What are you sick of doing?

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Slava

How about all the residential properties pay the same amount? I just did two searches on Google and it appears that the entire billing for property taxes is $695m. The other search says there are ~490k residences in the city. So, bill everybody $2000 a year and call it a day?

So the low income single mom owning an 800 sq ft two bedroom condo in Killarney pays the same tax as the owner of a 4000 sq ft 0.5 acre in Mount Royal who earns $3M a year?

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by peter12

[everything]

Again, the policies of densification in Toyko and Seoul are as a result of having nowhere to expand. Anyone who tried to impose densification upon people in a Canadian city likely would see people move just outside that jurisdiction. Again, like Calgarians moving to Airdrie. Canadians have choices.

I'm a proponent of densification and opening up zoning provided that it didn't result in a bunch of slap-dash sh--tboxes being built to make a quick buck -- *cough* Pointe of View *cough* -- ... I lived in Discovery Pointe for a year before finding nicer properties. Eeesh.

I would be lying if I said I didn't miss my top floor glass box in the sky; high-rise downtown living was the s--t. It was my kinda lifestyle. I could walk pretty much anywhere I wanted to go, and if the weather was bad, then I got to drive. But plenty of people looked at me like the dog would if I asked him to solve a Calculus problem when I espoused my love of downtown living, a lot of people just don't get it.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

So the low income single mom owning an 800 sq ft two bedroom condo in Killarney pays the same tax as the owner of a 4000 sq ft 0.5 acre in Mount Royal who earns $3M a year?

Is the point to pay for the services needed by the city as a whole or are we trying to even things out?

[Muta]

There's more services per capita in the inner city. The further you go out, the more infrastructure is required to service that same amount of people. There should be a proportional infrastructure tax as topfiverecords suggested, in order to cover the costs of that infrastructure. If you choose to live in a big property far from the core, your taxes should reflect that level of infrastructure needed to service you.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Isn't that already factored into the property valuation? A 60 year old 1,200 sq ft bungalow in Glamorgan or Braeside costs as much as a new 1,800 sq ft house in Bridlewod or Royal Oak. Or do you think lot size should be the only factor in residential tax rates?

There's also the political reality on the ground that's it's tough sell to dramatically increase the property taxes of a couple in their 70s who have lived in a modest house in Fairview for 40 years. They didn't have any say in the city sprawling out and making their modest home's displacement unfair.

Using property value has a proxy does provide some semblance of a density based taxation but has some significant flaws with discourage redevelopment.

It doesn’t work because of you take 1 inner city 50 foot lot it pays X taxes. You build 2 inner city homes on the same lot and it now pays 3x taxes. That doesn’t really make sense.

The second problem is taxes are reduced on a property with time as things depreciate while taxes rise as land appreciates while cost to service remains constant.

In my world of civic taxation. You would have 3 components 1) an average based tax on square footage of the lot. This would be focused and paying for city costs which scale with city size. (Somewhere and I can’t find the article anymore I had read that roughly half of city costs scale with size whereas the other costs are fixed). Then you have a fixed rate property tax for the services which don’t scale with density. Then you apply a progressive scheme (preferably income or asset based rather than property value based) to have some of the taxes based on the ability to pay.

So yes you do have the political loser of an old lady living in her underdeveloped million dollar lot in her house she has lived in forever being unable to afford the property taxes on her home. That is okay and should be acceptable. They already have benefited significantly from that sprawl in terms of property appreciation.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Slava

Is the point to pay for the services needed by the city as a whole or are we trying to even things out?

Tax is already calculated to cover the services needed in the mill rate that changes each year along with the assessed values revised each year.

Your scenario:
$ required by city (residential component) / number of owned properties

Current scenario:
$ required by city (residential component) / total assessed values

Both scenarios collect the same total amount. The current scenario, while flawed, attempts to provide a level of fairness. If you own a smaller or less expensive property generally those citizens should pay and in most cases probably can only afford to pay proportionally less property tax.

The assessment system sort of takes care of that. What it doesn't do is adjust for the imbalance between the $400,000 condo in Beltline vs the $400,000 single family in Legacy 25km away. The cost to service one citizen in Legacy is significantly more than to service the one living in Beltline. They both pay the same property tax.

[habernac]

I'm sick of reading about sprawl vs inner city vs suburbs. Make your own ####ty thread for that.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by habernac

I'm sick of reading about sprawl vs inner city vs suburbs. Make your own ####ty thread for that.

Yeah, especially since we all know the Inner City won the great urban form war.

Bike lanes for everyone!

[habernac]

I'm laughing at this post from the suburbs.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by habernac

I'm sick of reading about sprawl vs inner city vs suburbs. Make your own ####ty thread for that.

Yes. Let’s get back to talking about the annoyance of filling a litre bottle of water like some kind of...water...filler

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Muta

There's more services per capita in the inner city. The further you go out, the more infrastructure is required to service that same amount of people. There should be a proportional infrastructure tax as topfiverecords suggested, in order to cover the costs of that infrastructure. If you choose to live in a big property far from the core, your taxes should reflect that level of infrastructure needed to service you.

