It means, development charges aren’t getting houses built, and we’re in a housing crisis to go along with the cost of living crisis, health care crisis, etc etc that we’re in. Something’s gotta give, or we’ll see an increasing homelessness crisis. I’m all for a better alternative, but as a society we’re also allergic to increasing taxes.
I think we have a fundamentally different understanding of DCs and I’m not sure either is 100% correct because it’s not a simple problem.
The DC is a charge to the developer. They are profiting from the improvements to the land that the municipality does, so this is a cost recovery for the investment the municipality did. If, for example, your municipality was building a sewer to your area you as the homeowner would have to pay for the connection on your land. This, in turn, increases the value of your property.
It’s effectively an incentive to the developer to build in areas where it doesn’t cost them as much to build, maximizing profits. There is no mechanism to force a decrease in house prices or rent. If the municipality charged the purchaser directly, then it would lower costs to them, but the infrastructure needs to be built whether individual homes sell or not so that’s not a great method.
This is going to make the infrastructure gap worse. Municipalities won’t be able to attract developers if they are charging appropriate DCs, so they will be forced to lower the DC and either raise taxes and/or utility rates and fees to keep things running and build for expansion. Or they won’t build for expansion and just cross their fingers.
If you read the Bearspaw feeder report you can see that Calgary was putting off expansion because of all the capacity savings the trend towards water saving devices gained. Those days are over. Municipalities all over the country are hiting this hard capacity wall and they have to build. But because of the direction the province is taking with DCs and overriding rejected development applications (because of infrastructure limits) we are all going to suffer so that developers can make more money.
I don’t have the solution to the housing crisis but I don’t think it’s “entice developers by making it more profitable to develop in your areas while redlining your infrastructure”.
The solution is raise taxes, but people’s heads explode when that gets brought up. And no, not “tax the suburbs more”. Taxes don’t work like that. So the core doesn’t vote for increased taxes because they don’t want to subsidize the suburbs (they don’t), and the suburbs don’t vote for increased taxes because the taxes they already pay aren’t getting them the infrastructure they need.
Take some of the rural parts of Ottawa, for example. They pay the same residential taxes as you or I, and their infrastructure absolutely sucks. However, they pay lower fees for things like transit. The logic is, because they have little or no access to transit, they should pay little or no transit fees. No. Charge the transit fees, and get transit built. And then increase the damn taxes to pay for the rest of the infrastructure.
We’re on the same page for sure, but I do want to flag that the City of Ottawa has special levy areas where they do charge more taxes to cover hyper local costs. The easiest way to see this is the GeoOttawa overlay layers on the topic (under misc > property taxation boundaries)
Looks like there is just one right now but I know I’ve heard of more, maybe they are just in planning?
They also have DCs specific to rural transit! GeoOttwa is one of the best municipal GIS I’ve seen tbh.
This goes back to the idea of DC paying for growth and taxes/rates laying for operation and renewal/replacement.
But yes, we need to stop kicking the can down the road and start paying the actual costs of maintaining our infrastructure.
I know the special areas you’re talking about, but those aren’t typically applied to all of, for example, Nepean or Barhaven or Kanata. For example, Alta Vista used a special levy zone to pay for an arena. The various BIAs are under special levy zones that pay for things those zones need, like marketing. The Centretown BIA is one such rate. A similar rate used to apply to ByWard, before the BMDA was formed and it became a municipal corporation.
Also: Transit is also a specific levy on your property taxes. In rural Ottawa, that levy is lower than it is downtown. Since people who have lived there for 30 years would probably use transit as frequenty as people who’ve lived there for 30 minutes if transit was available, we should try increasing that and making transit available.
BIA levies only apply to member businesses, but yes I get the analogy.
I mentioned the transit DC specifically, because under the current way the long range financial plan (LRFP) is set up the DC is intended to fund the growth of the transit service to the area whereas the property tax levy is to fund operations and maintain the current level of service. It makes sense it’s less in the rural area now while the level of service is lower.
DCs need to be backed by studies and plans, which are subject to provincial scrutiny and approval if I am remembering correctly.
