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Feb 19,2006 - Feb 26,2006 |
Property taxes on the rise
Growth is slowing down, yet the City does not want to cut services
By Francesco Riondino
Originally Published: 2006-01-29
At its Monday, January 24th special council meeting, the City of Vaughan approved the 2006 operating and capital budget that includes a net increase in the taxation funding requirement of $6.1 million.
"For this year we had planned to increase the property tax rate by 3.5 percent," told to Corriere Canadese/Tandem by Councillor Bernie Di Vona, chair of the Finance Committee just a few days before the council meeting. But "due to a favourable residential assessment shift, the residential tax rate increase will only be 3.2 percent which equates to approximately $31 for a household in Vaughan assessed at $412,070," corrected Mayor Michael Di Biase after the approval.
The "bad news" - at the end - is not so bad and Di Vona explains "the many positive things" contained in the economic plan: "In 2005, the City of Vaughan saw its growth slow down. Last year we issued construction permits for a grand total of $860 million, almost half a billion lower than the years of highest growth. If one considers that, until now, taxes on construction permits covered 90 percent of the costs of our infrastructures, it is easy to realize that this reduction, although expected, is no small thing."
"A recent study confirmed what we knew all along: Vaughan's recreational services are among the best in Ontario. Our 2006 budget intends to preserve the quality that our residents are accustomed to, although we shall scrutinize costs to improve the cost/benefit ratio even further. In the meantime, we shall build five more parks and improve the community centres, especially in new residential areas."
"Moreover, in 2006," continued Di Vona, "we want wholly pay for two new fire stations and continue to invest in infrastructures. We prefer to invest now than to patch things up later."
After the big boom of the past years, in fact, the City had found itself falling back in providing services - ranging from roads to public buildings - to the new development areas. This problem has been at the top of mayor Michael Di Biase's agenda since day one.
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