this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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A big part of why our cities are broke is because they have to maintain roads, sewers and other infrastructure in areas that give back very little tax revenue in relation to the amount of infrastructure they require. Those cost centers are are low-density suburbs with single-family homes.
Once mid-density housing is allowed to flourish, especially mixed-use buildings, funding and other problems disappear: tax revenue increases in relation to liabilities, frequent public transit is economically feasible, traffic is reduced as more people are able to go about their daily lives without a car, and the reduced car traffic means streets become quieter and safer.
This is part of the problem, Toronto specifically has to pay for two highways that are almost entirely used by people who don't pay for them. Building that middle density housing would fix a lot, but we'd actually still be in a difficult financial position, because municipalities here are so limited in how they can generate income. The province can override any decision a municipality makes whenever they want, and that neede to change.
Similar issue in Québec. Montréal and CMMs only lever for revenues is property tax; the rest of the funding has to come from other levels.
If we aren't going to go land value tax any time soon, I suggest a single-family-only-zoning premium. AKA a tax rate increase based solely on the zoning. This tax premium can be removed by "simply" rezoning.
I don't understand. Zoning is determined at the municipal level, not decided by the people who own the lot. If municipalities wanf to encourage mid-density housing, all they need to do is to change the zoning laws to allow for it in areas where only low density housing is allowed today.
My beef with the recent zoning laws is that they still prevent the construction of mixed use buildings by default, which makes car-free living a challenge. People need to be able to buy their daily necessities within walking distance if we want to reduce the amount of traffic, noise and pollution in our streets.
This is more specific to municipal amalgamations. For example a mid-density multi-use neighborhood rakes in a lot of cash and dumps a fair amount cash into amalgamation budgets. It also has relatively lower infrastructure spending.
That cash then needs to flow into single family neighborhoods/burroughs/cities. These areas generally pay lower property taxes because they are less dense; but also has higher maintenance costs for the more spread out infrastructure. Plus and additional infrastructure cost of the residents traveling to other neighborhoods/burroughs/cities
So I'm suggesting that amalgamations, or even provinces, should be slapping an additional tax on municipalities that are allowing single family zoning.
The people that own the lots will now be more in favour of allowing/voting for denser and mixed used zoning to reduce their property taxes. Some won't, and that's okay, since they'll at least start carrying their own burden.
It's like Land Tax Lite, and a good early early move toward more LVT taxation systems in the future.
I'm right there with you. We should be charging the premium to live in car dependent places and subsidizing walkable and transitable areas. Rather than the inverse we do now.
By providing all that shit for free, we've basically been subsidising lifestyles that are otherwise wasteful. And then we added low-density zoning on top of it, so here we are.
I'm not on the private roadways "train" (lol), but I think they should be self-funded by a hypothecated tax, or user fee depending on how you want to look at it. If we did that, public transit would probably grow itself.
People living along roads that get "improvements" see their property tax go up to cover the expense, but the people who actually use the damn things don't have to spend a dime. It's a no brainer that people choose to live in tax subsidy zones where everything is shiny and new and they can just use the new highway to commute to work anyway.
Meanwhile it's an unavoidable tragedy when people inevitably get struck and killed by cars since we've taken away everything that makes being a human person with two legs worthwhile and given it to cars instead.