2022年11月27日

在扩张,房屋和商店非常远,房产税不包括基础设施维修。当税收不能弥补成本,他们上升。西南“福特提出了房产税。“这不是一个标题你希望看到关于安大略省buck-a-beer总理。通过他自己的话说,道格·福特是削减成本,税收和繁文缛节。他承诺要减少所得税在2018年和2022年省级选举。毕竟,这是标准的保守的剧本。但增加税收的必然结果是福特的比尔23。如果你错过了它,福特的周期变化对十月市政选举后极大地促进扩张发展。首先,该法案削减费用由开发商支付城市的费用有用的东西喜欢干净的水。 Ford is cutting the fees so deeply that mayors and councils are issuing dire warnings of shortfalls and tax increases. Markham says they could have to raise taxes by 80 per cent . It will get worse in the future — much worse — because sprawl is a net loser when it comes to tax dollars. The city gets a quick hit of money from the development charges (now reduced), but it’s all downhill from there. Every new development involves a lot of pipes, power lines, roads and other infrastructure. The developers build the infrastructure and then “give” it to the city, handing off responsibility. Eventually the roads and pipes start to decay, and after 20-25 years or so need to be rebuilt. You may have noticed that we are a bit behind on fixing our infrastructure in this province already. In a sane world, what happens is that the people who own the property pay taxes, and those taxes pay for the repairs. That’s what happens downtown and in the denser parts of cities where taxes are a net positive, more than covering repairs — with a surplus for other important items like libraries, parks, snow clearance and so on. But in a sprawl, the houses are so far apart, the shops so spread out, the roads so wide, that the taxes don’t cover the upkeep. Taxes are lower than costs. What happens when the property taxes can’t cover the costs? Then they must go up, and so they inevitably do. And since taxes are citywide, that means that people in compact neighbourhoods will have to pay more, even though they don’t gain any of the (dubious) benefits of living in sprawl. This process is well-documented by the Strong Towns movement and author Chuck Marohn . So who benefits from Ford’s sprawl override? People who want to live in a sprawl benefit — those who have enough money to afford a new single-family house and own a car or two. They are mostly upper-middle class and don’t need to be subsidized. The largest benefit goes to the developers. They’ve been buying up rural and Greenbelt land in recent years , anticipating this moment. A number of them have spent large sums lobbying for these very changes, and now these developers are getting their reward. They get to turn their land into a massive profit and walk away with the cash, with no worries about infrastructure or taxes at all. The Progressive Conservatives, of course, would prefer not to be associated with higher taxes, so they are presumably hoping no one will notice this connection. The Ontario Taxpayers Federation — a pro-conservative group — criticized Ford a year ago for not yet fulfilling his promise to lower income taxes. Even so, Ford probably thinks he can get through this without becoming known as the conservative who raised taxes and passed the gains on to his buddies. What can we do about it? The Ford government has refused so far to listen to cities, denying the Association of Municipalities of Ontario from even presenting their objections . We have yet to hear from the conservative groups, but they can’t be happy. At this point, however, Bill 23 is not yet law. If enough voices combine from across the political spectrum, perhaps we can pull back from a bleak, high-tax future. Simon Woodside is the co-founder of health care startup MedStack and an avid urbanist. RELATED STORIES