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Big bus fare hike pending

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Winnipeg Transit fares will increase a nickel on Sunday, but whether they’ll go up another 20 cents on June 1 remains to be seen.

On Nov. 16 city council voted 8-6 in favour of a surprise proposal from Coun. Justin Swandel to add 20 more cents on top of a routine five-cent increase in bus fares and dedicate the difference to rapid transit expansion.

“The ridiculous conversations that go on between the city and province are not going to fund our infrastructure. We’ve got to get off our butts and fund this thing,” Swandel said at the time.

The five-cent increase is going ahead as planned Jan. 1, making the full cash fare $2.45 as of Sunday. However, both the city and province have said the extra 20 cents will only be added June 1 if no other funding mechanism can be found to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to expand Winnipeg’s fledgling rapid transit system.

So far it doesn’t appear as though there’s been a lot of movement in the six weeks since the vote.

“We have until June. If the province comes up with an alternative source, which everyone can agree on, then it won’t happen. Otherwise it probably will happen. We still have time to work on that one,” Mayor Sam Katz told the Winnipeg Sun just before Christmas.

Premier Greg Selinger’s preference is to fund the line with tax increment financing, a sort of back-door funding mechanism that sees the money roll in once the project is complete.

“We thought tax increment financing would be a way to look at financing it. As rapid transit expands, there are opportunities for urban development projects, and the revenues generated off that can pay for the infrastructure,” he said.

TIF, introduced by the provincial government just a few years ago, allows the government to divert a portion of the property taxes from certain properties when their assessed value increases. The province hopes rapid transit corridors will spur development nearby, which will increase the value of those properties. When the value increases, so too do the property taxes, and the province would divert the difference in its education portion back to the city.

Whether or not that can raise the $200 million or more needed to push rapid transit to the University of Manitoba remains to be seen.

Transit riders would be well advised to start saving their nickels just in case.

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2011/12/28/big-bus-fare-hike-pending

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Long road to completion

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The City of Winnipeg will take a step toward fulfilling a 43-year-old plan to build an inner ring road with the opening of the eastern extension of Chief Peguis Trail this morning.

Following the conclusion of an 11 a.m. political ceremony, motorists in northeast Winnipeg will be able to travel between Henderson Highway and Lagimodiere Boulevard on a $109-million roadway that serves as another link in a “suburban beltway” originally envisioned by transportation planners in 1968.

At the time, a report called the Winnipeg Area Transportation Study recommended the construction of a ring road inside the Perimeter Highway to carry both passenger and commercial vehicles. A strip of land between Henderson and Lagimodiere was reserved for the North Kildonan component of this road — and finally used when construction began in 2010.

“It was held and now it’s built,” said North Kildonan Coun. Jeff Browaty on Thursday before city officials were taken on a tour of the new roadway, which is expected to relieve the burden of traffic on east-west streets in northeast Winnipeg, such as Springfield Road and McLeod Avenue.

These narrow arteries were not designed to handle high volumes of traffic, both in terms of width and durability, said Brad Sacher, Winnipeg’s public works director.

In contrast, the Chief Peguis Trail extension was built like a highway, with a deep base of granular material covered in a layer of asphalt, Sacher said. On a high-volume roadway with a granular base, it’s cheaper to maintain an asphalt surface over the long term, he said, adding concrete still makes more financial sense as a surface for lower-volume roads.

Originally slated to open next fall, the new roadway is ready now because of sunny weather this summer and a seven-day work schedule employed by construction consortium DBF2, the city’s partner in the project, Sacher said. Under the terms of a private-public partnership, the city will pay the consortium $8.2 million a year for 30 years for the design, construction and maintenance of the roadway.

Ottawa contributed $25 million to the project, using a fund set aside for public-private partnerships. Manitoba also redirected $9 million from existing budgets after the scope of the project was increased to $109 million from $65 million to include the cost of an underpass at Rothesay Street.

