Getting rid of rental increase caps is a terrible idea. Look what happened in Ontario. But everything else I agree with.

There's no caps on income tax, booze, fentanyl, price of McDonald's, carbon tax, cellphone plans, Costco sweaters, Wendy's, property tax so why is there a cap on rental. :considered:

What if they kept the cap but it was governed by inflation, rent increases can match inflation each year. That seems like the fairest way to do it.

That’s how it used to be

Makes a lot more sense than a random number

DEM BE FIGHTING WORDS!!!!

On another note, cities should not be able to increase annual property taxes any more than inflation as well.

I think the correct route to take for any landlord now is charge the going rate for your unit, but include nothing in the rent. That way the tenant can take on the inflation with hydro, TV and internet, gas, etc.

I’d probably even go as far as to install smart monitoring devices to track electricity usage and write it into the contract that your portion of the electrical is subject to change based on usage, either from an entirely seperate meter and account or active monitoring of usage through a sub panel etc

Neat in theory but it doesn't work in practice. You'd very quickly get into a situation where you're only able to keep the machine up and running (if even that) rather than improving the machine (building new infrastructure).

Example: There's billions of dollars of sewer upgrades Vancouver needs to do in the coming years that have been deferred repeatedly by council - the previous goal was to replace 1% of it every year and the city is far behind now and really needs to replace it at 2% every year just to ensure the system doesn't collapse.

In reality they need to replace it at an even faster rate because the lack of enough sewer infrastructure is one of the key reasons why the new multiplex rule has such low limits on how much can be built - the Engineering department said the sewer system couldn't handle more housing without upgrades.

So instead of raising property taxes to fund sewer replacement - a replacement that would allow us to aggressively address the housing crisis we'll just keep making the housing crisis worse. We are shooting ourselves in the foot - we'll all end up paying more for housing than we would have paid in property taxes to fix the issue.

How do these places with no income tax exist?

Texas, Florida, etc. don’t seem to be collapsing yet no one pays state income tax?

And here we are paying out the ass for every single thing, and all our infastructure isn’t great, transit is garbage, services like garbage, recycling etc. are all completely incompetent.

The property tax in Texas is wild. Some people I know pay like 15-20k a year. It all gets taken in different ways.
I don't know if you've taken transit anywhere else, but here it's honestly amazing in comparison to basically any other North American big city. Annoying yes, but that's more due to the risk of getting stabbed at random on the bus than the transit infrastructure. Income tax in canada is also federal is it not?
Either way I agree with you we aren't fucking getting what we pay for.

Maybe sell more oil? Sell more trees? Nah bro we rather let Russia and the Saudis make that money. We like our citizens paying high gas prices to keep them poor

I’m a transit user now and I admit it works fine for me, as everything I use it for is along a main line/route

But relative to so many other large cities our transit doesn’t really go anywhere. Maybe that’s to do with the geography of the lower mainland etc. but by 2024 you’d think the north shore would have somthing other than the sea bus to connect the rest of the city.

Like, how long would it take to get to Port Moody if you had to transit from Lynn Valley? Driving you could do it in what, 25 minutes? What’s transit, 2 hours?

Income tax is just one source of revenue - they get it from other sources like sales or property taxes. That said, Texas and Florida (and many southern states) have lower total tax rates than northern and west coast states but they also have much worse outcomes for its citizens - higher poverty, higher infant mortality, shorter life expectancy. Income distribution is also worse - if you're rich it's great, if you're poor you can go ahead and die please.

The American south fucking sucks - it's like a 3rd world country in some spots (Hello New Orleans). Sure, you pay less taxes but what a shit hole of a place to live.

Driving that's like 40-50 mins.
Transit is pretty central based but that makes sense based on needs. People live in the burbs to either work in the burbs or work DT. If you live in North van and have to commute to Port Moody, you really need a boat more than anything lol. Not many people need to make trips like that often so it doesn't make sense to spend the money on more direct routes like that. I know it's just an example, but it's like living in missasauga and working in Newmarket. You aren't finding transit that way either, you kinda just need to move to Newmarket.

Never been. But if you make big money I can definitely see the appeal of those places. I’m sure they have nice enough areas to live in where you’re still coming out well ahead in the long run with the no income tax. Which is why these places are so desirable as professional athletes

But yea I’m sure the lower middle class is subject to a far worse situation than comparable places with income tax. Albeit places like Seattle, California, Oregon looking pretty shit these days as well.

Santa Monica felt like Shaugnesy with homeless sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk

thing is we're not a large city. name another city that is our size in north america that has a better transit system than ours? even if you named cities twice our size there wouldnt be very many if any at all. you'd have to go to europe or asia where there is more density before you found places that had better transit development versus density.

The bar is low, but the fact that you CAN do that on transit, and it's all one system is amazing.

A lot of cities you wouldn't even be able to make a trip like that, nevermind being able to traverse it all on one ticket.

Transit is amazing HK, but it's also 2 major bus lines, 2 different kinds of mini buses where they are owner operated, what used to be two train lines now unified into one, and taxis. Every embark will cost you money, and shits not cheap. Vancouver transit is slow, but it is cheap, and can get you almost anywhere eventually. I don't know what things would look like if it was the same cost as HK.

That's all fair, the anoying part is the rest of us can't just go to our employer when our yard has to be dug up because a pipe burst and say shits rough out there going to need a 7% raise this year so just go ahead and do that if you wouldn't mind. There has to be some accountability in lack of fore site, I understand that sometimes it's impossible to plan for the unforeseen but when the tax payers really have no say in how the city manages its money (sometimes really poorly) and any overages are then tossed back on the tax payer to absorb with limited accountability it's kind of frustrating. Sure we can vote them out but cycle just repeats.

Not sure if there is a better way but the entire system can be frustrating at times.

Yea would you rather drive an hour every day to commute or take transit that's 4 hours a day in the cold and pissing rain 70% of the year + possibly get a free stabbing or shooting. :lawl: where's the sfu gondola? Where's the Delta tunnel bridge? Y do we need sky train to kits, no one lives there and they all drive Bugattis, we're just building it so hobos can sky train there to stab stab. :joy:

Yea.. while I detest the bus, I get pretty far pretty quickly for $7 a day or whatever it is

Sounds like another rate hike might be incoming.

I'm pretty sure you can miss your mortgage, car by 3-4 months. Not going to fuck around and find out though lol.

Visa payments can be like 4-6 months and you call in to negotiate.

https://smartasset.com/taxes/texas-p...tor#pQ8c7xlFH6

Your typical $2.4M Van house would be $46,800 in taxes. Man did a quick scan of houses within 30 min of city centre in Austin and their prices are consistent with houses in Kits / Mansions in Richmond / West side / Capital hill. I wonder if all of them are pay $20 - 60K in ppt taxes.

Aka we need to make more money!!

^
I read your web link as smartass hahaha

August CPI hit 4% so BOC will be tempted.