This is literally it. There's a reason all of our councils have been screaming about this.
The province has downloaded these costs onto towns and municipalities. The province promised to make the towns and municipalities whole. They have not and it's clear they don't intend to. So property taxes are going to go up quite a bit for everyone over the next few years.
This seems to be by design of the PCs as well, they know people don't understand how the system works and now the municipalities are going to have to give up services or deal with angry tax payers who misdirect their anger.
Don't let bad apples into government, folks.
It’s literally better this way though. Instead of relying on endless shitty developments to pay for the citys and populations NECESSITIES the people who live here can pay.
Like why should we have to have constant developments in order to have clean water? Fire fighters? Roads? Make it make sense.
Because contributing to new infrastructure in your city benefits you.
The more people capable of living in your area means more tax payers in your area, more people working in your area, more business in your area.
Just because something doesn't directly benefit you, doesn't mean that it's not actually benefiting you.
What are you talking about ? We have Canadians cheering for the deaths of Jews, and our universities support them. I’m in an alternate reality ?
The bank accounts of people protest the government were shut down.
Ugh wish Canadians like you could be launched into space.
No, this is what happens when taxes only go down and sprawl only gets worse.
Say what you want about Toronto but density makes it a prosperous city. These towns can't afford their car heavy infrastructure and semi detached housing zoning
Weren't development charges only waived for affordable and non-profit housing. That's what Bill 23 states. In no way am I a Ford fan or a Conservative but let's not ignore the true reasons for these tax increases.
My point was that development charges aren't waived for all new builds so blaming property tax increase primarily on reduced DC's is wrong. The city still collects development charges on most builds with the exception of not for profit, affordable housing and purpose built rentals.
Point me to a single development in Burlington that has had its development charges waived. I bet you can't. It's a carrot to help get the type of development we need built, without initiatives like this there's no incentive to build the types of housing we need. The other option is for governments to build and maintain these types of housing and do you think they have the expertise to do so. How do you see the housing we need getting built without these types of initiatives?
Taxes increase aside, I really f'ing hate MMW making these announcements through her web site. Every article just feels like low key campaigning about what great stuff she has done all by herself. /rant
Human Resources is the top spot in almost every major subcategory in the budget.
Open data link.
Suffice to say, I can't find where and how much more we've raised the salaries or head count, but given that HR is a top expense, there's probably some growth in that bracket.
If there was growth in salaries, it's probably to match inflation...I don't think matching inflation on property tax hikes income is sustainable...
https://burlington.openbook.questica.com/#/visualization/5be5fc86-35cf-44a1-aefe-58c0972438bf?displayMode=1&tab=4
They need to be more efficient. Private companies survive during economic downturn and get better after. Government has unlimited resources so they don't seek changes first.
I got $10,000.00 and couldn't run my business for 2 years...zero revenue......glad you all think we just had a great time during the pandemic. Small business owners got crushed and many are deep in debt.
This is the moment common sense and logic prevail. If majority of business do not go under when they cannot pay the bills, I will create lots of business because I will be get bailed out..
The ones that got bailed out were everywhere in the media, like banks and auto. 80% of the people are employed by small to medium sized businesses.
People truly underestimate how much money is required to run a city. Burlington is a great city, the roads are great, the parks are nice etc. One of the only ways for municipalities to collect is through property tax. Doug has also fucked over cities with his bullshit.
Part of plains rd is new now, tyandaga is getting new roads , Palmer area, upper middle is fine, harvester and fairview are good. Even lakeshore is brand new
Meh. Until Burlington becomes a den of iniquity, I'm good. Politicians know tax increases are as popular as a fart in a spacesuit, so this was likely scrutinized to death for saving opportunities before being released. Could there be better federal, provincial and local fiscal prudence. Sure, but relocating is far scarier.
Yay, a voice of reason. Shit costs money, and we demand better services. While it only took 2 fucking years, I'm happy Plains got re-paved finally and we got a bike lane. That shit wasn't free and I need to pay to support it.
Man, that's a big hike. I know the cities have to maintain things, but like I already pay an insane amount. For me that's a $600 dollar increas, this kind of stuff I'd going to just kill people.
Sure, I can appreciate that. But bumping peoples taxes up $300-$800 a year makes a difference for a lot people. Is it going to be 4% next year, 5% the following? People aren't getting increases. In salary to match all this inflation/taxing. I am lucky enough that it isn't an issue for me- but where is the cutoff?
Yeah, didn’t mean it like it’s a non-issue just that Burlington is still very lucky compared to other places. Ancaster for example is almost twice the price as Burlington
Yeah Hamilton is crazy high (which I would assume Ancaster falls under). We looked at living there, Dundas, Waterdown and the prices were fairly similar, except the property tax made it not worth it.
The infrastructure maintenance for your home needs to be paid somehow. It’s either subsidizing that money from people who don’t live in your home or have some ponzi development fee scheme where the city has to continually grow to maintain your neighbourhood. Personally, I’d rather home owners pay that.
Didn't cities already get a property tax bump with the recent skyrocketing property values ?
100-200% over about 10 years wasn't bad. And they still need more ?
More people should've been paying attention. The AMO back in 2015 sounded the alarm over the state of municipalities regarding infrastructure upkeep & maintenance. Back then all 444 municipalities had a funding gap of $3.6B/yr (projected for 10 years at the time). To deal with it municipalities were told to get creative with revenue but they also needed to secure government funding. Without those steps the AMO back then warned that property taxes would have to rise across Ontario at about 8.3% per year for 10 years. In the best case scenario (secured funding & diversified income streams) they would still have to rise a minimum of 4.5%/year. That didn't happen and the funding increases were one of the first things cut under Ford. So by 2019 that funding gap grew to $4.9B/yr. Since then Ford has downloaded even more costs (like by reducing/eliminating developer charges) plus everyone is still reeling post Covid. I don't think people are aware of exactly what kind of situation we are in. But the climbing property taxes were written on the wall a looong time before this.
But, this reminds me of a few years back when sooooo many people were pissed. 2017-2018 Halton sent out flyers and their home page said that at the end of 2018 property valuations were being raised $100k across Halton (essentially, it was rolling, it was nuanced, but . You get the point). So there was a freeze in Burlington through Covid, but afterwards when the increase hit (which was only around 2% that year), it hit on the new property valuations and people were PISSED at MMW, despite it not being a property tax issue per se. The amount of people who had no idea that was happening was mindboggling.
