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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
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And much in the news is the intention of the City of Calgary to raise property taxes, yet again. For the nth time in as many years, and for several years to come, a staggered, slow motion robbery of criminal incompetence.
The tax increases are necessary, we're told, as a result of the cities overwhelming success, we need to pay for new sewers, roads, traffic lights, better delivery of utilities, trash collection....the list is endless.
Now note that I'm not a property owner, and these tax hikes, I believe, in the end will benefit me indirectly by lowering the value of properties.
But the increases are wrong. It's money misspent. In the past 5 years house prices in the Calgary region have doubled, tripled in value. From which it is reasonable to extrapolate that property taxes have as well doubled and tripled. Yet for some reason this is not enough.
It comes down to leadership, or lack thereof. Our Mayor, Dave Bronconnier, has always been quick to ask for a handout. In this instance, as mayor, he doesn't have to ask, he can demand. And so he does.
I have no doubt some of the money will go, indirectly, towards the causes stated. I have some serious doubts that this will in any ways serve to mitigate the stresses upon the city, or otherwise improve delivery of municipal services. I am absolutely certain that a prolonged strategy of raising taxes to finance the cancerous growth of the cities suburbs can only be viewed as insane.
There are other solutions.
For example, I'd suggest that property taxes be based on entirely different criterion than "The assessed value of homes". People should not be penalized for taking pride in or renovating their properties. If anything this should be encouraged. Such an approach does nothing to halt or control the growth of low density suburbs that sap the cities resources without contributing anything in return.
A better approach might be to divide the city into zones, with those zones nearest the center of the city paying the lowest property taxes, while those towards the outskirts pay higher. The logic behind this is straightforward - high density inner urban areas are easier and cheaper to maintain (think parks, public transport, delivery of services such as trash, energy, water...) than those less dense areas further from the center.
To further refine this, let's use property taxes to encourage density in our urban areas, freeing up our prime agricultural land for .... what else, agriculture! (I'm full of wacky and counter-intuitive ideas like this).
To do this we could assign a flat rate tax per zone based on the number of square feet/meters each property occupies at ground level. Someone who owns a 1500 sq foot lot with a one bedroom bungalow on it in Zone 1 pays the same property tax as someone who builds a 10 story apartment complex on the same sized lot in the same Zone. The effect of this is to encourage people to make good use of urban space. Side effects include reduced municipal costs in terms of delivery of services such as transport, waste removal, etc. Fewer roads and sewers would need to be built or maintained, in time a reasonable public transport network could be developed, the benefits are endless. And Calgary would, in time, begin to resemble an urban area as opposed to an endless suburb.
There are many more sound strategies that could be used to reduce property taxes and improve the living environment our city offers.
The first step we need to take is to replace our mayor.