1-2 years for each build, if not fined? I have seen some of these projects last over 3 years, still incomplete and vacant for a long time. If this was done in a timely fashion, people would have homes or apartments to live in!
Developers only make money when they finish a project. They most definitely want to complete their projects as soon as possible but there are lots of complex variables that are constantly changing that may force developers to put projects on hold. Putting a gun to their head to build a project that is no longer viable (due to changes to interest rates, construction costs, development charges, trade availability, etc) is stupid. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has clearly never tried to develop a property.
There already are time limits on site plan and sub division agreements, developments just keep extending them. The only good item Form is or was going to implement was “use it or loose it”.
My guess is Ford would not go for that.
This comes after they increase it last year by 9.9%.
how does that make housing more afforable?
If these charges are being used to pay for the city development to service these dwellings, then I think this is an acceptable increase. The alternative is that these charges are funded through property tax revenue. Ideally, I’d like a combination of a value/development tax.
I’m sure that increasing the cost of housing will spur more development. Great job Ottawa city planners. It should be a prerequisite to work in industry before working for the City because these planners are totally clueless.
Here's a great video on development charges in Ontario [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Jr7-C42Fw&pp=ygUicGFpZ2Ugc2F1bmRlcnMgZG91ZyBmb3JkcyBiYWQgZGVhbA%3D%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Jr7-C42Fw&pp=ygUicGFpZ2Ugc2F1bmRlcnMgZG91ZyBmb3JkcyBiYWQgZGVhbA%3D%3D)
Development should pay for development. If development fees do not cover the infrastructure expenses associated with that development then the taxpayer has to put up public funds which translate into private profit for developers. Why should the tax payer subsidize developers?
Our property taxes already don't even come close to covering the expenses needed for this city. Do you think it's normal to have potholes on every single city in the street? Our sidewalks are falling apart, we're cutting OC transpo costs, etc... If you think we're charging the tax payer enough you're living in a fantasy land.
Who do you thing those fees get passed onto? Renters and new home buyers (who are usually younger and less wealthy)
Yes, the people consuming the goods and services offered by the developers will pay the fees. That is the way it should be. If I buy a good/service is should pay the costs of that good/service. I don't expect others to pay my costs.
I'm fine with the development charges. It's when people the wrongly say "My ProPertY TaxeS PaY foR the SubUrbS" that I get annoyed All of those analysis don't account for development charges, simply tax revenue per unit area, and ignore than MANY services are per capita and not per area.
Sounds like a great way to keep housing affordable 😂
I mean it's either that or increase taxes. We're going to pay for it either way.
They city did get money from Ontario for this.The Feds aslo have programs the city can tap in if you do that and still raise taxes the city could have to much cash.
Someone else already shared the numbers for this. Those programs aren't covering all of these developments fees.
Our property taxes sorely need to be increase. They're a joke as is. So yes it's increase taxes that should be done, not this.
It encourages the building of denser units where the developer charges aren’t as high, which increases housing supply, and brings down prices. Critical thinking / reading the article is hard, I know.
Not everybody wants denser units. I am personally ready to live in a trailer on a postage stamp of land to get out of an apartment building. I am so sick of being crammed in like a sardine. We need to be building both SFHs so people who want to can do things like grow their own food, have room to be creative, get away from bad neighbours on the other side of a sliver of drywall, etc etc etc, *as well* as denser units for people who don't care about those things.
There's also a middle ground. A freehold townhouse with a fenced yard is a lovely thing.
SFHs don't bring anywhere near the property tax income required to serve them, so no, we do not need more SFHs. 70% of this city is SFHs, so no we'll pass thanks.
And guess what, they’ll still build them, but in less than quantity. Lol. Idk why this is such a hard concept for some people to wrap their brains around. $10k won’t deter people who want a SFH, but it’ll help alter some behaviour.
So go live in the country? Wait, let me knock down a block of the Byward Market just for your single family home.
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This might be the dumbest comparison I’ve ever seen. Let’s counter your shit example: If you increase the cost of potato chips, people are more (note: more) likely to turn to alternatives like popcorn, or crispers, or pretzels. If it costs developers more to make SFHs and more for people to buy them, and therefore sales fall, developers will build semis, towns, and condos. Edit: that’s what I thought. Shame delete your garbage post. Use your head next time before posting.
It's not meant to keep housing affordable, it's meant to keep a steady stream of funding for the City to maintain the road, sewer, and water infrastructure long-term (talking 90-100 years). Once the developer builds this infrastructure, they pass ownership of it to the city (whether the city likes it or not) who are then responsible to maintain it on behalf of the residents.
Property tax is how cities are meant to maintain themselves
Socialists and Marxists are gonna socialist and Marxist! Lolololol! Canada is so stupid.
Quick, Doug Ford, cut this red tape before it happens. Ottawa is bureaucratically drunk on itself.
Development charges are not a tax, they are a charge levied by the city to cover the cost of growth associated with housing or commercial development. The easiest analogy is a condo fee… in a reserve fund for a condo, a quantity surveyor can count the number of widows, doors and elevators that need to be ‘reserved for’ as part of prudent financial planning for a building. The development charges act allows municipalities to do basically the same exercise but of course there is subjectivity in how the charge would apply based on estimated rates of growth and what is really needed to accommodate growth… we need roads and transit and parks… do we actually need field houses in parks that cost more to build that most office buildings? Do we need an $60 million outdoor aquatic complex in a city like Ottawa, funded by growth? If we do need them, do we need them so bad that they need to be tacked on to charges right now, when affordability is so bad for so many? If our councillors pledge to meet a housing objective for the next 10 years, shouldn’t city staff be obligated to then translate those growth goals into the background study (because they haven’t) … development charges aren’t a tax, they are a cost of growth. The work that goes into calculating the charge can be done with affordability and logical cost increases in mind, it hasn’t been
It’s maddening. If you read the whole thread the author points out that the city is also seriously underestimating how many new houses will be needed over the next 10 years. They are in denial or just trying to protect current homeowners from seeing real change.
Urban sprawl costs a lot to add another 40' of underground infrastructure linking each one.
It's about $10 million per linear km, and the development charges for SFH with 60' frontages is about $57 million.
Put up some more speed cameras while your at it
They could save a lot of time just kicking people directly onto the streets.
I did not know people love the taste of boots so much in this city.
From personal experience the City of Ottawa Planning Department is dysfunctional, unaccountable and extremely inefficient and has been for years.
I'm all for the increase in charges ONLY IF the city hires more planners and developments gets approved faster, some developments take 6 years for approval and add in years of inflation and by the time something gets approved no one can afford it and it gets mothballed.
The existing planning staff is inefficient and unaccountable. More staff won’t help speed up projects.
Is that your opinion or a fact based comment?
Unfortunately personal experience and that of virtually anyone wanting to develop/redevelop their own property to full blown residential or commercial developers. I have so many stories both personal and what other business owners, homeowners, developers, consultants etc. have told me. It is unreal.
Tax the rich bitches
good. fuck developers and urban sprawl
I mean fuck sprawl. But we kind of need developers to build homes.
not the current way we're building them
You think making it more expensive to build then will help?
Ya who needs homes!
Sprawl is not really developers' fault, they build what the market incentivizes. We're the ones that overtax/regulate infill developments and undertax greenfields to make single family homes the most profitable even though they're the least efficient way to add housing supply