Mayor John Tory's Toronto

[animatronic]

How much more money can we really squeeze out of the property tax?

The problem with our city is constitutional. We do not get the money we pay in taxes to the federal or provincial levels back.

We will never be on the level of a city like Singapore when only 10% of the taxes we pay are invested back into paying our city's upkeep cost, let alone investing in future infrastructure.

Singapore is a city state with twice our population and only slightly more territory than Toronto proper. It has 0.0022% of the territory our federal and provincial governments need to manage. There are no useful lessons for multi-level funding.

 

[TrickyRicky]

I completely refute the blanket notion that the City isn't levying enough tax. There is a geographic component to City Tax levels and fees that complicates generalisations being made. Also, as a property owner or city service user you don't care what we mean when we talk about taxes, you only care about the total bottom line of annual costs.

Over the last few decades many of the costs levied on property owners have been removed from the "tax" equation. An example is garbage for instance where the rates and regulations are set by City Council but where the cost has been completely removed from our tax discussions. Then there are things like water rates etc. where double digit annual increases are never discussed in the tax discussion or city service hook ups or user limits etc. where entire costs have been downloaded on to property owners and users.

The low or frozen tax rate is in some ways a political mirage. There are many commenters who have seized on the idea of low or frozen tax rates as proof they should be raised dramatically without I feel fully comprehending the total cost reality.

Furthermore, current value assessment is amplifying in my estimation a huge tax transfer from the central city to the suburbs. Large swaths of the city are seeing tax decreases while certain concentrated areas in the central city are facing a kind of tax apocalypse. You can argue that this is fair or right but this should be something we recognize. A call to raise property taxes by 5% say, should recognize that some people are seeing tax increases in the 500% range or 100 times this right now under the status quo! I've mentioned this before but I think this is something an enterprising young master's student should do a thesis on.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Highways and wide roads do not contribute to the tax revenue.

See this link for more information on

How Highways Squeezed Taxable Land Out of Cities

 

[jje1000]

Did they improve the value of the remaining land back in the 50s and 60s when these freeways were first built? I wonder if that was the reasoning- sacrificing some of the core to save the rest.

Thankfully, Toronto never truly suffered large-scale fragmentation of its urban core via freeway development (save for Parkdale and parts of Lawrence Park). The worst that happened in this city was the large-scale block busting that occurred in the St Lawrence neighbourhood, plus the loss of fabric heritage buildings through deterioration and redevelopment. So while our streetscapes are uglier (the losses were more severe since we didn't have that much architectural heritage to start with), the underlying urban structure remains intact.

 

[jje1000]

It's budget season again:

Committee OKs water, garbage rate hikes as budget season begins at city hall
Water rates could go up 5 per cent, garbage by 1.9 per cent

The five per cent water rate increase was first approved by city council in 2015, and would bump the average Toronto family's water bill by $47 next year, from $942 to $989.

The increased rates are expected to raise an additional $54.4 million for Toronto Water, which will help fund a range of projects including water main replacement, sewage treatment plant upgrades and a basement flooding protection plan.

"We need to refurbish the entire system, and that's what we're doing right now," said budget committee chair Gary Crawford.

Single family households will also see a two per cent increase for waste management services, while people living in multi-residential buildings such as condos will see a one per cent hike. The so-called blended rate, which factors in other waste-related increases, averages 1.9 per cent, according to the city.

After the increases, the cost of a small garbage bin for a single family home will be $254.66 and an extra large bin will cost $486.99.

The city is counting on that price difference to encourage more households to opt for a smaller bin, and to more carefully sort out recyclable and organic materials.

"We're suggesting, get down to a medium bin or a small bin and you'll actually save money over the long run," Crawford said.

The higher garbage rates are expected to generate an additional $5.74 million. The waste management department says that will help pay for fleet maintenance and the cost of sorting through increasing contamination in blue bins.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-rate-budgets-1.4386821

 

[Videodrome]

http://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/quebecmunicipalelections2017/

Montreal has local political parties too. Still not a fan of having them in Toronto.

 

[WislaHD]

I would be more willing to have a party system in municipal elections if we banned provincial or federal parties from affiliating with any municipal party.

 

[WislaHD]

I created a thread for Mayor Valérie Plante's Montreal here.

 

[animatronic]

I created a thread for Mayor Valérie Plante's Montreal here.

Shows the potential for someone to throw their hat into the ring here and make a go of it - and no, not talking about the enabler in chief.

That said, she wouldn't have had a chance if not for the impact of municipal parties. The ability of parties to unseat incumbents is critical.

 

[Videodrome]

I don't know a whole lot about Montreal politics to be honest. What I do find interesting is councillors running under the banner of a mayoral candidate.

 

[BurlOak]

I would be more willing to have a party system in municipal elections if we banned provincial or federal parties from affiliating with any municipal party.

We don't currently have official political affiliations, yet we still know who the NDP Councillors are. Is it not best just to get it all out in the open.

 

[WislaHD]

We don't currently have official political affiliations, yet we still know who the NDP Councillors are. Is it not best just to get it all out in the open.

Do we?

I pegged Adam Vaughan and Krystin Wong-Tam as NDPers and yet they were or are being tapped by the Liberals.

But the point is, ideology pertinent to provincial or federal politics have no place in municipal government. Urban micro-scale political and managerial considerations are greatly different to those at the provincial or federal macro-scale ones, and should remain so indefinitely.

 

[adma]

Do we?

I pegged Adam Vaughan and Krystin Wong-Tam as NDPers and yet they were or are being tapped by the Liberals.

Actually, Adam Vaughan was always more of a "progressive Liberal" in the vein of his father--remember that he first ran *against* the NDP machine, right down to the support of Liberal hacks like the Ianno/Innes household.

KWT...she just follows the centre-drifting tradition of predecessors like Barbara Hall and Kyle Rae.

 

[christiesplits]

Actually, Adam Vaughan was always more of a "progressive Liberal" in the vein of his father--remember that he first ran *against* the NDP machine, right down to the support of Liberal hacks like the Ianno/Innes household.

You get a sense of just how big the 'big tent' Liberal Party is when you consider that the likes of Adam Vaughan and Shelley Carroll are members of the same party as Jimmy K, Cesar Palacio and Mark Grimes.

 

[Videodrome]

Mammo is also a card carrying Liberal.