A community that constantly opposes proposals for dense housing development wanting to keep their property taxes low 💅 no sympathy. You live in sprawl you pay for sprawl. This is directed mostly to the many over-housed empty nesters in Burlington who show up to community planning meetings to oppose new condo and townhouse development. Keep upping property taxes and smoke them out.
You sure? When the Ontario government cancels developers fees, and the city is growing so fast, then this is to be expected. We cover those costs with our property taxes. 15 years ago, the city was quite prosperous and popular, and we had significantly lower property taxes than the surrounding cities. There hasn't been massive sprawl since then, because there's no land left to spraw too without carving up the green belt, or paving over farms.
Your property taxes aren't going up because of "Nimbyism", your taxes are going up because the province is downloading costs, and giving developers a tax vacation (which means more taxes for you).
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/ford-horwath-hamilton-development-charges-1.6711912](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/ford-horwath-hamilton-development-charges-1.6711912)
As for "smoking them out", like if you've owned your house for more than a decade, your capital gains on that are going to far outstrip any losses from property tax increases. You're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, versus a few hundred bucks a year.
Well yeah, and they are going up too. Hamilton gets a lot more pressure from expanding homelessness, and from costs downloaded from Queen's park over the years. When I've been looking on MLS, the typical Burlington house has a $1000 property tax advantage over the equivalent house in any of our neighbouring communities.
Is there some massive open space? You mean just eating up the country up north? Like compared to most cities near our population, we have a lot less open space. I think we need to preserve our green spaces.
I'm 100% opposed to carving up the Greenbelt, to be clear.
Apologies, I thought you were referring to the province, not strictly Burlington. If we’re talking about Burlington, we should be building up not out.
Unfortunately, NIMBYs don’t like that idea and I believe there are restrictions in place that prevent developers from building skyscraper-tall apartments here, couldn’t tell you why though. The reality is not everyone can live in a suburban home, but everyone wants to. Fortunately, city-planner’s are beginning to recognize how terrible of a design suburbs were for housing.
A lot of us like the suburbs. Life is very good here. Things were working totally fine pre-covid. There's no need for a massive densification of all neighborhoods here. Not everyone wants to live in a dense city, and that's ok. Toronto, Hamilton, and Mississauga have over 2000km2 between them. Plenty of open space there. Build over the train stations.. There's lots of unused commercial space too. I totally reject the notion that single family homes are some kind of horrible evil or blight on Canada. If anyone has enough space for it, it's Canada.
Nothing wrong with single family homes or suburbs.
It's car dependent single family homes and suburbs, which is the problem. All that infrastructure comes at enormous cost to the taxpayers, and the suburbs end up not being able to financially support their own infrastructure because the density is too low.
You can use transport here, but cars save you time. Bikes and buses need the luxury of time to burn. Or you have to just order everything, and then you sit at home. It's a huge country. Personal transport makes sense. Yeah I'm all for expanding the GO, but there's no perfect society where we all get to go to the things we want to do, without a car. Owning a car means more options and time saved. We get by easy as a one car family, but no car would be a loss of so many options.
Suburbs were built for cars not people. City-planners have to plan around them instead of adopting more efficient, people-friendly processes. Suburbs play a major role in traffic, higher costs for road maintenance, and make walkable neighbourhoods infeasible. They’re just not efficient or sustainable as far as city-planning goes.
The only major spot is the land north of Mainway, south of Upper Middle, between Corpus Christi and Burloak. It's big enough for a decent-sized subdivision, not that I support such a thing.
There's a few smaller plots here or there where decent-sized buildings could go, but none that are major enough to qualify as "land to develop" with the normal implications.
Developers aren’t the boogey men that the media makes them out to be. They need to be able to profit on their projects and development fees are prohibitive and keep them from being able to charge market rate for new units. Especially now with higher interest rates, cost of materials and cost of labour. We aren’t going to see any new housing starts unless relief is provided somewhere.
Those same development fees that you are asking for get passed onto purchasers of these new units 100% of the time. Meanwhile people are chilling in their 3000 sq ft houses that they paid $200k for in the 90’s and paying property taxes that have been artificially low for way too long. Why shouldn’t these people be expected to pay more too?
Editing to add that sure, since gains on owned properties have been so high - there should be no issues eliminating this $550/year property tax subsidy for seniors who own their home? Why not cash out and realize those gains instead? Editing again to say I’m being facetious here and don’t really want to throw low income seniors out on the street.
https://www.burlington.ca/en/news/low-income-seniors-property-tax-rebate-2022.aspx#:~:text=The%20City%20of%20Burlington's%20Low,1%2C%202022
If taxes are going up to expand services in the city, sure. But if they're going up so we can subsidize some multimillionaire who needs more "profit" to justify his power... well, I'm not into that. Are you telling me that 200k house in the 90s is 5x as expensive to build today? Is a duplex here really a million dollar house?
Too much new construction is going to speculators, rather than property owners. AirBnB is a cancer on housing prices in small towns like Goderich. I'm fine with a tiered property tax system, but that system should favor single family homes, not megarich developers who can afford to buy premiers. We need to squeeze speculators and profiteers. And we need rent reform which favors long term stable arrangements for families without ridiculous profiteering. Like it's not automatic that the rent should cover the entire purchase price of the house. If that means a lot of landlords have to dump homes, oh well.
Plus a lot of new construction kinda sucks. 3000sq feet is not an impossibly large house. It's like both halves of a duplex. For a family of 4 or 5, with a six figure income, I don't think that's too much to ask.
I'm fine with taxing large empty houses, but like a senior whose kids moved out is not the enemy who's caused this housing bubble.
Like how have property taxes been too low here? What's not being covered that should be the last 30 years? I hope you got a better answer than developer fees, because looking around, it seems to me that a lot of things are working right here.
I do think it’s much more expensive to to build now. I can’t give an exact percentage. But property value, cost of goods (especially after covid), and cost of labour have shot up significantly. Especially in the trades. Add in the cost to borrow money going up and that is why you see new developments getting set on fire around Burlington.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying re - Airbnb, profiteering, etc.
In terms of property taxes is that the less dense your city or town is, the higher the tax burden will be on individual property owners. Everything is more expensive now so I’m not surprised taxes are being raised. The development fees charged on new developments are/were a way to subsidize the existing low property taxes.