It might be easier to pivot to finding growth via property tax levies (which is what I think you are suggesting) but I don’t know the details of what it takes to change the LRFP, but I imagine the province isn’t going to jump in an say they need to lower taxes. Because that doesn’t help developers 😉
I’d personally love to see Ottawa increase rural transit, it’s been a real treat to be able to drive to the southern end and take the train in 🚇
(Eta: I hope this doesn’t come across as arguing, I am just excited to discuss Ontario municipal structure lol)
I mentioned the transit DC specifically, because under the current way the long range financial plan (LRFP) is set up the DC is intended to fund the growth of the transit service to the area whereas the property tax levy is to fund operations and maintain the current level of service. It makes sense it’s less in the rural area now while the level of service is lower.
It really doesn’t, though, if the goal is to actually bring transit to the area. Because as evidenced by the current state of suburban/rural areas of Ottawa, the DCs aren’t actually doing what they’re supposed to. That’s why transit still sucks in too many places today.
DCs need to be backed by studies and plans, which are subject to provincial scrutiny and approval if I am remembering correctly.
You are indeed remembering correctly. The problem is Ontario can also shape what those DCs look like, hence the various programs we’re talking about like the DCRP. Which is why Ottawa should be pursuing ways to do the same thing through increased taxes.
It might be easier to pivot to finding growth via property tax levies (which is what I think you are suggesting) but I don’t know the details of what it takes to change the LRFP, but I imagine the province isn’t going to jump in an say they need to lower taxes. Because that doesn’t help developers 😉
This may be where I need to double check my own memory, but I don’t think Ottawa needs provincial approval to set and adjust its property taxes. So if, for example, Ottawa decides that taxes absolutely need to be at 5% to catch up on the city’s backlog, Ontario doesn’t care. But of course that requires Ottawa to say taxes need to be 5%. McKenny lost for saying 3.
I’d personally love to see Ottawa increase rural transit, it’s been a real treat to be able to drive to the southern end and take the train in 🚇
Transit city-wide needs an overhaul, including the train, IMO. I’m not rural, but any trip that involves the train is going to involve a bus first, if it shows up properly. I would happily pay more in property taxes to see that fixed. It’s certainly not gonna be fixed with Sutcliffe’s 2.5%.
Your reply triggered me to read the Transit Master Plan amendments to support DCs and yikes lol. Can you tell my professional experience in municipal asset management is in a different sector? 😅
For other nerds:
The 2024 Provisional DC Study included the growth-related capital needs associated with Public Transit in the City. Public Transit is calculated on a city-wide level and is not differentiated by area.
It means, development charges aren’t getting houses built, and we’re in a housing crisis to go along with the cost of living crisis, health care crisis, etc etc that we’re in. Something’s gotta give, or we’ll see an increasing homelessness crisis. I’m all for a better alternative, but as a society we’re also allergic to increasing taxes.
Okay, I see.
I think we have a fundamentally different understanding of DCs and I’m not sure either is 100% correct because it’s not a simple problem.
The DC is a charge to the developer. They are profiting from the improvements to the land that the municipality does, so this is a cost recovery for the investment the municipality did. If, for example, your municipality was building a sewer to your area you as the homeowner would have to pay for the connection on your land. This, in turn, increases the value of your property.
It’s effectively an incentive to the developer to build in areas where it doesn’t cost them as much to build, maximizing profits. There is no mechanism to force a decrease in house prices or rent. If the municipality charged the purchaser directly, then it would lower costs to them, but the infrastructure needs to be built whether individual homes sell or not so that’s not a great method.
This is going to make the infrastructure gap worse. Municipalities won’t be able to attract developers if they are charging appropriate DCs, so they will be forced to lower the DC and either raise taxes and/or utility rates and fees to keep things running and build for expansion. Or they won’t build for expansion and just cross their fingers.
If you read the Bearspaw feeder report you can see that Calgary was putting off expansion because of all the capacity savings the trend towards water saving devices gained. Those days are over. Municipalities all over the country are hiting this hard capacity wall and they have to build. But because of the direction the province is taking with DCs and overriding rejected development applications (because of infrastructure limits) we are all going to suffer so that developers can make more money.
I don’t have the solution to the housing crisis but I don’t think it’s “entice developers by making it more profitable to develop in your areas while redlining your infrastructure”.