The new roadway also features remodelled intersections at Henderson and Lagimodiere, a new signalized intersection at Gateway Road, street closings at both Raleigh Street and De Vries Avenue and a bike-and-pedestrian overpass at the Northeast Pioneers Greenway, one of the city’s busier active-transportation corridors.

The city has long-term plans to extend Chief Peguis Trail west from Main Street to McPhillips Street and eventually to Route 90, as well as east from Lagimodiere to the Perimeter Highway. According to the city’s Transportation Master Plan, this will be accomplished by 2031, when the city is supposed to complete the inner ring road.

The price tag for completing the ring road is $670 million in 2011 dollars. Transportation advocates say the City of Winnipeg won’t be able to afford it without raising the money through funding mechanisms such as road tolls, gasoline taxes and property-tax increases.

“At the end of the day, the political will has to exist. Otherwise the plan is just a plan,” said Chris Lorenc, a former city councillor who regularly appears before the current council to argue in favour of more investment in infrastructure. “We can not simply sit around and wait for someone to drop a pile of money on the City of Winnipeg. It’s not going to happen.”

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/long-road-to-completion-134896743.

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Municipalities want crumbling roads, parks on election agenda

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Manitoba municipalities want to make crumbling roads and shabby playgrounds a top issue in the upcoming provincial election.

This morning, the Association of Manitoba Municipalities launched a Put Communities First campaign to try and put the municipal infrastructure deficit on the provincial election agenda.

AMM president Doug Dobrowolski said municipalities across the province are struggling to find sources of revenue to deal with things such as bumpy roads and aging community centres. He called on all provincial political parties to come up with a plan and policies to address the municipal infrastructure deficit.

Last week, city council’s executive policy committee voted in favour of a plan to ask the province for a one-point share of the existing seven points of PST to be dedicated for infrastructure funding. EPC also supported a motion to ask for a rebate of the PST paid by municipalities to the provincial government and for permanent federal gas tax transfers based on the inflation rate.

Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt, AMM’s Winnipeg director, said Winnipeg cannot continue to rely on property taxes for revenue. He said the provincial government has seen an increase in money from the federal government, but that additional funding has not been passed along to municipalities.

Winnipeg’s current infrastructure deficit is $3.8 billion.

“Literally, our province is falling apart,” Wyatt said. “Our communities are falling apart.”

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Municipalities-want-crumbling-roads-parks-on-election-agenda-123558439.html

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Shielding buyers, or ‘cash grab’?

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City council is divided over the question of whether new property-sale rules amount to consumer protection or a ‘cash grab.’

On Tuesday, council’s property and development committee approved a new bylaw that will effectively require homeowners to ensure all decks, sheds, additions and other post-construction work on their properties conform to city zoning regulations.

By law, which still faces council approval, would technically require buyers of existing homes to spend $180 to obtain a zoning memorandum within 60 days of a sale. The fee for new homes would be $100.

But in effect, home-sellers will be required to obtain the memorandum in advance of any sale — and may also find themselves on the hook for a surveyor’s certificate that could cost $300 to $500.

In a report to city council, property officials argue surveys of Winnipeg properties are woefully out of date and the city needs new information to establish property boundaries and prevent future lawsuits.

St. Vital Coun. Gord Steeves, who chairs the property committee, said the bylaw will help the city catch up to a “crazy marketplace” that has seen thousands of homes sold without building inspections over the past decade.

Banks already attach similar safeguards as a condition of sale in 20 to 30 per cent of Winnipeg real estate transactions, claimed Steeves, adding it was time to afford all city homebuyers the same level of consumer protection.

In a 2-1 vote, Steeves and Old Kildonan Coun. Mike O’Shaughnessy voted in favour of the new bylaw, which will take effect on June 7, pending approval from executive policy committee on Feb. 17 and council as a whole on Feb. 24.

The sole vote against the bylaw came from Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt, who agreed the city needs new survey data but called the new memorandum “a cash grab.”

