Ongoing YYCCC (Chu + Farkas) Transgressions Threat

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Calgary residential property taxes are still lower than most other places. It's just that before they were even lower due to oil companies covering them for us. That's not happening now, but it doesn't mean we are in big trouble, it's just that we have come back to reality.





https://globalnews.ca/news/4311558/p...cities-canada/

That's a pretty terrible metric though. Who cares how much your house costs? There is very little correlation to home value and services required. IMO it should be based on something like metres of street frontage or something.

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

That's a pretty terrible metric though. Who cares how much your house costs? There is very little correlation to home value and services required. IMO it should be based on something like metres of street frontage or something.

Yes it makes Vancouver look like they have low property taxes, but really it is their assessments that are sky-high. Even an average property tax per person or per family would be a much more meaningful stat than property tax per assessed home value.

[Ozy_Flame]

Edmonton has high property taxes and it's noticeable after living in both cities. Would prefer Calgary's in a heartbeat.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Flamenspiel

^^Lets cut the arena, about $300M, let’s cut the Olympics, about $500M.....

I don't disagree. I voted 'no' in the olympics plebiscite, and I vehemently believe the City should have told CSEC to pound sand w.r.t. a new arena.

I think people forget that the only councillors who voted against the arena deal were Farkas, Farrell, Woolley and Chahal. So-called conservatives Magliocca, Demong and Chu voted for it.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

So this would be solved by City Hall being staffed with Manning Centre cronies, how?

I am not suggesting any specific candidates or political affiliations. What I am saying is that we need to do a re-think and have a proper strategy going forward. Doing what we have been doing hasn't helped anybody.

We are now headed into a 7th year of poor economic conditions in Calgary and there really isn't much expectations of end in sight.

This has been an epic failure across everybody in charge in every step of government in city, provincial and federal. I mean nobody really has much in the way of ideas and made any progress.

I keep up with news very very closely but I am very hard pressed to any meaningful impact that any of the economic organizations have had in attracting business. We may have landed some new jobs in Calgary but I don't even think we have landed any existing companies to move here and take advantage of low commercial rents! I am sure a few have come but it's not like we have landed a few big deals and with that, tens of thousands of jobs.

A lot of the vacant and commercial lease space hasn't really dropped in price for small and medium sized business, one of the reasons why is high property taxes, business taxes, utilities and other costs.

The same thing can be said on the residential rent front. Does anybody know a lot of people these days skinning landlords on rent? Have rent's really come down for a lot of people? Nope, they are still fairly high considering the same factors above.

Like I had said in my first post, I don't think we can try and do everything at the same time. High rents, high taxes, high fee's, high vacancies, expensive parking, expensive utilities, a poor economy, negative demographic changes and a whole host of other things. We have situations where some big business are leaving the inner city due to costs and rents and we have the little guy who can't afford to get into space in the burbs.

A lot of changes will need to come and some of them are going to be uncomfortable for a lot of people. Cut's in services are going to come, taxes will need to be either flat or reduced, we will need to start building a city that has some more spice that attracts a lot of people. We literally have a massive amount of commercial and residential real estate that we need to fill and are in the process of building even more!

I am just frustrated with the situation in Calgary, Alberta and Canada as a whole and I do think we all deserve better. It is getting hard to see when we will get there

[timun]

Originally Posted by curves2000

A lot of the vacant and commercial lease space hasn't really dropped in price for small and medium sized business, one of the reasons why is high property taxes, business taxes, utilities and other costs.

Lower rents would actually help commercial property taxes to go down, as commercial property values are in large part tied to average lease rates.

You're not seeing commercial leases dropping because they're at the floor; if they got any lower it wouldn't be worth renting the space at all. Hence why the landlords are just sitting on vacant spaces than desperately trying to fill them with anything and everything.