Which services are you referring to? Technically in the SE, I'm closer to not only the power plant, but also the waste water treatment plant, the landfill, and we have our own firehall etc. I don't import services from the inner city.
On the note of sewer, most of the inner city water services require pumping to get it to the associated plant at a much higher cost, and the system is aging. Technically services in the inner city cost the city more per year than the equivalent in the burbs.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by habernac

I'm sick of reading about sprawl vs inner city vs suburbs. Make your own ####ty thread for that.

I’m sick of pointless whiny posts like this one.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Which services are you referring to? Technically in the SE, I'm closer to not only the power plant, but also the waste water treatment plant, the landfill, and we have our own firehall etc. I don't import services from the inner city.
On the note of sewer, most of the inner city water services require pumping to get it to the associated plant at a much higher cost, and the system is aging. Technically services in the inner city cost the city more per year than the equivalent in the burbs.

It has to be cheaper to provide an apartment building power, water and sewage and waste removal than 100 seperate houses spread over a couple of square miles of land

[peter12]

What most people in here are missing is that there are a lot more development options between condo tower and SFH which our current zoning laws make almost impossible to construct.

The missing middle is what’s missing from Canadian housing supply. Gradual density is a big part of decent urban living - think townhouses, quadplexes, four storey walk-ups etc...

You know, the composition of basically every city before 1980.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by peter12

You know, the composition of basically every city before 1980.

I think it was the post WW2 boom that changed that, at least in Calgary.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by cam_wmh

Ya know Pete, I just got a place in Canmore, another condo.

And I think, I may always be a condo person. Whether in the mountains, by the beach. As my NW increases, of course nicer condos.

I'm a bit of a minimalist, although man -- the one thing I yearn for is my very own garage. Condo's that have exclusive garages are rare.

So I suppose, my gripe is "I'm sick of having my car in a shared space" Ha, that sounds overly pretentious. Whatever. Judge me. Lol.

I’m a condo guy too. I don’t mind a smaller space if it means I have close access to shops, restaurants and parks. For that, Vancouver is perfect for me. I also am lucky enough to be wealthy enough to afford it here. My only gripe is that we make it more affordable for more people my age!

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Dan02

I think it was the post WW2 boom that changed that, at least in Calgary.

Interesting point and I’m sure it differs from city to city. In Vancouver, we are basically living off the surplus of rental apartments building the 1970s. If we didn’t have that, we wouldn’t have near the market supply to allow anyone not making $150k to live within Vancouver proper. We are severely undersupplied.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Which services are you referring to? Technically in the SE, I'm closer to not only the power plant, but also the waste water treatment plant, the landfill, and we have our own firehall etc. I don't import services from the inner city.
On the note of sewer, most of the inner city water services require pumping to get it to the associated plant at a much higher cost, and the system is aging. Technically services in the inner city cost the city more per year than the equivalent in the burbs.

The complex I live in has 494 units downtown, when you go out of downtown to say Tuxedo, the same land area where we have 494 unit, has 10 single family houses. There are 50 times more pipes and roads and electric lines to maintain to service the same number of properties.

Instead of 1 garbage/recycling pickup, there's 494 separate pickups.

I could go on but hopefully that helps you understand the difference in the level of costs to maintain the infrastructure.

It is massively more expensive to service SFH in the suburbs then multifamily buildings yet the differences aren't reflected reasonably in the tax rates.

[Buff]

I'm sick of slipping on icy sidewalks when out walking the dog. I'm also sick of the option of either slipping on sidewalk or slipping on road

I'm also sick of City of Lethbridge not doing a Damn thing about people who don't shovel their walk ways.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

It has to be cheaper to provide an apartment building power, water and sewage and waste removal than 100 seperate houses spread over a couple of square miles of land

Originally Posted by Dan02

The complex I live in has 494 units downtown, when you go out of downtown to say Tuxedo, the same land area where we have 494 unit, has 10 single family houses. There are 50 times more pipes and roads and electric lines to maintain to service the same number of properties.

Instead of 1 garbage/recycling pickup, there's 494 separate pickups.

I could go on but hopefully that helps you understand the difference in the level of costs to maintain the infrastructure.

It is massively more expensive to service SFH in the suburbs then multifamily buildings yet the differences aren't reflected reasonably in the tax rates.

In some cases, yes, having it very consolidated does lower the cost per person/land, I'll totally agree with that. I'm also not comparing a suburb house to a condo unit, I was strictly speaking of inner vs burbs. There are tons of condo's outside of the inner city and the same building outside of the inner city with the same # of units will be cheaper to service the closer to the source of the services it is, especially in an area designed to handle it from the get go.

Upgrading a inner city lot to a large condo unit typically requires services upgraded, and this all costs money too. There's a crap ton of sewage pumping stations just handling the extra flow from these buildings that have to be maintained, in addition to the upsized piping. The more you have, the more costly it becomes. Now, I also see a benefit of having 4 condo buildings on the same block so you can use one pumping station of 250hp pumps instead of spreading them out. The matter isn't as simple as everyone makes it though, services isn't just the amount of pipe/wire it takes to service one person.

I'd really like to see the city breakdown service maintenance costs for specific areas, but we likely will never get that info.