I work for Mayor Nenshi, ask me anything!

[kermitology]

I thought I'd comment on the revenue collected by the city for infill development.



It's not something you could explicitly calculate during development, but id say that with the permits, city contractors, and inspections, you easily pay more than $7k. Plus you're typically increasing the tax revenue more than twofold.



Our lot was assessed at $365k, we turned that into $1.2M.

[RedMileDJ]

Has the mayor ever farted around anyone? Serious question.

A former boss of mine farted in front of me one time, and then proceeded to blame me and even threaten my job in front of all the other staff.

[KelVarnsen]

Cool story bro.

[frinkprof]

This whole topic (acreage assessments and development levies) is pretty complex and unfortunately also gets jumbled up with the related, but different topic of property taxes. In general, the former (along with grants from higher orders of government) typically pays for capital costs whereas the latter pays for operating and maintenance costs. They do have similar issues surrounding them (i.e. the revenue/spending schemes have geographic distributions that disproportionally favour greenfield areas in both cases). However, it's important to not confuse them for one another and use them (and examples) interchangeably.

[Fusebox]

Originally Posted by Red-Mile-DJ

Has the mayor ever farted around anyone? Serious question.

A former boss of mine farted in front of me one time, and then proceeded to blame me and even threaten my job in front of all the other staff.

This must be a contender for post of the year. Where did that come from?

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by SebC

Now that's social engineering!

No, that's good planning.

[RedMileDJ]

Originally Posted by Fusebox

This must be a contender for post of the year. Where did that come from?

I dunno. The thread title leaves it open to a lot of interpretations.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

Which NFL team does Nenshi cheer for?

San Francisco 49ers

[Madman]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

San Francisco 49ers

[GGG]

Originally Posted by kermitology

I thought I'd comment on the revenue collected by the city for infill development.



It's not something you could explicitly calculate during development, but id say that with the permits, city contractors, and inspections, you easily pay more than $7k. Plus you're typically increasing the tax revenue more than twofold.



Our lot was assessed at $365k, we turned that into $1.2M.

Aren't those things to deal with the costs of those services. The cost of having the inspector out or the city contractor doing work. They don't really offset the cost of building a new water treatment plant because you have doubled the capcity of your lot. So I think that those fees should be considered separately from any sort of development levy.

[Freeway]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Is there a theory out there about that?

http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald...7-94403f2e3d59

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Yes. Quilting for Calgary was amazing. The Mayor told the story about it all day to different groups.

Originally Posted by Bigtime

We received two of those quilts yesterday, what a touching gesture.

That whole thing was started by my mom. My wife and I were out delivering all day, although it wouldn't have been us at your door Bigtime, we were in Elbow Park all day.

And Bunk, I REALLY wanted to walk up to you and ask if you were Bunk off Calgarypuck, but something makes you feel so creepy when you go to approach a stranger and ask them if they're from the internet. It was really cool of you and the mayor to show up, it meant a lot to my mom and all the volunteers.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

That whole thing was started by my mom. My wife and I were out delivering all day, although it wouldn't have been us at your door Bigtime, we were in Elbow Park all day.

You let your mom know just how awesome a gift it was, there were a few neighbours with tears in their eyes as they were given them.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

That whole thing was started by my mom. My wife and I were out delivering all day, although it wouldn't have been us at your door Bigtime, we were in Elbow Park all day.

And Bunk, I REALLY wanted to walk up to you and ask if you were Bunk off Calgarypuck, but something makes you feel so creepy when you go to approach a stranger and ask them if they're from the internet. It was really cool of you and the mayor to show up, it meant a lot to my mom and all the volunteers.

Ah, I see - your username makes sense...

It really is amazing - so congratulations to your Mom.

[Bigtime]

Here are the quilts we got:



Hulk, feel free to pass this on to your mom!

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by GGG

Aren't those things to deal with the costs of those services. The cost of having the inspector out or the city contractor doing work. They don't really offset the cost of building a new water treatment plant because you have doubled the capcity of your lot. So I think that those fees should be considered separately from any sort of development levy.

There's no way those inspection fees cover the cost of the inspectors time. And don't even get me started on the inspection process. We had one inspector arbitrarily pick which year of bylaws he wanted to enforce rather than the most current. My wife was so enraged that she went to the inspection management team and laid into them about this one particular inspector.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by Bunk

...
The problem of course is that this distorts the market - it makes homes artificially less expensive on the periphery. Increases to the levy both get absorbed by homeowners through higher prices as well as a reduction in margins, particularly for land developers selling land to home builders.

While new homes in existing areas do theoretically add burden to infrastructure, most necessary infrastructure is already in place (initial capital outlay paid for when initial subdivision/development happened) ...

Bunk, I want to comment on this whole "cost gap" suggestion. While your summary of the acreage assessment breakdown was very illustrative for a lot of people here that only hear about these issues in negative light, you didn't mention that in addition to a minimum 10% required MR dedication that just by itself translate into approximately $2,500 per lot tax based on present greenfield raw land values, the City requires developers to pay for infrastructure oversizing (to support future growth), endevours-to-assist (to support other potential requirements) and boundary cost-sharing (to reimburse previous developers for provision of excess infrastructure capacity), which are very significant components of the upfront development charges. Another important component not mentioned was developers' cost of capital required to pay for these levies and other charges. Even conservatively, using 10% COC and 12 upa target avg density, this cost easily adds more than $2,500 per new lot per year from start to finish. In essence, the argument is that there is no gap at all already.

Now, getting into the very hypothetical area of this debate: the City is trying to get into a zero-cost approach to new growth funding (or 100% cost recovery, whichever way one likes to look at it) . It can get away with it when the times are good, both politically and economically. The biggest risk comes when times are bad and all development stops, which is exactly when a municipality would face a double whammy – no established funding-in-place for the new infrastructure and no ability to raise the tax base to avoid stagnation.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Now, getting into the very hypothetical area of this debate: the City is trying to get into a zero-cost approach to new growth funding (or 100% cost recovery, whichever way one likes to look at it) . It can get away with it when the times are good, both politically and economically. The biggest risk comes when times are bad and all development stops, which is exactly when a municipality would face a double whammy – no established funding-in-place for the new infrastructure and no ability to raise the tax base to avoid stagnation.

Has there ever been a development stop in the last 30 years?

[HockeyIlliterate]

I seem to recall reading about the Mayor's desire to update (or, heck, even have) a traffic management plan in regards to the traffic-light synchronization.

How is that plan going?

I honestly don't know who synchronizes the traffic lights in downtown, but whoever it is should be shot. Many, many, many times.

If you are trying to travel north (or south) down 8th street SW, heaven help you, because you are only going to get to go a block at a time, so you best plan to be burning fuel for about 10 minutes to get from 4th Avenue to 10th Avenue. And if you are trying to leave downtown on 5th Avenue any time outside of the wee hours of the day, well, good luck, because traffic will back up for blocks because of poor traffic light timings around McLeod and 1st Street SE.

So, I ask: what is the Mayor's plan to get the traffic lights timed properly so as to allow for the free-flow of traffic? Or does he think that the timing of the traffic lights is working just fine?

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Has there ever been a development stop in the last 30 years?

Hell, yeah.