Wyatt said the revenue the new bylaw will generate will help Mayor Sam Katz achieve the city’s 13th straight property tax freeze this year. “This is just a tax through the back door,” he said, claiming the flat fee is an unfair burden on lower-income Winnipeggers.

Late last week, St. Boniface Coun. Dan Vandal levelled a similar charge. But Steeves and O’Shaugnessy dismissed the “cash grab” concern, claiming the city is just trying to recover the cost of inspecting properties.

If the bylaw is enacted, the city’s property department plans to issue zoning memoranda within five days of a request. The city plans to spend $301,000 to hire five new staff to handle the extra paperwork.

But even with five additional officers, the city will have trouble processing 12,000 applications a year, said real estate lawyer Jim Fielder, a bylaw opponent. Title insurance already protects consumers, he said,

When the memorandum plan was made public in 2009, some real estate industry members balked. The city claims it has since consulted with lawyers, surveyors and real estate agents.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/shielding-buyers-or-cash-grab-83424332.html

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Board of Revision given 7 months to handle overflowing Winnipeg tax appeals

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Approximately 8,500 appeals were received by the Board of Revision from property owners of Winnipeg and the Board is expected to get these cases done for only seven months.

Back in April 2008, there has been a reassessment of 200,000 properties spear headed by the city government. This move let them know that the value of homes, condo and duplexes in Winnipeg was raised by 78 per cent since 2003.

It was in late 2008 and early 2009 that the 2010 preliminary assessment notices were mailed. Those were with assessor’s proposal to get into details of the new values with a series of meetings. Then, the final assessment letters were sent this spring, letting the recipient know about their right to appeal with the city’s Board of Revision.

One thing that the officials didn’t anticipate is the overflowing appeals that they received upon the submission deadline. They had to deal with 2,995 appeals in total.

“It may be sticker shock. They see the number change,” said John Karpluk, appeals manager with the Board of Revision.

On the other side of the coin, many homeowners mistakenly believe that if their home increases in value by 78 per cent, their property taxes will jump that much as well. But that’s not how property-tax system works: Residential property owners only stand to see some form of increase if the value if their home rises more than the city-wide average.

For example, a home assessed at $200,000 in 2003 that was reassessed at $300,000 in 2008 may actually see its property taxes decrease, as the 50 per cent jump was well below the 78-oer-cent average rise for residential properties.

“Just because the value of your land has gone up, doesn’t mean your taxes are going up,” said St. James-Brooklands Coun. Scoot Fielding, city council’s property and development chairman.

Property taxes could increase next year provided the city council’s approval. Just reminder, the council has frozen the property tax for 12 years now so, the only increase in property tax revenue today comes from new developments.

The Board of Revision will hear its first appeal on July 13 and expects to wrap it up after 7 months. About 60 per cent of the appeals involve residential properties, appeals manager Karpluk said.

The assessments conducted in 2008 do not kick in until the 2010 taxation year. Beginning in 2010 property assessment will take place every two years, instead of every four.

Residential property owners who are not paying their 2009 taxes on the installment plan have until June 30 to pay the city. A lemonade stand like kiosk has been placed on James Avenue on the north side of city hall to allows customers to swoop by without in the queue inside.

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Tax increase better option: Vandal

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St. Boniface Coun. Dan Vandal said lifting Winnipeg’s 14-year property tax freeze would have been a better way to generate revenue than raising frontage levies.

Vandal, a member of council’s executive policy committee, said councillors spent hours talking about the city’s financial challenges during recent operating budget meetings, and everything — including a possible property tax hike — was on the table. Vandal said he will support the decision to raise frontage levies, but thinks a property tax increase is a better option.

Vandal said a property tax increase is based on the value of a home, so homeowners whose properties are worth more, pay more. By comparison, a frontage levy is a flat rate.

“It doesn’t take into account the value of the property, that’s why I think a property tax increase would have been better,” Vandal said, following Tuesday morning’s public works committee meeting.