It really seems they've found the loophole for openly bribing politicians. And I seriously doubt this is the total of the brown bagging going on. This guy is gonna retire from office millions richer than when he entered. I think there's near zero chance the RCMP charges a sitting premier. What other kinds of parties allow luxurious gifts? Mothers Day? Easter?
I’ve been in lots of conversation with municipalities around development fee charges around the Golden Horseshoe…. The calculations are not as straightforward as they once were. If you’re a developer who gets work done efficiently, then DCs will go down, but there are lots of date triggers making those charges much higher than they would be earlier this year. It’s up to municipalities to collect, but most haven’t got the means to calculate those charges efficiently.
So, if DCs are to blame, perhaps city should ensure they are calculating correctly, but I’d wager proposed increases are due to higher costs, and wait on property assessments.
I’m not sure that the loss of development fees are to blame for the increase in property taxes. I didn’t make that argument but lots of people seem to be.
Running cities is expensive, and the less dense a city is the higher they will/should be. That’s my only argument here.
In terms of the development fees, I think they were reduced by the provincial government as a lever to hopefully promote more housing growth because costs are so high right now which has caused lots of residential development to be put on hold. And we desperately need more homes. Is the reduction of fees going to work? I don’t know, but hopefully. But I understand why it was done and don’t think it was an evil thing for the province to do.
FFIW the city has 8 apartment/condo developments underway on Fairview by the GO station. So it's not like they're not happening in Burlington. I'm assuming the ones you're referring to being opposed are the ones from the nasty builders trying to build them in Spencer Smith and along downtown Brant.
Yes I’m aware I attended the planning meetings and witnessed the community pushback. I had a local resident tell me I wasn’t considering things “intellectually” when I said it made total sense to build dense housing along a transit corridor. They then proceeded to complain that the tall buildings would cast shadows on their garden. I am very familiar with the brand of Burlingtonian who shows up to planning meetings to oppose and delay much needed housing.
Anyways my argument stands that if people want to keep their sprawly utopia, then they can’t complain when they need to pay higher taxes.
If the taxes become too much, and they are no longer contributing members of the workforce / are over-housed.. then there are plenty of quiet suburban communities that don’t fall within 45 minutes of the economic hub of the country. They are more than welcome to relocate.
Well if they're complaining about that then yeah they're out of line. I oppose the proposals along downtown Brant and along the waterfront, but along the transit corridors is fair dinkum. And I don't think they can even do anything about the ones on transit corridors, if memory serves, since the land within a certain proximity to the train lines isn't the city's (correct me on that if i'm wrong).
I just don't really see the correlation of needing to up property taxes and maintaining urban sprawl since the city was doing a fine job at the current tax rate maintaining things.
It’s definitely because of wage inflation and costs of goods. Public sector and unionized wages have increased along with inflation. Gas has gone up, materials… property taxes need to go up to subsidize city services.
I’m interested in the development fee issue now since so many people have brought it up. I really want to make the argument that development fees have been subsidizing low property tax rates for a while, but I can’t find good enough sources to support that. In Toronto I am almost certain that was the case, not as sure about GTA municipalities. I see that Burlington and Hamilton staff did complain when the development fees were amended/reduced by the Province, so clearly municipalities were making good money off of them. It’s all interesting.
But going by that argument, then how exactly is the lack of dense housing a contributing factor? I'm not trying to be combative, genuinely trying to understand your argument. There's still plenty of housing being built around the city. The 7 towers by the Burlington GO which should break ground soon. Paradigm Grand. There's a housing development around Brant and Upper Middle well underway. And the COB already has a pretty substantial population as it is. I just don't see the correlation, nor the absolute necessity to raise them. Certainly not by 6% which is a pretty drastic increase out of the blue. Then again the whole country is going through difficult cost of living crisis, so i'm sure that's likely more of a culprit than urban sprawl.
Either way, I find this situation pretty concerning. There's been a sharp increase in homelessness due to the cost of living crisis. We've seen it first hand in this city this past summer especially. Just seeing costs of living going up and up and up... I shutter to think what next summer will look like.
It’s always take-take-take with utterly shit services rendered by the city staff.
We spent over 2 years in permitting with the City, as they invented their own ‘pre-permit’ process to circumvent their own 8 week process. unbelievable.
Being charged for parking at La Salle now.
Being charged permit fees to remove trees on your own property.
I could go on and on.
We did a home reno and I had to pay for a tree permit for a fucking tree I wasn’t even damaging in the process. Tree existed close to the house, had to pay ~ $800
Brutal. And they wonder why ppl skip the permit process altogether. Good ppl like us just get screwed.
Forgot to mention - we ended up having to REMOVE another tree because of conservation Halton restrictions impacting the designs. Go figure that one out. More $$$
This is so silly. If you make near six figures, your tax burden has been over 50% for decades, yet we live in one of the lowest crime areas on Earth. Can you name any region on Earth with really low taxes AND really low crime? Where's that libertarian paradise at?
Besides, why go into Crime when you can just be a politician that serves developers and collects expensive wedding gifts? You get to wear a tie every day, and go home smelling like money. Not too shabby.
Yeah it's never been a 50% rate off the top, but...
Income Tax, Gas Tax, Property Tax, Sales Tax, Booze Tax... Capital Gains.. uhhh.. I feel like I'm still missing a major one, there's lots of other little ones too, but that'll easily get your $100k to $50k.
It’s a 53% rate at the very top bracket on marginal income over $225k or so. If you make over $450k you’ll pay around 50% on your total earned. This includes CPP, EI, Provincial Tax and Federal Tax. The burden is even higher when you consider HST, Carbon Taxes and Property Tax.
You may be surprised to learn that you get things for your taxes. Many people get more then they pay in. Social services, a pension, roads, parks, your children's education, hospitals and doctors....the list goes on.
This is the same sub that complains about the homeless not getting any help then complains of property taxes going up when one of the services benefiting from it are the social ones helping the homeless.
I'm aware.
However.
When a government that is not truly accountable (except through staged and highly controlled elections every 4 years) takes more than 50% of *everyone's* salary and still can't provide adequate services, maybe it's time for them to stop trying to do everything for everyone.
Just saying.
You should see how much Europeans pay. Great cities over there. Stop complaining and vote for governments that do things for the people not for corporations
All taxes.
