Albertasaurus
Active Member
I think it comes down to cost. Pretty simple construction, No need for interior common areas such as hallways, lobby, waste disposal etc; and no expensive underground parkade to build.
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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
I think it comes down to cost. Pretty simple construction, No need for interior common areas such as hallways, lobby, waste disposal etc; and no expensive underground parkade to build.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
You have to provide a ton of bike parking in multi family these days, basically 1:1 for units. I'm curious how many people actually store bikes in them, seems like a great place for a bike thief!
MichaelS
Senior Member
Given the size we are seeing on new units (especially the suites of these styles of development) I am not sure how practical it is to expect residents to store a bike in them. And, if they are not being mandated to provide a vehicle parking stall, a bicycle parking stall will at least provide some form of mobility to the future residents.
Thrillhou
New Member
Anecdotally, I stopped using the bike storage in my building in the beltline. I always had a habit of making my bike the most difficult to steal but thefts became a weekly thing and I just brought it up to my unit.
Ramsayite
Active Member
These ground oriented units are popular, can't blame people for liking them and they bridge a gap between detached and denser mf.
For ground oriented units like these bike parking could be better designed to be spread out per unit, ground oriented and accessible from each unit. Could make them like tiny snouthouses with a 6x6 front "garage" door. Might draw more suburbanites in with the familiar architecture
Can't really get that with multistory residential but there's still room for growth with consolidated bike parking in parkades. Bike lockers in a common area rather than common lockup would be a good minimum.
For ground oriented units like these bike parking could be better designed to be spread out per unit, ground oriented and accessible from each unit. Could make them like tiny snouthouses with a 6x6 front "garage" door. Might draw more suburbanites in with the familiar architecture
Can't really get that with multistory residential but there's still room for growth with consolidated bike parking in parkades. Bike lockers in a common area rather than common lockup would be a good minimum.
trtcttc
Active Member
It's to get around parking minimums. Not sure on the exact numbers but having secured bike parking (class 1) on a development within x meters of a PTN stop, allows developer to provide a lower number of parking units.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Numbers depend on the zoning, and there's a minimum number for both, adding one doesn't really affect the other. Developers hate them BTW, they always want the bare minimum. Go into any building and they're mostly empty, people just take their bikes inside their unit like Thrillhou, so kinda of useless.
trtcttc
Active Member
Not sure if this is the right thread, but I'm curious how new communities affect property taxes. With all the communities getting built, doesn't that lead to a natural increase in property tax revenue even if rate stays constant? Considering those homes are selling for more than resell, the assessments are probably above city average.
MichaelS
Senior Member
It does seem to indicate we are doing something wrong. If population growth only causes our incremental expenses to go up (as in, no efficiencies found in operations for adding new people), as an existing Calgarian, I would like to put forward a policy that states no more new growth! Otherwise, at this trajectory, is it fair to assume property taxes will eventually be 25% of our income? 50%? If not, what is going to change to prevent that from happening?
We have had our new "densification" plan, the MDP, in place since 2009. And, our new communities are achieving it as many of them are substantially denser than communities of the 80s and 90s. We are also seeing a lot of infill development taking place, with many infills, and now with blanket wide rezoning, even more will be coming. So, what will it take to stop the ever increasing upward march of property taxes?
We have had our new "densification" plan, the MDP, in place since 2009. And, our new communities are achieving it as many of them are substantially denser than communities of the 80s and 90s. We are also seeing a lot of infill development taking place, with many infills, and now with blanket wide rezoning, even more will be coming. So, what will it take to stop the ever increasing upward march of property taxes?
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
The simplest answer is suburban growth makes the city less efficient.
Services do not keep up with growth because the services are not built out as fast as large population spikes like we are experiencing. The City, Province and really Country just isn't able to scale that fast. That's why Canadian's quality of life has gone down.
I'll also guess one thing as I'm not sure it is true... I do not think the city collects the extra taxes right away, it takes new communities to build out (every property is occupied) for the city to be made whole-ish on property taxes but from the start there's already deficit. Developers do pay levies to get city services to new communities but those don't cover the actual cost of those services. There was some news coverage about that in the last year.
To what MichaelS said, newer communities are better now but still the city loses money on suburban development. Infill is better because city services are already well established in those areas but more people accessing those services means they still need to be added on to and that doesn't really happen.
Services do not keep up with growth because the services are not built out as fast as large population spikes like we are experiencing. The City, Province and really Country just isn't able to scale that fast. That's why Canadian's quality of life has gone down.