On Monday, Mayor Sam Katz tabled the city’s 2011 preliminary operating budget, which is the spending blueprint for $847.4 million worth of city programs, from policing to pest control to pool maintenance. The budget includes plans to generate $14.4 million by raising the city’s frontage levy by $1.20 a frontage foot, or 47 per cent. A homeowner with an average-sized 50-foot lot will pay an additional $60 this year.

Frontage levies may be used to pay for water and sewer upgrades, road and sidewalk repairs or improving street lighting.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Tax-increase-better-option-Vandel-117587979.html

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Critics call for stadium time out

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A city councillor and tax watchdog group say a no-huddle offence is no way to proceed with a revised football stadium plan that will put taxpayers on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.

The city, provincial government and Winnipeg Blue Bombers are expected to announce Monday how they will finance and secure construction of the CFL team’s new home at the University of Manitoba.

City councillors will then have just under two days to digest the details before they vote on it at the final council meeting of the year Wednesday.

Both Coun. Jenny Gerbasi (Fort Rouge) and Canadian Taxpayers Federation prairie director Colin Craig said Sunday they fear that’s far too little time to examine the deal.

“I think council should be informed when decisions are this big,” Gerbasi said. “This is multi-million dollars, so we should have enough time with all the information before we make a decision. I’m not going to have time to really hear from my constituents on this.”

It’s expected city hall will throw in $7 million, and will sell the Polo Park site of Canad Inns Stadium — which generates no property tax — for commercial and residential redevelopment in order to funnel tax revenue into municipal and provincial coffers. The parties have agreed to a maximum cost of about $190 million, which the Manitoba government will largely pay for up front, and the Bombers will be on the hook to repay the province $70 million over the course of a few decades.

“We would like some honesty in this process,” Craig said. “At the very least, couldn’t they announce the decision and then wait a month so that people can digest it and come to an open house and provide feedback, instead of simply pushing it through right before Christmas?”

The 33,000-seat facility, which will also be used by the U of M Bisons football program, will rise on what has only been an excavated hole since plans involving David Asper’s Creswin Properties stalled.

A municipal source said last week that it appeared Creswin will no longer be directly involved, adding Asper is almost certain to receive compensation.

Craig has his doubts about the new figures.

“They told us the last maximum cost was $115 million, so I’m not convinced they’ll live up to this promise,” he said. “We’ve been pushing for holding a referendum on the project, because it does impact taxpayers so much.”

Bombers fan Ken Enns said he supports the new deal and isn’t overly worried about the Bombers’ potential debt load.

“It worries me mildly but it all comes down to how good the management is,” he said. “I think they’ll be able to pay it off if they handle it well.”

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City expecting to spend $3.4M less on tax appeals

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WINNIPEG is poised to spend $3.4 million less than it expected this year to deal with appeals of property assessments that came before the province’s Municipal Board.
Over the past four years, the city set aside $6.5 million to pay back taxes to property owners who successfully appealed decisions made by the Board of Revision, a city body that deals with property appeals.

But as the current assessment cycle winds down, only about $3.1 million of that money will be spent, as the province’s Municipal Board has ruled in the city’s favour more often than tax assessors expected.

And this property-appeal windfall will help the city post a surplus on its 2009 operating budget, the city’s chief financial officer says in a report that comes before council’s finance committee this morning.

“Our values are standing up to a degree of scrutiny much more than they have in the past,” said Nelson Karpa, the director of Winnipeg’s assessment and taxation department. “I think we’re doing a good job presenting competent evidence.”

Of 766 appeals that have come before the Municipal Board during the current assessment cycle – a period that covers the years 2006 through 2009 – 502 have already been heard or settled some other way, Karpa said.

The end result is a $3.4 million contribution to the city’s bottom line, which is now projected to be a $2.9 million surplus, according to the finance report. One month ago, chief financial officer Mike Ruta forecast a $3.4 million deficit for 2009.

It’s customary for the city to forecast modest deficits until the final few months of the year, when corporate savings in several departments usually translate into modest surpluses instead.

