Quote:
Originally Posted by quasi
On another note, cities should not be able to increase annual property taxes any more than inflation as well.
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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.