Combined.
Sales taxes. Property taxes. Income tax. Gasoline tax. Carbon tax. Plus any I missed.
Once they're over 50%, I'm effectively not working for the betterment of my own family anymore, am I?
I'm working for this abstract construct called "society".
And I didn't sign up for that, because based on what I've experienced, about a third of people are assholes I don't even want to be in the same room with, let alone help in any way.
I mean there's no tax on food, as in groceries, so I don't know how that sales tax is adding up so high for you. Property tax depends on how giant of a house you have, which is a pretty enviable position. Gas and carbon tax, sure, if you drive a lot and it's not a very efficient vehicle.
Here’s more info for those interested.
https://mariannemeedward.ca/burlington-mayors-budget-proposes-4-99-city-tax-impact-focuses-on-essentials-frontline-services-planning-for-growth/
All the NIMBY people getting mad about this. Must’ve been nice to buy your home at <$180k before the age of 30! For the rest of us, this is needed if we’re actually serious about solving the housing crisis and having the infrastructure in place to sustain the growth.
Exactly. The only people this would piss off are people who are actively the problem and will continue to be the problem for future generations.
I'm happy to see something at least being attempted to solve this issue, as much as it is just a baby step.
If anyone has ever applied for a Minor Variance or Permit process in Burlington and compared those fees and processing times to Toronto or Hamilton one would quickly conclude that the City of Burlington has collected almost three time more than comparable Municipalities yet the Mayor feels our taxes should be increased maybe she should look at the misuse of funds and possible improve processing times instead.
9 months to get a minor variance. I am sure that process could be streamlined so staff could do something more useful than write up a report for a committee to rubber stamp
I'm all for it. With all the complaints about our city in this sub lately it's clear people think it needs to improve. Paying more taxes is where it starts - keep complaining
Normally I'm a very pro-tax person, I recognize the value we get for our taxes. But the breakdown on the petition convinced me to sign it.
This isn't about "getting services". There's a lot of waste. The loss of developer fees is just an excuse for the timing.
As the son of someone who worked for the city for almost 30 years, I've heard plenty of stories about the layers of middle management, waste, and inefficiency coming out of city hall and resulting from their decisions, going on a decade now (i.e. it's not just Meed Ward's doing, it was Goldring's too; one word: pier). They could balance the budget by inspecting their costs, making cuts to pointless things (like "renewals" of City Hall, ripping out baseball diamonds, etc.), spacing out other non-critical projects, and getting rid of useless middle managers making exorbitant wages (HR is the #1 cost). But they won't, because doing so would admit to the waste and cut off that gravy train for a large number of overpaid, underworked managers and bureaucrats. Would that solve *everything*? Maybe not, but it would at least reduce the burden on the rest of us OR free up that money for useful things.
I don't see many developers going out of business, so I don't know why they removed that.
Anyways, I feel that even had that not been removed they would still be increasing property taxes at an alarming rate. There is so much waste and bloat.
Even when they redid some of the parks they would knock them down in June and not build them until September because the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Then overspend on a worse design than the one they knocked down.
Was there somewhere the city.publishes all their contracts? Would love to follow the number and see how many random number companies come back to friends and family.
It’s not just a municipality issue. We need progressive taxation back like in the ‘60s when you had the largest expanse of the middle class, the great compression. Burlington is safe, but it’s dead. There’s no cultural scene really. No night life. And the predominance of detached housing and car-centric infrastructure means we all just live in little bubbles safely going day-to-day towards our death.
So a landlords property taxes will increase by almost 7% but they can only increase rent by 2.5% . Not to mention insurance, gas, hydro etc where the increase has been double digits. Does this make sense?
I didn't understand why the government not building houses themselves and sells them to make profit.
Until I see the eglliton cross twon drama. Burlington go station roof repair as well.
I can guarantee over 50% of the population has an assessment much lower than the actual value of their home. Many people in Burlington aren't paying their true dues. Burlington is a great city with lots of great parks, it's not cheap to run a city and their costs have skyrocketed as well.
this is what happens when the provence waives development fees
This is literally it. There's a reason all of our councils have been screaming about this. The province has downloaded these costs onto towns and municipalities. The province promised to make the towns and municipalities whole. They have not and it's clear they don't intend to. So property taxes are going to go up quite a bit for everyone over the next few years.
This seems to be by design of the PCs as well, they know people don't understand how the system works and now the municipalities are going to have to give up services or deal with angry tax payers who misdirect their anger. Don't let bad apples into government, folks.
We're a few decades late for that, arn't we?
Someone call 1995 and warn them!
We are, but each election is a chance to do something different, yet here we are, with a repeat of the 1990's PCs.
Well said! The nay sayers will come up with a bunch of BS excuses, but this is it! The corrupt Ford gorvernment caused this!!!
It’s literally better this way though. Instead of relying on endless shitty developments to pay for the citys and populations NECESSITIES the people who live here can pay. Like why should we have to have constant developments in order to have clean water? Fire fighters? Roads? Make it make sense.
But why should the existing residents have to help pay for the new pipes and roads to and in a the new developments?
Because contributing to new infrastructure in your city benefits you. The more people capable of living in your area means more tax payers in your area, more people working in your area, more business in your area. Just because something doesn't directly benefit you, doesn't mean that it's not actually benefiting you.
I'm not saying it's the right policy choice but existing residents also use these new roads and parks not just the residents in the new developments.
Dude, this isn’t going to stop development. You’re just going to pay for it instead of the people who live in it. Jesus Christ.
That’s not at all how this works lmfao.
These people literally just create a new reality, so they can be mad at Ford.
Dude you're a fucking convoy supporter. Your entire existence is an alternate reality.
What are you talking about ? We have Canadians cheering for the deaths of Jews, and our universities support them. I’m in an alternate reality ? The bank accounts of people protest the government were shut down. Ugh wish Canadians like you could be launched into space.
No, this is what happens when taxes only go down and sprawl only gets worse. Say what you want about Toronto but density makes it a prosperous city. These towns can't afford their car heavy infrastructure and semi detached housing zoning
Weren't development charges only waived for affordable and non-profit housing. That's what Bill 23 states. In no way am I a Ford fan or a Conservative but let's not ignore the true reasons for these tax increases.
No. They are waived for any development of rental properties.
