Albertasaurus
Active Member
But so is Ottawa based on these numbers. Incredible that considering how far fast growing communities like Kanata, Barrhaven and Orleans are from central Ottawa, the vast bulk of their construction is apartments.
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Statscan numbers
- Thread starter kora
- Start date
darwink
Senior Member
Toronto does not lack land which could be developed. Single family homes very near to areas where towers are now taller than 40 stories exist, and have very different land value.
That says to me it isn't land that had the value, it was the development equivalent of taxi medallions.
Toronto did itself no favours when it decided that to keep property taxes lower, they would fund the scarborough subway and other projects with development charges.
There are a lot of city taxes on those units that don't need to exist, including inflated land values.
The developers will unwind and slowly are. The government could accelerate the process to reach a new equilibrium by upzoning. (they are, slowly in Toronto, but not nearly as ambitiously as in Vancouver) New developers will come and build. It isn't the government's job to maintain rationing to project the developers.
Ontario by waiting to act created the conditions for much a harder fall.
darwink
Senior Member
I was recently in the BC financial reports for work, and costs per capita have grown by 5% annually while revenue is closer to 2% for the past decade. The natural gas collapse really hurt BC, as has forestry's decline. The NDP also cut taxes.
BC needs to raise taxes to return to sustainability. Or find a way to spend a lot less (very hard!!)
The debt numbers are somewhat weird due to how BC runs its budget on an accrual basis, plus much larger crown corps, and more related entities (the renewal of sewage infrastructure and things like transit garages, and power lines shows up on government books). They also only book the expense of infrastructure as the depreciation on the operating side, allowing for big debt to be accumulated, creating debt momentum -- if they stop investing in infrastructure the economy will shrink!
trtcttc
Senior Member
There definitely should be wider rezoning efforts, but the prices for developable land is already paid. Those near transit stations, amenities, and will now sit empty until the market improves.
I do find it amazing that Toronto's property taxes are based on 2016 assessments. Assessments don't increases taxes but ensure a more equitable distribution based on actual market values.
Didn't they upzone to something like 6 units? but only in specific areas. Unfortunately, older homeowners have more voting power than younger condo dwellers and they have the same suburban councillor dynamics as Calgary. Although Calgary's mentality generally is more risk-taking, there's no way R-CG would've happened in Toronto/Vancouver when their housing prices were where we are.
trtcttc
Senior Member
It's also not getting any better. Being such a nice place to retire means lots of retiree with lots of wealth, low incomes, and high public services usage. The ~5% more of BC's population that are seniors compared to AB is about 265k people, that's like Red Deer + Lethbridge + Airdrie of purely seniors. They'll need to find a way to tax wealth better (increased property taxes, etc.) to help fund some of these services.
BC
AB
darwink
Senior Member
Oh well. The taxi medallions were also already paid. The world moves on. Government created the value, the government can eliminate the value.
There is also a transit oriented upzoning initiative. 8 FSR and 30 storeys within 200m, 6 FSR and 20 storeys within 500m and 4 storeys within the entire zone of the map, 6 stories on major roads within the zone on the map. https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/...ing-together-to-build-more-homes-near-transit
Very new. https://www.thetrillium.ca/news/hou...low-30-storey-buildings-near-transit-11082753
Not perfect, but a lot of progress.
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darwink
Senior Member
The weirdest part is they do new assessments and then do a projection on wha tthe unit would have been worth if it had existed in 2016! It is pretty stupid, but not as unfair as it seems. It is a communications exercise tbh.
trtcttc
Senior Member
I never owned a property in Toronto but with the recent condo crash, the owners don't even get the benefit of lower property taxes?
Does this open the government to lawsuits? Like how Alberta got sued for coal mining policy changes, and same with the Greenbelt in Ontario. I don't think they should, but I didn't think the government should be sued for coal policy changes either.
darwink
Senior Member
No. Well, I think Ottawa (the city) did it in a stupid way and messed up procedurally and might have, but the court has yet to rule. In general, courts have sided that as long as you don't take something for free. In Halifax, the government tried to take something for free (using private land as a park) and was shut down. https://stewartmckelvey.com/thought...is-group-inc-v-halifax-regional-municipality/
Reducing the value of tower zoning by zoning more property for towers isn't taking.
trtcttc
Senior Member
So applied to the coal mining case, if the gov opens all of AB to coal mining and makes the land worth less, that's not a problem, but they can't remove the function of coal mining from the land by making it a protected space?
darwink
Senior Member
In the Alberta case, they sold exploration leases and then after the fact made the assets worthless. Not so cut and dried since the timeline and decisions in that case are messy, but that is the view of the mining companies. It doesn't help that the Premier has repeated the mining companies case as fact.