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macrov · 07-15-2013, 07:23 PM

What bothers me is that I feel that the floods can be broken down into 3 distinct issues, and province isn't really addressing them individually.

1) Some properties are in flood zones and probably shouldn't have basements, or even homes at all. Homes along the elbow are the perfect example of this. But, if the government isn't going to cover them, then they should get a large discount on property taxes. I mean a lot of these homes come with 10 000$ + property taxes. And most of these taxes end up subsidizing the rest of the city. And now that they're in trouble, the city doesn't want to subsidize them back? That is unacceptable. It's kind of like insurance; if you're not going to be covered, you shouldn't have to pay in. End of story.

2) For many other properties this was a tail event. It wouldn't have been cost effective to put in place measures to protect much of the property that was affected; its cheaper to simply rebuild the property every 300 years in event of this magnitude of flooding. So , should community based measures be put in place like better infrasturcutre? Yes. Should you put houses on stilts at a cost of 30 000 per house and infill basements? No.

3) For many properties, the fault lies with everyone via the province and the city for prioritizing less important infrastructure projects over the maintainence and upgrading of storm infrastructure. Sunnyside is the perfect example of this. Arguably, for these homes, the city and province should pick up the entire tab, because these homes flooded due to poor policy.

07-15-2013, 07:23 PM	#4056
macrov Lifetime Suspension Join Date: Oct 2010 Exp:	What bothers me is that I feel that the floods can be broken down into 3 distinct issues, and province isn't really addressing them individually. 1) Some properties are in flood zones and probably shouldn't have basements, or even homes at all. Homes along the elbow are the perfect example of this. But, if the government isn't going to cover them, then they should get a large discount on property taxes. I mean a lot of these homes come with 10 000$ + property taxes. And most of these taxes end up subsidizing the rest of the city. And now that they're in trouble, the city doesn't want to subsidize them back? That is unacceptable. It's kind of like insurance; if you're not going to be covered, you shouldn't have to pay in. End of story. 2) For many other properties this was a tail event. It wouldn't have been cost effective to put in place measures to protect much of the property that was affected; its cheaper to simply rebuild the property every 300 years in event of this magnitude of flooding. So , should community based measures be put in place like better infrasturcutre? Yes. Should you put houses on stilts at a cost of 30 000 per house and infill basements? No. 3) For many properties, the fault lies with everyone via the province and the city for prioritizing less important infrastructure projects over the maintainence and upgrading of storm infrastructure. Sunnyside is the perfect example of this. Arguably, for these homes, the city and province should pick up the entire tab, because these homes flooded due to poor policy.