The solution is raise taxes, but people’s heads explode when that gets brought up. And no, not “tax the suburbs more”. Taxes don’t work like that. So the core doesn’t vote for increased taxes because they don’t want to subsidize the suburbs (they don’t), and the suburbs don’t vote for increased taxes because the taxes they already pay aren’t getting them the infrastructure they need.
Take some of the rural parts of Ottawa, for example. They pay the same residential taxes as you or I, and their infrastructure absolutely sucks. However, they pay lower fees for things like transit. The logic is, because they have little or no access to transit, they should pay little or no transit fees. No. Charge the transit fees, and get transit built. And then increase the damn taxes to pay for the rest of the infrastructure.
We’re on the same page for sure, but I do want to flag that the City of Ottawa has special levy areas where they do charge more taxes to cover hyper local costs. The easiest way to see this is the GeoOttawa overlay layers on the topic (under misc > property taxation boundaries)
Looks like there is just one right now but I know I’ve heard of more, maybe they are just in planning?
They also have DCs specific to rural transit! GeoOttwa is one of the best municipal GIS I’ve seen tbh.
This goes back to the idea of DC paying for growth and taxes/rates laying for operation and renewal/replacement.
But yes, we need to stop kicking the can down the road and start paying the actual costs of maintaining our infrastructure.
I know the special areas you’re talking about, but those aren’t typically applied to all of, for example, Nepean or Barhaven or Kanata. For example, Alta Vista used a special levy zone to pay for an arena. The various BIAs are under special levy zones that pay for things those zones need, like marketing. The Centretown BIA is one such rate. A similar rate used to apply to ByWard, before the BMDA was formed and it became a municipal corporation.
Also: Transit is also a specific levy on your property taxes. In rural Ottawa, that levy is lower than it is downtown. Since people who have lived there for 30 years would probably use transit as frequenty as people who’ve lived there for 30 minutes if transit was available, we should try increasing that and making transit available.
I think I’m following, but a few clarifications:
BIA levies only apply to member businesses, but yes I get the analogy.
I mentioned the transit DC specifically, because under the current way the long range financial plan (LRFP) is set up the DC is intended to fund the growth of the transit service to the area whereas the property tax levy is to fund operations and maintain the current level of service. It makes sense it’s less in the rural area now while the level of service is lower.
DCs need to be backed by studies and plans, which are subject to provincial scrutiny and approval if I am remembering correctly.
It might be easier to pivot to finding growth via property tax levies (which is what I think you are suggesting) but I don’t know the details of what it takes to change the LRFP, but I imagine the province isn’t going to jump in an say they need to lower taxes. Because that doesn’t help developers 😉
I’d personally love to see Ottawa increase rural transit, it’s been a real treat to be able to drive to the southern end and take the train in 🚇
(Eta: I hope this doesn’t come across as arguing, I am just excited to discuss Ontario municipal structure lol)
It really doesn’t, though, if the goal is to actually bring transit to the area. Because as evidenced by the current state of suburban/rural areas of Ottawa, the DCs aren’t actually doing what they’re supposed to. That’s why transit still sucks in too many places today.
You are indeed remembering correctly. The problem is Ontario can also shape what those DCs look like, hence the various programs we’re talking about like the DCRP. Which is why Ottawa should be pursuing ways to do the same thing through increased taxes.
This may be where I need to double check my own memory, but I don’t think Ottawa needs provincial approval to set and adjust its property taxes. So if, for example, Ottawa decides that taxes absolutely need to be at 5% to catch up on the city’s backlog, Ontario doesn’t care. But of course that requires Ottawa to say taxes need to be 5%. McKenny lost for saying 3.
Transit city-wide needs an overhaul, including the train, IMO. I’m not rural, but any trip that involves the train is going to involve a bus first, if it shows up properly. I would happily pay more in property taxes to see that fixed. It’s certainly not gonna be fixed with Sutcliffe’s 2.5%.
Your reply triggered me to read the Transit Master Plan amendments to support DCs and yikes lol. Can you tell my professional experience in municipal asset management is in a different sector? 😅
For other nerds:
You have public sector asset management experience? I just fix computers. Well, and live amidst Ottawa’s shitshow.