I'll also guess one thing as I'm not sure it is true... I do not think the city collects the extra taxes right away, it takes new communities to build out (every property is occupied) for the city to be made whole-ish on property taxes but from the start there's already deficit. Developers do pay levies to get city services to new communities but those don't cover the actual cost of those services. There was some news coverage about that in the last year.
To what MichaelS said, newer communities are better now but still the city loses money on suburban development. Infill is better because city services are already well established in those areas but more people accessing those services means they still need to be added on to and that doesn't really happen.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
What's the inflation-indexed property tax rate increase? Assuming costs of providing municipal services changes in line with general inflation? Assuming no inflation or changes in prices and no changes in service delivery then theoretically taxes don't change. Obviously that's not reality - I would think part of the 3.6 - 4.5% increase is just handling rising costs on the same service delivery - there is no other way to index to inflation as the property tax calculation is revenue neutral by design.
I think what's also missed in taxes conversations is the complex interaction between taxes and asset management. The city has tens of billions of assets that are always changing and require maintenance or replacement. In theory everything would work perfect and all these costs would be estimated accurately well into the future, therefore our taxes are entirely predictable over time.
Reality says otherwise. 100 year pipes sometimes fail at 50 years. New buses assumed one operating cost / hour, turns out have a different costs / hour in real-world conditions. One year it snows 2x as much as the year before. Entire professions are dedicated to try to improve the forecasting accuracy of costs like this - and yes everyone should always be perfect and forecast perfectly and "do their jobs better" - but perfection is not a realistic outcome across every element in a portfolio of assets as large as Calgary's. Therefore tax rates may be impacted and in unpredictable ways, the complexity and size of the portfolio means it's not easy at a glance to parse what specific cost forecasts are wrong, and why they were wrong (e.g. could we have done a better job estimating given what information was available v. there's no way to know until it's too late).
The other piece to this is the incremental v. step increases in cost. Adding a few more people is just incremental - buy a few more trains and buses, hire a few more crews to repair a few more new parks added etc. - but eventually you'll replace a water treatment plant or countless other things where the cost isn't incremental. Some of those costs are surprises, others are more predictable. That adds a ton of complexity into a simpler equation of what the tax rate "should" be.
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I'm wondering the same thing. My taxes have gone up over recent years, but I don't think they've gone up much more than inflation itself. Even the general rate of inflation is a mixture of costs, with some costs staying the same or even coming down while others go up at a faster rate than the average. Some of those costs increases for the city might be goods or services might be seeing faster increases in inflation.
This is a a very minor example, but I looked into getting a tree removed from my property. It's the same type of tree and the same size as one that was removed in 2008 for $500, but in 2023 the cost was $1,500, and today it's probably more.
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trtcttc
Active Member
On an infill, shouldn’t the cost difference more than make up for it? A 300k bungalow is replaced with a 600k infill, that’s 2x the property tax on that property.
And for suburban developments, is the costs not amortized? Utilities and infrastructure costs will be allocated to future years. Not sure how long the payback is but these new denser communities shouldn’t require ongoing tax increases to pencil out.
I assume these % rate increases are in addition to these natural increases (new homes, infill increasing value)?
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Keep in my this is just a theory....
On the new infill the property taxes that are collected double, but if that infill is a 10 unit rowhouse (5 main floor/upstairs and 5 basement suites) you're adding minimum 10 people where there were 4 people before. Those extra people have a lot of benefit but the city taxes do not increase at the same ratio as the number of people added and I used conservative numbers. Also the city (and other level of government services) do not immediately adjust their service levels to match even modest increase (because they can't). My point being the perspective band-for-buck on taxes is diminished, hence the lower standard of living and quality of life we feel.
I could be wrong about the new communities but if I think about it the city pays for the services up front, sure they may be compensated, but not enough to actually cover their costs.
trtcttc
Active Member
I think if its infilled with rowhouses, you'd get far more of a tax lift than 2x. I agree with most of what you're saying and I feel the city's narrative changes depending on the time of year. When it comes to rezoning (which I broadly support), we should be for that because that would decrease property taxes because higher density = less taxes. And now comes budget time, more people = more taxes. Not to mention they are already getting more taxes with the increase in total housing units. Increasing the rate beyond the 2023 imposed cap of 3.6% (which is above the current annual inflation rate), means we're either a) getting better services or b) the services are provided less efficiently.