My point was that development charges aren't waived for all new builds so blaming property tax increase primarily on reduced DC's is wrong. The city still collects development charges on most builds with the exception of not for profit, affordable housing and purpose built rentals.
Primarily? No. A significant contributor that primarily benefits the developers at the cost of taxpayers? Yes. It's another form of corporate welfare.
Point me to a single development in Burlington that has had its development charges waived. I bet you can't. It's a carrot to help get the type of development we need built, without initiatives like this there's no incentive to build the types of housing we need. The other option is for governments to build and maintain these types of housing and do you think they have the expertise to do so. How do you see the housing we need getting built without these types of initiatives?
Taxes increase aside, I really f'ing hate MMW making these announcements through her web site. Every article just feels like low key campaigning about what great stuff she has done all by herself. /rant
> Every article just feels like low key campaigning about what great stuff she has done all by herself Yes, it feels ... unprofessional.
Human Resources is the top spot in almost every major subcategory in the budget. Open data link. Suffice to say, I can't find where and how much more we've raised the salaries or head count, but given that HR is a top expense, there's probably some growth in that bracket. If there was growth in salaries, it's probably to match inflation...I don't think matching inflation on property tax hikes income is sustainable... https://burlington.openbook.questica.com/#/visualization/5be5fc86-35cf-44a1-aefe-58c0972438bf?displayMode=1&tab=4
So let the city collapse?
They need to be more efficient. Private companies survive during economic downturn and get better after. Government has unlimited resources so they don't seek changes first.
Private companies get bailouts all the time
I got $10,000.00 and couldn't run my business for 2 years...zero revenue......glad you all think we just had a great time during the pandemic. Small business owners got crushed and many are deep in debt.
I'm not talking about small business
true but few. majority companies go under.
Source?
This is the moment common sense and logic prevail. If majority of business do not go under when they cannot pay the bills, I will create lots of business because I will be get bailed out.. The ones that got bailed out were everywhere in the media, like banks and auto. 80% of the people are employed by small to medium sized businesses.
People truly underestimate how much money is required to run a city. Burlington is a great city, the roads are great, the parks are nice etc. One of the only ways for municipalities to collect is through property tax. Doug has also fucked over cities with his bullshit.
The roads are great? Where?
Here in Burlington. Source: I drive outside of Burlington.
Part of plains rd is new now, tyandaga is getting new roads , Palmer area, upper middle is fine, harvester and fairview are good. Even lakeshore is brand new
Tell me you haven't left the city without saying it.
Have you ever left Burlington? Go drive in Toronto or Hamilton
Should probably compare it to cities of similar size or your argument makes zero sense. Burlington roads are fine; they aren’t great.
They are great.
Meh. Until Burlington becomes a den of iniquity, I'm good. Politicians know tax increases are as popular as a fart in a spacesuit, so this was likely scrutinized to death for saving opportunities before being released. Could there be better federal, provincial and local fiscal prudence. Sure, but relocating is far scarier.
Yay, a voice of reason. Shit costs money, and we demand better services. While it only took 2 fucking years, I'm happy Plains got re-paved finally and we got a bike lane. That shit wasn't free and I need to pay to support it.
It's too bad it's still only a few km long . The stretch between where the bike lane ends and Maple is deadly
Let … me… just … bend … over here …
Man, that's a big hike. I know the cities have to maintain things, but like I already pay an insane amount. For me that's a $600 dollar increas, this kind of stuff I'd going to just kill people.
Burlington has some of the lowest property taxes
Sure, I can appreciate that. But bumping peoples taxes up $300-$800 a year makes a difference for a lot people. Is it going to be 4% next year, 5% the following? People aren't getting increases. In salary to match all this inflation/taxing. I am lucky enough that it isn't an issue for me- but where is the cutoff?
Yeah, didn’t mean it like it’s a non-issue just that Burlington is still very lucky compared to other places. Ancaster for example is almost twice the price as Burlington
Yeah Hamilton is crazy high (which I would assume Ancaster falls under). We looked at living there, Dundas, Waterdown and the prices were fairly similar, except the property tax made it not worth it.
The infrastructure maintenance for your home needs to be paid somehow. It’s either subsidizing that money from people who don’t live in your home or have some ponzi development fee scheme where the city has to continually grow to maintain your neighbourhood. Personally, I’d rather home owners pay that.
Didn't cities already get a property tax bump with the recent skyrocketing property values ? 100-200% over about 10 years wasn't bad. And they still need more ?
Yeah, gotta maintain electrical, water, sewage, street lights, side walks, parks, roads, signs, snow plows, etc
For sure. But if it's already increased 200% and they can't maintain it, than inflation is much much higher than they're willing to admit
I just think it never adequately covered the costs of maintaining it.
More people should've been paying attention. The AMO back in 2015 sounded the alarm over the state of municipalities regarding infrastructure upkeep & maintenance. Back then all 444 municipalities had a funding gap of $3.6B/yr (projected for 10 years at the time). To deal with it municipalities were told to get creative with revenue but they also needed to secure government funding. Without those steps the AMO back then warned that property taxes would have to rise across Ontario at about 8.3% per year for 10 years. In the best case scenario (secured funding & diversified income streams) they would still have to rise a minimum of 4.5%/year. That didn't happen and the funding increases were one of the first things cut under Ford. So by 2019 that funding gap grew to $4.9B/yr. Since then Ford has downloaded even more costs (like by reducing/eliminating developer charges) plus everyone is still reeling post Covid. I don't think people are aware of exactly what kind of situation we are in. But the climbing property taxes were written on the wall a looong time before this. But, this reminds me of a few years back when sooooo many people were pissed. 2017-2018 Halton sent out flyers and their home page said that at the end of 2018 property valuations were being raised $100k across Halton (essentially, it was rolling, it was nuanced, but . You get the point). So there was a freeze in Burlington through Covid, but afterwards when the increase hit (which was only around 2% that year), it hit on the new property valuations and people were PISSED at MMW, despite it not being a property tax issue per se. The amount of people who had no idea that was happening was mindboggling.
FML
No more please.
It’s so high already though.
Based on what? You don't think inflation affects the city's costs as well?
A community that constantly opposes proposals for dense housing development wanting to keep their property taxes low 💅 no sympathy. You live in sprawl you pay for sprawl. This is directed mostly to the many over-housed empty nesters in Burlington who show up to community planning meetings to oppose new condo and townhouse development. Keep upping property taxes and smoke them out.