With respect to property taxes, commercial mill rates have gone up because overall commercial property value has dropped so much, and it's the value of the big towers downtown that have dropped the most. As such taxes on smaller properties—especially ones that are still in high demand such as 17th Ave SW, 9th Ave SE, Kensington Rd/10th St NW—are going up. It's a crappy result of the way we charge property taxes, but that's the provincial government's doing, not the municipal government. Don't forget the provincial government upped their cut of property tax revenue, so even just keeping the city's revenue steady means they must raise the rates to compensate.

And the city doesn't levy business taxes anymore, so that's a non-starter.

The same thing can be said on the residential rent front. Does anybody know a lot of people these days skinning landlords on rent? Have rent's really come down for a lot of people? Nope, they are still fairly high considering the same factors above.

Landlords still have to pay mortgages, and they don't want to lock into leases that guarantee them a loss. Same thing as on the commercial side, really. Rents are about as low as they're ever going to get.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

That's a pretty terrible metric though. Who cares how much your house costs? There is very little correlation to home value and services required. IMO it should be based on something like metres of street frontage or something.

True enough, but by dollar value we still pay relatively low taxes compared to other cities. Bad chart though, agreed.



Disagree about charging by frontage! That would hurt me.

[timun]

If we really wanted to charges property taxes based roughly on costs incurred to service a given property we would divvy it up by neighbourhood population density and distance from downtown, i.e. the more spread out and further away a neighbourhood is from the city centre, the more money you pay. It'll never happen though, it's political suicide.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by timun

If we really wanted to charges property taxes based roughly on costs incurred to service a given property we would divvy it up by neighbourhood population density and distance from downtown, i.e. the more spread out and further away a neighbourhood is from the city centre, the more money you pay. It'll never happen though, it's political suicide.

Distance from downtown or distance from the service provider?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

That's a pretty terrible metric though. Who cares how much your house costs? There is very little correlation to home value and services required. IMO it should be based on something like metres of street frontage or something.

Median paid tax would likely be the best way to compare jurisdictions.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by timun

If we really wanted to charges property taxes based roughly on costs incurred to service a given property we would divvy it up by neighbourhood population density and distance from downtown, i.e. the more spread out and further away a neighbourhood is from the city centre, the more money you pay. It'll never happen though, it's political suicide.

No,

The cost of sprawl is based on the square footage of land you occupy rather than distance from downtown. Distance from downtown is just a matter of income.

A person with a 50 foot x 150 pre 1990 lot causes the rest of the city to be get bigger requiring servicing. A modern burb with a 35 x 100 has 1/4 the impact. Apartment dwellers get screwed even more where they might only take up 50 square feet of city. The goal should be to have to pay for the externalities of your decision.

So a portion of property taxes should be area based and a portion flat and a portion based on income.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Calgary residential property taxes are still lower than most other places. It's just that before they were even lower due to oil companies covering them for us. That's not happening now, but it doesn't mean we are in big trouble, it's just that we have come back to reality.





https://globalnews.ca/news/4311558/p...cities-canada/

Important to point out in regards to Vancouver is the role TransLink plays in keeping the property tax rate low (albeit the home values mean dollars paid is high). Public transportation and major roads, including bridges, eat up an enourmous portion of a city's budget, but TransLink gets to collect from the entire GVRD, but most importantly collects fuel taxes.



So a lot more flexibility with funding for some of the most expensive things definitely helps.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Calgary's debt problem: Simply put into a household finance terms.

Stop right there. Apples and Oranges. Governments are not like households.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/frances.../#1d0c7ce554f8

[timun]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Distance from downtown or distance from the service provider?

Generally the two are going to correlate. And don't forget that every new 'burb means more roads, more water and sewer pipes, etc., which have to tie into our existing networks somehow, which often entail having to upsize the existing stuff to make the new tie-in work. Development at the periphery of the developed parts of the city causes us to have to make upgrades closer to the core.

Take roads as an example. Consider the Crowchild Trail bridge improvements that have been going on the last few years. Why did that project have to happen at all? Brutal traffic crossing the bridge. Where'd it come from? Commuters from Royal Oak, Rocky Ridge, Tuscany, Scenic Acres, Arbour Lake, Citadel, etc., etc. It was an inner city project, but had their suburban neighbourhoods not existed it wouldn't have caused the problem in the first place.

