University Innovation Quarter | ?m | ?s | University of Calgary Properties Group

darwink said:
This is 100% not the case. Only extra cost. Unless city council raises taxes, tax revenue is flat. Our tax system is revenue neutral market assessment. It means year over year a revenue requirement (tax revenue) is set then the property assessment is set, and the two are used to set the rate.

If council doesn’t change the revenue requirement and there is growth that means all other things being equal the rate drops.

Our system was designed my conservatives to ensure every bit of extra revenue is a tax increase, not automatic.
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That is the general gist of how the city’s taxes work, but it’s not that simple. New properties are new revenue sources and new costs centres. In theory if the new properties add more revenue than cost, it help lowers the overall tax requirement and if new costs are more than the new revenues it increases to the overall tax requirement. That part is simple enough, but the city can decide what the tax requirement will be. It’s not automatic that the city will lower taxes if 2000 new properties are added.

If these new apartments contribute more revenue than costs, the city can use that extra revenue gain to increase the tax requirement without having to increase taxes. Because nobody’s taxes go up, but there is more money being raised through taxes it could be seen as increasing revenue. I think this is what Havanero is getting at.

Rather than describing the new apartments as adding revenue, I would describe them as adding revenue sources. Depending on how the city does its budget they could be considered as adding revenue.
 
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Surrealplaces said:
I tried looking up the costs of above ground parkades, but the costs are all over the map. If the city could build a small one for ~20-30 million I could see it making sense to develop the rest. For the record, I'd be okay, with no parking lot, and developing all of it, but throwing in a parkade might make it more palatable to the public.

This isn't 100% accurate, but it give a general idea of the space involved. approximately 7 towers could be built, and a 4 storey parkade would still maintain roughly the same number of parking spots.

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This would work perfectly, the only thing I’d change is the parkade. I’d leave it as surface parking containing about 300 spaces and go back to charging 3 dollars. Also I’d have the parking lot on the farthest end and have the housing the closest to the station.
 
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Zoom said:
Rather than describing the new apartments as adding revenue, I would describe them as adding revenue sources. Depending on how the city does its budget they could be considered as adding revenue.
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That’s the way I would describe it as well.

I’m surprised the city hasn’t been more aggressive about developing the parking lots. They’re such a waste of important transit adjacent land.
 
Stephen Ave said:
This would work perfectly, the only thing I’d change is the parkade. I’d leave it as surface parking containing about 300 spaces and go back to charging 3 dollars. Also I’d have the parking lot on the farthest end and have the housing the closest to the station.
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I’d be happy with that.
 
Stephen Ave said:
This would work perfectly, the only thing I’d change is the parkade. I’d leave it as surface parking containing about 300 spaces and go back to charging 3 dollars. Also I’d have the parking lot on the farthest end and have the housing the closest to the station.
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Bingo - add the growth where it's more cost efficient, while also minimizing new costs and converting subsidized parking to self-sustaining. Adds a bit new fare recovery from higher transit usage for the 2,000+ people living in a potential new development and lower these thousands of people's transportation costs by permanently giving many thousands an option to reduce car dependence and the associated costs.
 
If the city really is serious about increasing density, controlling sprawl and leveraging transit they have to pull the plug on these parking stalls. Maybe not all of them, but at least 2/3rds, convert the remaining ones to pay parking and develop the rest. They could easily do this with all of the stations west of and including Brentwood.
 
Revamped vision. 12 residential buildings (2 x32 floors, 4x24 floors 6x 18 floors) totaling 2400 units with retail at base. Some parking was retained (95 parking spots) and the parking is set to $5.00 per day. The bus station and ingress/egress is retained.

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Habanero said:
I also agree that Darwink is correct, and do understand how the tax system works, though it can be somewhat confusing. Also my point wasn’t properly explained which adds to the confusion.

I guess my point is that the city could use the extra revenue from these new units to increase the budget (and use the increase to fund something extra that otherwise might not be funded) while at the same time keep everyone’s taxes the same. Or they could keep the budget the same but lower everyone’s taxes. Either way these new units should in theory indirectly provide extra money to someone or something.
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It is a hard topic to talk about with precision. As your second paragraph illustrates.

The second paragraph should read, if being precise:
I guess my point is that the city could raise taxes to generate additional revenue from these new units to increase the budget (and use the increase to fund something extra that otherwise might not be funded, if the units required fewer additional city services than the tax revenue they raise) while at the same time keep everyone’s tax rate what they would otherwise be if the units had not been built. Or they could keep the budget the same but lower everyone’s tax rate. Either way these new units may be a net positive should they be economical to service.

(Personal note: it is bad to think about development this way, as if we only approved developments which effectively self funded, we would rarely be approving workforce or affordable housing. It is one area where more data or projections past a certain point leads to worse decisions not better ones).
 
MichaelS said:
Building a parkade is very expensive, to the point that if TOD development is contingent on some park and ride lots being replaced by a parkade prior to development, it kills the development potential. Look no further than Anderson TOD, which has an approved plan, and even some funding approved for it, but zero action. It is because at the time of the plan approval, Council stated that they wanted to replace the lost surface park and ride stalls with a parkade. The budget for the City's real estate arm does not cover this cost, so the project sits, undeveloped.
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Yet they can spend 90 million on an underused high tech parkade downtown.

Also that plan to not lose any parking at a massive TOD is asinine. I’m glad it stalled, now with more flexibility options with work there is zero logic to have so much parking there.
 
Dārayavauš said:
Yet they can spend 90 million on an underused high tech parkade downtown.

Also that plan to not lose any parking at a massive TOD is asinine. I’m glad it stalled, now with more flexibility options with work there is zero logic to have so much parking there.
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From a reserve fund paid for by developers’ parking contributions specifically for parking downtown. I’ll forgive the city on that one.
 
Surrealplaces said:
Revamped vision. 12 residential buildings (2 x32 floors, 4x24 floors 6x 18 floors) totaling 2400 units with retail at base. Some parking was retained (95 parking spots) and the parking is set to $5.00 per day. The bus station and ingress/egress is retained.
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Even 95 spots is generous but I can live with it means the rest if the area gets developed.
 
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