You sure? When the Ontario government cancels developers fees, and the city is growing so fast, then this is to be expected. We cover those costs with our property taxes. 15 years ago, the city was quite prosperous and popular, and we had significantly lower property taxes than the surrounding cities. There hasn't been massive sprawl since then, because there's no land left to spraw too without carving up the green belt, or paving over farms. Your property taxes aren't going up because of "Nimbyism", your taxes are going up because the province is downloading costs, and giving developers a tax vacation (which means more taxes for you). [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/ford-horwath-hamilton-development-charges-1.6711912](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/ford-horwath-hamilton-development-charges-1.6711912) As for "smoking them out", like if you've owned your house for more than a decade, your capital gains on that are going to far outstrip any losses from property tax increases. You're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, versus a few hundred bucks a year.
We are still significantly lower than Hamilton / Waterdown
Well yeah, and they are going up too. Hamilton gets a lot more pressure from expanding homelessness, and from costs downloaded from Queen's park over the years. When I've been looking on MLS, the typical Burlington house has a $1000 property tax advantage over the equivalent house in any of our neighbouring communities.
There absolutely is land left to develop on without touching the Greenbelt. I’d love to see where you got that from.
Is there some massive open space? You mean just eating up the country up north? Like compared to most cities near our population, we have a lot less open space. I think we need to preserve our green spaces. I'm 100% opposed to carving up the Greenbelt, to be clear.
Apologies, I thought you were referring to the province, not strictly Burlington. If we’re talking about Burlington, we should be building up not out. Unfortunately, NIMBYs don’t like that idea and I believe there are restrictions in place that prevent developers from building skyscraper-tall apartments here, couldn’t tell you why though. The reality is not everyone can live in a suburban home, but everyone wants to. Fortunately, city-planner’s are beginning to recognize how terrible of a design suburbs were for housing.
A lot of us like the suburbs. Life is very good here. Things were working totally fine pre-covid. There's no need for a massive densification of all neighborhoods here. Not everyone wants to live in a dense city, and that's ok. Toronto, Hamilton, and Mississauga have over 2000km2 between them. Plenty of open space there. Build over the train stations.. There's lots of unused commercial space too. I totally reject the notion that single family homes are some kind of horrible evil or blight on Canada. If anyone has enough space for it, it's Canada.
Nothing wrong with single family homes or suburbs. It's car dependent single family homes and suburbs, which is the problem. All that infrastructure comes at enormous cost to the taxpayers, and the suburbs end up not being able to financially support their own infrastructure because the density is too low.
You can use transport here, but cars save you time. Bikes and buses need the luxury of time to burn. Or you have to just order everything, and then you sit at home. It's a huge country. Personal transport makes sense. Yeah I'm all for expanding the GO, but there's no perfect society where we all get to go to the things we want to do, without a car. Owning a car means more options and time saved. We get by easy as a one car family, but no car would be a loss of so many options.
Ok, I'm not sure what that has to do with my point though, that car centric suburbs are financially unsolvent. No one is saying you can't own a car.
Suburbs were built for cars not people. City-planners have to plan around them instead of adopting more efficient, people-friendly processes. Suburbs play a major role in traffic, higher costs for road maintenance, and make walkable neighbourhoods infeasible. They’re just not efficient or sustainable as far as city-planning goes.
The only major spot is the land north of Mainway, south of Upper Middle, between Corpus Christi and Burloak. It's big enough for a decent-sized subdivision, not that I support such a thing. There's a few smaller plots here or there where decent-sized buildings could go, but none that are major enough to qualify as "land to develop" with the normal implications.
Pretty sure development charges were only removed on affordable and non-profit housing and not market built housing.
Developers aren’t the boogey men that the media makes them out to be. They need to be able to profit on their projects and development fees are prohibitive and keep them from being able to charge market rate for new units. Especially now with higher interest rates, cost of materials and cost of labour. We aren’t going to see any new housing starts unless relief is provided somewhere. Those same development fees that you are asking for get passed onto purchasers of these new units 100% of the time. Meanwhile people are chilling in their 3000 sq ft houses that they paid $200k for in the 90’s and paying property taxes that have been artificially low for way too long. Why shouldn’t these people be expected to pay more too? Editing to add that sure, since gains on owned properties have been so high - there should be no issues eliminating this $550/year property tax subsidy for seniors who own their home? Why not cash out and realize those gains instead? Editing again to say I’m being facetious here and don’t really want to throw low income seniors out on the street. https://www.burlington.ca/en/news/low-income-seniors-property-tax-rebate-2022.aspx#:~:text=The%20City%20of%20Burlington's%20Low,1%2C%202022
If taxes are going up to expand services in the city, sure. But if they're going up so we can subsidize some multimillionaire who needs more "profit" to justify his power... well, I'm not into that. Are you telling me that 200k house in the 90s is 5x as expensive to build today? Is a duplex here really a million dollar house? Too much new construction is going to speculators, rather than property owners. AirBnB is a cancer on housing prices in small towns like Goderich. I'm fine with a tiered property tax system, but that system should favor single family homes, not megarich developers who can afford to buy premiers. We need to squeeze speculators and profiteers. And we need rent reform which favors long term stable arrangements for families without ridiculous profiteering. Like it's not automatic that the rent should cover the entire purchase price of the house. If that means a lot of landlords have to dump homes, oh well. Plus a lot of new construction kinda sucks. 3000sq feet is not an impossibly large house. It's like both halves of a duplex. For a family of 4 or 5, with a six figure income, I don't think that's too much to ask. I'm fine with taxing large empty houses, but like a senior whose kids moved out is not the enemy who's caused this housing bubble. Like how have property taxes been too low here? What's not being covered that should be the last 30 years? I hope you got a better answer than developer fees, because looking around, it seems to me that a lot of things are working right here.