Same with the transit system. Fares only cover about half the system cost, and far more money is spent on a per-rider basis on the service that the 'burbs get. Take our LRT system: it's geared toward getting suburban commuters downtown, it barely serves the inner city outside of downtown at all. We're talking about expanding it with the Green Line, that'll go waaaay the **** out to Shepard, but one of the first things in the plan on the chopping block was a station in Crescent Heights, right across the bloody river from downtown.

But this is all getting into very esoteric externalities. How'd you even quantify it? How would do so without pissing a hell of a lot of people off? Practically you can't, hence we charge people based on a guess at their property values. At least you can do an analysis that makes property values fairly easily explainable.

Originally Posted by GGG

No,

The cost of sprawl is based on the square footage of land you occupy

And I said property tax ought to be based on density, didn't I? Let me check the tape... yup, sure did.

...rather than distance from downtown. Distance from downtown is just a matter of income.

A person with a 50 foot x 150 pre 1990 lot causes the rest of the city to be get bigger requiring servicing. A modern burb with a 35 x 100 has 1/4 the impact. Apartment dwellers get screwed even more where they might only take up 50 square feet of city. The goal should be to have to pay for the externalities of your decision.

So a portion of property taxes should be area based and a portion flat and a portion based on income.

Ah, now we're really starting to get esoteric, hahaha! "The blame for someone buying in some greenfield development rests with the greedy people who live on 50-ft inner city lots and won't divvy 'em up!" Hahaha, that's a new one.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by timun

And I said property tax ought to be based on density, didn't I? Let me check the tape... yup, sure did.



Ah, now we're really starting to get esoteric, hahaha! "The blame for someone buying in some greenfield development rests with the greedy people who live on 50-ft inner city lots and won't divvy 'em up!" Hahaha, that's a new one.

It’s not esoteric, every person in the city occupies x square feet. The cost of servicing a city is a result of its total square feet. It does not matter where those square feet are located. So yes the location of the next burb being built is the fault of every single piece of property built and occupied before it. If all lots were half the size then the cost of servicing the next burb would be lower. So why should the next burb bear the costs of the decisions of all the residents before it.

Basing it on distance from downtown is just classist and really would only drive the cost of inner city housing higher with the benefits going to the 50 foot lot owners exacerbating the problem.

Location does not matter, square footage of city used does.

[timun]

Originally Posted by GGG

It does not matter where those square feet are located. ...

Location does not matter, square footage of city used does.

Ha, no, that's total horse****, and I think you know it.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by timun

Ha, no, that's total horse****, and I think you know it.

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.

[Yoho]

[/S]

Originally Posted by Ducay

I think I posted this in the last election thread from 2017, but Davison came to my house door knocking, and immediately you could tell he is fake and just looking to this role as a stepping stone. It's been no surprise as he flip flops on issues and sells his vote based on who he is appeasing or who might give him the best "next step" after councillor-hood.

Jealousy doesn’t look good on you.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Incidentally, Druh Farrell voted against both of those, yet Rick Bell and the editorial staff at the Calgary Sun regularly label her as the big spender on council. Yet if Calgary actually adopted the things she advocates for (greater housing density, reduced urban sprawl to the outskirts of city limits, less car dependency, etc.) it would significantly reduce The City's operating costs in the long term.

Too bad we listened to her on bridges and that library.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Yoho

Too bad we listened to her on bridges and that library.

Bridge was provincial money earmarked for pedestrian infrastructure improvements.

Has paid for itself in reduced home heating costs for large portions of the city with all the unbridled rage it causes people.

The library was a CRL and community investment fund that, IIRC, drew from the Municipal Sustainability Initiative which is also a provincial funding source with restricted uses (one of which being libraries). $25M was for the LRT encapsulation which would have been required to have any kind of development on that site.

So neither are particularly good examples of projects that affect the city’s tax needs and operations.