News   Aug 29, 2024
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News   Aug 29, 2024
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Mayor Olivia Chow's Toronto

It's really provincial law. You're allowed to evict tenants to do extensive renovations. There's provision for a right of first refusal to move back in after the renos, but people need to live somewhere, so mostly tenants will move on with their lives. And if they don't, you take some small portion of that $4M you're about to get from the sale to buy them out.
 
I think the way she handled the budget and tax increase was pretty masterful. Everybody mostly knew Toronto needed higher taxes, and she just came in and did it with no drama.

More on Chow's budgeting mastery...


I wonder if the stormwater charge issue will have more salience this year?
 
More on Chow's budgeting mastery...


I wonder if the stormwater charge issue will have more salience this year?

I think the choice is going to be to pursue the parking levy rather than the stormwater one.

The two overlap.

Both punish surface parking; but the stormwater tax is a bit more complex to implement and would effect a lot of SFH for relatively little tax revenue.
 
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I think the choice is going to be to pursue the parking levy rather than the stormwater one.

The two overlap.

Both punish surface parking; but the stormwater tax is a bit more complex to implement and would effect a lot of SFH for relatively little tax revenue.

Though the stormwater tax is probably an easier sell when we just had that storm event - and she can probably use the "rain tax" label to her benefit now.

AoD
 
So does this mean no absurd tax increase again next year?

It does not.

It's likely this will be to cover the cost overruns for renaming Dundas Square, renaming a street for cultural significance and possibly money to assist with reports.

If the city did actually have an extra 2 billion, it would be better served as funding for the TTC or for things like street cleaning.
 

Where they have redirected the funds from the gardiner and dvp upload

I reported this out on the previous page in the thread:


So does this mean no absurd tax increase again next year?

200M per year, give or take, when the deficit in capital funding is in the tens of billions..............

Surely you jest.

After years of failing to increase taxes in line with inflation, or population growth.......there is a piper to pay.........

I expect this year's increase on the property tax side will be lower, but still above current inflation........but there will likely be a Commercial Parking Levy among other revenue generating moves.

Its likely that what will come up for approval this year still won't be enough to rectify the City's long term challenges, but it will reduce the gap to something more manageable.
 
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It does not.

It's likely this will be to cover the cost overruns for renaming Dundas Square, renaming a street for cultural significance and possibly money to assist with reports.

If the city did actually have an extra 2 billion, it would be better served as funding for the TTC or for things like street cleaning.
Except it's listed where this money is going, and it's none of that.
 
I wonder what's happening with Land Transfer Tax revenues these days? It must be declining, and is a big slice of revenue.
I’m wondering when I’ll see the benefits of the approx 20% increase in my property taxes. I’m fine with it, as long as we can get the infrastructure working, reliable transit, squats out of our parks and underpasses, etc.
 
I’m wondering when I’ll see the benefits of the approx 20% increase in my property taxes. I’m fine with it, as long as we can get the infrastructure working, reliable transit, squats out of our parks and underpasses, etc.

There was no 20% increase in property taxes (rate); the increase was ~9.5% that includes the City building fund.
 
I wonder what's happening with Land Transfer Tax revenues these days? It must be declining, and is a big slice of revenue.

This was how the City budgeted for this year:

1722205736862.png


Budgeted Revenue 2024: 880M which would be a decline of just shy of 400M from the peak in 2021.

***

The current year budget variances are only out to April 30, 2024.

They show LTT revenue tracking 17M above budget at that time.


See p. 16

****

My guess is that this year's numbers are pretty solid, because LTT is paid on closing, not on initial purchase.

So revenue is more tied to completions than to starts, in the current year.

That said, the go-forward impacts could be very substantial.
 

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