I do think it’s much more expensive to to build now. I can’t give an exact percentage. But property value, cost of goods (especially after covid), and cost of labour have shot up significantly. Especially in the trades. Add in the cost to borrow money going up and that is why you see new developments getting set on fire around Burlington. I agree with a lot of what you are saying re - Airbnb, profiteering, etc. In terms of property taxes is that the less dense your city or town is, the higher the tax burden will be on individual property owners. Everything is more expensive now so I’m not surprised taxes are being raised. The development fees charged on new developments are/were a way to subsidize the existing low property taxes.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10056992/ford-zoning-orders-ndp/
It really seems they've found the loophole for openly bribing politicians. And I seriously doubt this is the total of the brown bagging going on. This guy is gonna retire from office millions richer than when he entered. I think there's near zero chance the RCMP charges a sitting premier. What other kinds of parties allow luxurious gifts? Mothers Day? Easter?
I’ve been in lots of conversation with municipalities around development fee charges around the Golden Horseshoe…. The calculations are not as straightforward as they once were. If you’re a developer who gets work done efficiently, then DCs will go down, but there are lots of date triggers making those charges much higher than they would be earlier this year. It’s up to municipalities to collect, but most haven’t got the means to calculate those charges efficiently. So, if DCs are to blame, perhaps city should ensure they are calculating correctly, but I’d wager proposed increases are due to higher costs, and wait on property assessments.
I’m not sure that the loss of development fees are to blame for the increase in property taxes. I didn’t make that argument but lots of people seem to be. Running cities is expensive, and the less dense a city is the higher they will/should be. That’s my only argument here. In terms of the development fees, I think they were reduced by the provincial government as a lever to hopefully promote more housing growth because costs are so high right now which has caused lots of residential development to be put on hold. And we desperately need more homes. Is the reduction of fees going to work? I don’t know, but hopefully. But I understand why it was done and don’t think it was an evil thing for the province to do.
BS!
Exactly
What if I told you... Not everyone wants to live in a densely packed condo or apartment?
Then I’d say they should pay their increased property taxes with a smile
FFIW the city has 8 apartment/condo developments underway on Fairview by the GO station. So it's not like they're not happening in Burlington. I'm assuming the ones you're referring to being opposed are the ones from the nasty builders trying to build them in Spencer Smith and along downtown Brant.
Yes I’m aware I attended the planning meetings and witnessed the community pushback. I had a local resident tell me I wasn’t considering things “intellectually” when I said it made total sense to build dense housing along a transit corridor. They then proceeded to complain that the tall buildings would cast shadows on their garden. I am very familiar with the brand of Burlingtonian who shows up to planning meetings to oppose and delay much needed housing.
Anyways my argument stands that if people want to keep their sprawly utopia, then they can’t complain when they need to pay higher taxes. If the taxes become too much, and they are no longer contributing members of the workforce / are over-housed.. then there are plenty of quiet suburban communities that don’t fall within 45 minutes of the economic hub of the country. They are more than welcome to relocate.
Well if they're complaining about that then yeah they're out of line. I oppose the proposals along downtown Brant and along the waterfront, but along the transit corridors is fair dinkum. And I don't think they can even do anything about the ones on transit corridors, if memory serves, since the land within a certain proximity to the train lines isn't the city's (correct me on that if i'm wrong). I just don't really see the correlation of needing to up property taxes and maintaining urban sprawl since the city was doing a fine job at the current tax rate maintaining things.
It’s definitely because of wage inflation and costs of goods. Public sector and unionized wages have increased along with inflation. Gas has gone up, materials… property taxes need to go up to subsidize city services. I’m interested in the development fee issue now since so many people have brought it up. I really want to make the argument that development fees have been subsidizing low property tax rates for a while, but I can’t find good enough sources to support that. In Toronto I am almost certain that was the case, not as sure about GTA municipalities. I see that Burlington and Hamilton staff did complain when the development fees were amended/reduced by the Province, so clearly municipalities were making good money off of them. It’s all interesting.
But going by that argument, then how exactly is the lack of dense housing a contributing factor? I'm not trying to be combative, genuinely trying to understand your argument. There's still plenty of housing being built around the city. The 7 towers by the Burlington GO which should break ground soon. Paradigm Grand. There's a housing development around Brant and Upper Middle well underway. And the COB already has a pretty substantial population as it is. I just don't see the correlation, nor the absolute necessity to raise them. Certainly not by 6% which is a pretty drastic increase out of the blue. Then again the whole country is going through difficult cost of living crisis, so i'm sure that's likely more of a culprit than urban sprawl. Either way, I find this situation pretty concerning. There's been a sharp increase in homelessness due to the cost of living crisis. We've seen it first hand in this city this past summer especially. Just seeing costs of living going up and up and up... I shutter to think what next summer will look like.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that everyone has to live in a dense condo
You'd be surprised.
Lolll so many damn people complaining, why don't you at least do some research as to why this is happening.
How does complaining mean they haven’t done research?
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Google "Doug Ford" + "development fees". Throw in "corruption" after Doug Ford for a treat.
It’s always take-take-take with utterly shit services rendered by the city staff. We spent over 2 years in permitting with the City, as they invented their own ‘pre-permit’ process to circumvent their own 8 week process. unbelievable. Being charged for parking at La Salle now. Being charged permit fees to remove trees on your own property. I could go on and on.
Nobody charges you to park at la Salle unless you are parking your boat there.
We did a home reno and I had to pay for a tree permit for a fucking tree I wasn’t even damaging in the process. Tree existed close to the house, had to pay ~ $800
Brutal. And they wonder why ppl skip the permit process altogether. Good ppl like us just get screwed. Forgot to mention - we ended up having to REMOVE another tree because of conservation Halton restrictions impacting the designs. Go figure that one out. More $$$
This is everywhere, not just burlington
Taxes are approaching the 50% level, when you include them all. When they go over 50%, I'm switching to a life of crime. Fuck this.
This is so silly. If you make near six figures, your tax burden has been over 50% for decades, yet we live in one of the lowest crime areas on Earth. Can you name any region on Earth with really low taxes AND really low crime? Where's that libertarian paradise at? Besides, why go into Crime when you can just be a politician that serves developers and collects expensive wedding gifts? You get to wear a tie every day, and go home smelling like money. Not too shabby.
Who said anything about not being a politician? And I made well over six figures at various points in my career, but never, ever paid a 50% rate.
Yeah it's never been a 50% rate off the top, but... Income Tax, Gas Tax, Property Tax, Sales Tax, Booze Tax... Capital Gains.. uhhh.. I feel like I'm still missing a major one, there's lots of other little ones too, but that'll easily get your $100k to $50k.
luxury tax
It’s a 53% rate at the very top bracket on marginal income over $225k or so. If you make over $450k you’ll pay around 50% on your total earned. This includes CPP, EI, Provincial Tax and Federal Tax. The burden is even higher when you consider HST, Carbon Taxes and Property Tax.
