Albertasaurus
Active Member
On the one hand I really like the design, but on the other hand I'm tilted at losing those great looking older buildings. We really need to find a way to protect what few heritage assets we have left.
Taxing based on property value has always bothered me. Even a hybrid of property size and value would be good. Why should someone living in a condominium in the Beltline pay more tax than someone living in a single family home on a corner lot in the burbs. I get that assessing only by land size might not work in all cases either, but at least have a hybrid, and if you had to go with only one formula, taxing by property size would generally be better than property value.Calgary should implement a land tax and decrease the property tax by an equal amount. By taxing the land value rather than the property value, we could stop providing tax incentives to lower the property value as much as possible while squating on it. It's better than a more targeted "empty lot" tax, because he can just put a parking lot sign on it, or an outhouse and call it developed. Land tax would also provide tax incentive to build denser housing/ just use land more productively in general.
In Mount Royal they do for, sure due to the high values....which I think was the intention when they went to market value. I meant more for an average neighborhood where a SFH will always end up paying less taxes than a Beltline condo on a per sq foot of land basis, and in some cases less money straight up, like in case of many SFHs in the NE. I don't think either method (market value or land square footage) is 100% fair, but maybe a mixture would work.People in neighbouhoods like Mount Royal do pay more, way more, than someone who lives in a condo in the Beltline.
I agree an empty lot doesn’t have to be taxed the same as a high-rise building that’s in use, but there could be an annual flat fee or something to help dissuade developers from leaving a parcel an empty lot for decades like Matco has done at the Westbrook station.It's not perfect. Property taxes based on property values is the fairest system.
Well that's depressingToday during demolitionView attachment 527305
Ya looks like you were there just before me. It was interesting watching it come down. The outside of the building in some places had 2-3 layers of red bricks with an additional inner core of cinder block.Golfing guy, we must have been there around the same time.
Some more violence at:
1911 Rossmore
Demolition of the 1911 Rossmore Apartments, one of the few remaining buildings of its kind in Calgary. Dec 14, '23.www.flickr.com