“They generally catch up by about $1 million a month in the latter part of the year,” said St. James Coun. Scott Fielding, city council’s finance chairman.

The windfall from appeals, however, has nothing to do with property owners who have come before the Board of Revision to complain about their assessments for the 2010 assessment year. The city neither saves nor loses money from this new batch of appeals, which are factored into next year’s property-tax rolls.

So far, the Board of Revision has heard more than half of the 8,135 appeals launched over the 2010 property assessments. The city has about 205,000 parcels of property in total, of which about 178,000 are single-family dwellings.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/property-assessments-standing-up-city-expecting-to-spend-34m-less-on-tax-appeals-78399222.html

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Sarnia property taxes up 1.8% in 2010

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Property taxes in Sarnia, Ont., will go up 1.8 per cent in 2010, according to the new budget set by city councillors at a meeting Tuesday night.

The $132-million budget also includes a one-time one per cent levy to complete capital projects worth $20.4 million.

Overall, “it’s a restraint budget” that cuts services “in very subtle ways,” said Coun. Mike Kelch.

“I don’t think it’s really going to [have an] impact,” Kelch said. “I don’t think people will say ‘Oh, I really notice that.’”

The property tax increase will translate to $15 for a home assessed at $100,000, the budget said.

That’s “a very modest tax increase,” Mayor Mike Bradley said, adding it will help pay for “a massive infrastructure investment in the community” in 2008 and 2009.

“So that in turn creates jobs, renews the community and gives us a real strong way to exit the recession,” Bradley said.

The city released its 228-page draft budget on Oct. 26. It proposed a property tax hike of 2.75 per cent, which was whittled down to 1.8 per cent during a series of discussions that ended Tuesday night.

Sarnia’s transit department will see its own increase, as the cost of a bus ride jumps to $2.25 from $2.00.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/windsor/story/2009/12/02/sarnia-2010-property-tax-091202.html#ixzz0ig5iN9Pr

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Rookie councillor to head city's finance committee

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St. James Coun. Scott Fielding is Winnipeg’s new budget boss after Mayor Sam Katz shuffled his inner circle in time for the city to hammer out next year’s spending plans.

Four out of six members of city council’s executive policy committee will receive new jobs when council holds its annual organizational meeting, a largely ceremonial confirmation of committee responsibilities.

The most significant move is the replacement of St. Norbert Coun. Justin Swandel with rookie councillor Fielding in the role of finance committee chairman.

Swandel, a Liberal-affiliated centrist, recently finished devising a draft version of the 2010 capital budget, a spending blueprint for road repairs, new construction projects and major equipment purchases next year. EPC plans to table the document on Nov. 16.

Fielding, a Conservative who once led a commission to explore ways to eliminate Winnipeg’s business tax, will be in charge of the city’s purse strings in time to write the 2010 operating budget, a road map for spending on programs such as policing, firefighting, insect control and library services.

The timing is crucial because Katz wants to freeze Winnipeg’s property taxes for the 13th straight year in 2010, which is an election year. The mayor is under tremendous pressure to increase property taxes, now that Winnipeg has one of the lowest municipal tax regimes in Canada and the province might be reluctant to help out at budget time if Winnipeg does not exhibit a willingness to shoulder some of the financial pain. Fielding, however, said he will do everything possible to achieve another tax freeze. “I think a property-tax freeze is something we need to take a look at that. I think it makes us more competitive as a city,” he said. Swandel, meanwhile, was one of four EPC members who argued in favour of a property-tax increase this year but failed to sway the mayor. Swandel said he was not pushing for an increase in 2010, but conceded it will be difficult for Winnipeg to balance its operating budget without more revenue.

Fundamentally, I wasn’t going in the same direction as the rest of the group, both administratively and politically,” he said, adding it was time to leave his finance job because he wasn’t making enough progress in his efforts to convince city departments to free up cash from dormant or completed capital projects.

Swandel said he asked the mayor to place him charge of the downtown development committee, instead.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/rookie-councillor-to-head-citys-finance-committee-68833237.html

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