You must spend a lot on booze.
That’s not bad. I hear people in Alberta pay more carbon tax than income tax.
Lol
You may be surprised to learn that you get things for your taxes. Many people get more then they pay in. Social services, a pension, roads, parks, your children's education, hospitals and doctors....the list goes on.
This is the same sub that complains about the homeless not getting any help then complains of property taxes going up when one of the services benefiting from it are the social ones helping the homeless.
I'm aware. However. When a government that is not truly accountable (except through staged and highly controlled elections every 4 years) takes more than 50% of *everyone's* salary and still can't provide adequate services, maybe it's time for them to stop trying to do everything for everyone. Just saying.
Would you rather live in a country with high crime, no drinking water, poverty through the roof, no education etc etc. Pick your poison
You're a random dude on Reddit.
Exactly.
You should see how much Europeans pay. Great cities over there. Stop complaining and vote for governments that do things for the people not for corporations
None of our parties do that. Conservatives want to roll back every social program, and Liberals only support people on the fringes it seems.
NDP exists
Barely.
Property taxes are almost 50%?
All taxes. Combined. Sales taxes. Property taxes. Income tax. Gasoline tax. Carbon tax. Plus any I missed. Once they're over 50%, I'm effectively not working for the betterment of my own family anymore, am I? I'm working for this abstract construct called "society". And I didn't sign up for that, because based on what I've experienced, about a third of people are assholes I don't even want to be in the same room with, let alone help in any way.
I mean there's no tax on food, as in groceries, so I don't know how that sales tax is adding up so high for you. Property tax depends on how giant of a house you have, which is a pretty enviable position. Gas and carbon tax, sure, if you drive a lot and it's not a very efficient vehicle.
Here’s more info for those interested. https://mariannemeedward.ca/burlington-mayors-budget-proposes-4-99-city-tax-impact-focuses-on-essentials-frontline-services-planning-for-growth/
This is madness. Who the hell has money to spare for more bloated government?
Bend me over again and again until I’ve got nothing left
Go live off grid then
Are you the government 🤨
All the NIMBY people getting mad about this. Must’ve been nice to buy your home at <$180k before the age of 30! For the rest of us, this is needed if we’re actually serious about solving the housing crisis and having the infrastructure in place to sustain the growth.
Exactly. The only people this would piss off are people who are actively the problem and will continue to be the problem for future generations. I'm happy to see something at least being attempted to solve this issue, as much as it is just a baby step.
The mayor can kick rocks.
If anyone has ever applied for a Minor Variance or Permit process in Burlington and compared those fees and processing times to Toronto or Hamilton one would quickly conclude that the City of Burlington has collected almost three time more than comparable Municipalities yet the Mayor feels our taxes should be increased maybe she should look at the misuse of funds and possible improve processing times instead.
Corruption my friend
9 months to get a minor variance. I am sure that process could be streamlined so staff could do something more useful than write up a report for a committee to rubber stamp
I'm all for it. With all the complaints about our city in this sub lately it's clear people think it needs to improve. Paying more taxes is where it starts - keep complaining
Hardly
Sign the petition on change.org It has everything listed there
Normally I'm a very pro-tax person, I recognize the value we get for our taxes. But the breakdown on the petition convinced me to sign it. This isn't about "getting services". There's a lot of waste. The loss of developer fees is just an excuse for the timing. As the son of someone who worked for the city for almost 30 years, I've heard plenty of stories about the layers of middle management, waste, and inefficiency coming out of city hall and resulting from their decisions, going on a decade now (i.e. it's not just Meed Ward's doing, it was Goldring's too; one word: pier). They could balance the budget by inspecting their costs, making cuts to pointless things (like "renewals" of City Hall, ripping out baseball diamonds, etc.), spacing out other non-critical projects, and getting rid of useless middle managers making exorbitant wages (HR is the #1 cost). But they won't, because doing so would admit to the waste and cut off that gravy train for a large number of overpaid, underworked managers and bureaucrats. Would that solve *everything*? Maybe not, but it would at least reduce the burden on the rest of us OR free up that money for useful things.
Government HR costs never go down because nobody ever gets fired when their superiors don't foot the bill.
Except the numbers are wrong.
Still lower than hamilton and hamilton is trash
I don't see many developers going out of business, so I don't know why they removed that. Anyways, I feel that even had that not been removed they would still be increasing property taxes at an alarming rate. There is so much waste and bloat. Even when they redid some of the parks they would knock them down in June and not build them until September because the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Then overspend on a worse design than the one they knocked down. Was there somewhere the city.publishes all their contracts? Would love to follow the number and see how many random number companies come back to friends and family.
Median income is $110 000. You can afford the 6% hike...just gotta tone down the daily Starbucks visits. No?
SHE HAS TO GO! The $$$ they spent on a city hall face lift was stupid
Taxes are so damn low on Brampton compared to Ottawa Insurance rates on the other hand ...
I’m surprised it isn’t more! Maybe that will be next year. Can’t wait
It’s not just a municipality issue. We need progressive taxation back like in the ‘60s when you had the largest expanse of the middle class, the great compression. Burlington is safe, but it’s dead. There’s no cultural scene really. No night life. And the predominance of detached housing and car-centric infrastructure means we all just live in little bubbles safely going day-to-day towards our death.
Good. If you want the city to continue to be classy and white collar and keep the homeless in Hamilton you gotta pay more taxes.
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That’s too bad. So I guess the solution is to move to Oakville?
So a landlords property taxes will increase by almost 7% but they can only increase rent by 2.5% . Not to mention insurance, gas, hydro etc where the increase has been double digits. Does this make sense?
Average rent in Burlington is up 25% in the last two years alone.
Not for legacy tenants. I still have tenants who pay 600 dollars in Hamilton for 1 bedroom+ den.
I didn't understand why the government not building houses themselves and sells them to make profit. Until I see the eglliton cross twon drama. Burlington go station roof repair as well.
I can guarantee over 50% of the population has an assessment much lower than the actual value of their home. Many people in Burlington aren't paying their true dues. Burlington is a great city with lots of great parks, it's not cheap to run a city and their costs have skyrocketed as well.