Quote:
Originally Posted by timun
Ha, no, that's total horse****, and I think you know it.
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Are you suggesting that everyone can choose to live in a 50 foot lot in the inner city? Of course you aren’t that would be ridiculous.
So maybe you believe that people who own property in a city first should not have to incur any costs as the city expands even though city expansion results in their previously owned property becoming more valuable. So you want to give value to existing property owners who are doing absolutely nothing to create that value.
Can you explain to me why occupying 3500 square feet of land at the edge of the city is more impactful on the total distance commuted by Calgarians then 3500 square feet in the inner city. The answer is clearly it doesn’t matter the total distance commuted would be the same. So we know that who lives where doesn’t really change the total cost to the city. It’s only by making the city smaller that you can reduce costs. So if the above is true shouldn’t we tax the people who make the city larger more?
Now one might argue those who use less city infrastructure should pay less. But again you need to ask yourself why they don’t live on a 50 foot mid city lot and instead live in the burbs. In most cases this is driven by cost. If there was a bunch of unused land in the inner city or mid city that didn’t have people in it then I would agree that choosing to live closer has a positive affect on city size. This however is not the case in Calgary. Every person who moves into the inner city displaces a person who already lives there.
Unless of course you are increasing density. But what to inner city hate the most? Density increases. Basement suites, Condos, townhouse, etc are all fought against in the interest of keeping the neighborhood the same. So not only does it not matter in a full city where you occupy in terms of sprawl you also have inner city neighbourhoods actively opposing densification which in turn would reduce sprawl.
So I am absolutely serious when I say the portion of our city taxes that fund costs that are driven by the size of the city should be funded based on the square footage of the lot you occupy and not proximity to downtown.
In a city without large vacant lots available to be developed your physical foot print rather than the location of that footprint is what drives the cost of sprawl for
The city.