2 Examples in the SMH

At least two classic examples of this can be found in the SouthMarch Highlands.  According to the Consent to Enter Agreements executed by the City between Richardson Ridge (owned in part I believe by Regional Group) and Uniform Developments (according to their web site partially owned by John MacDougall who also appears to have an interest in Richarson Ridge since he signed both these agreements) which both state:

“The City of Ottawa agrees that should use of the Land … result in a change to the current assessment of the Land, which is currently based on a rural farmland use, the City of Ottawa agrees to make appropriate representation to assist Richardson Ridge/Uniform in its appeal to any change in the assessment to the land which is claimed to be a result of [constructing Terry Fox Drive].

Should Richardson Ridge/Uniform fail in such appeal, the City of Ottawa agrees to pay Richardson Ridge any increase in taxes that result from the foregoing.”

What a sweet deal for these developers!  Even though these lands were rezoned in 2004 and upheld in a 2006 OMB ruling as urban, these developers have been paying preferential property taxes as if they were the same struggling farmer that they bought the land from.

Not only that, the City of Ottawa will ensure that they never pay a dime more – no matter how much these lands are developed in future.  Heck we’ll even refund them if anything slips through the cracks in the deal.

There is no Consent to Enter agreement for Urbandale since the conditions of subdevelopment approval require them to convey land for TFD to the City at no cost (since all these developers benefit from and in fact require this road to make their subdivisions viable).  So we can’t easily determine whether or not Urbandale is benefiting from preferred taxes for farmland and forests, but it would seem unlikely that they would not also want to take advantage of the City’s largess with our tax base if they could too.

What You Can Do About It

Most of us would expect that the tax break for farmland is available for only lands that are zoned rural (RR, RU), regardless of whether they are within the urban boundary or not. 

Part 13 of the current Ottawa Zoning By-Law only provides for rural zoning in the Greenbelt and Rural Area.  What city allows for farms within its Urban Boundary?   This makes sense since what city-dweller wants to live next to cows and pigs?  The farms that are already within the Greenbelt are already designated as being outside of the Urban Boundary, so the current By-Law already protects legitimate farmers.

The loophole can be plugged by removing  farm and forest preferential tax rates from the Urban property tax ratings since they are not required (by legitimate farmers) within the Urban Boundary.  If there are any freak cases of where an individual farmer, who is not a commerical organization, actually has a producing farm within the Urban Boundary, then the By-Law can be amended to allow for a rural zoning of that land.  However, if that land is ever re-zoned as urban (a precondition for development approval), then the full tax rate should apply.

The time has come to plug the loophole that allows developers to avoid paying their fair share of property taxes! Perhaps we wouldn’t be hearing excuses from Larry O’Brien for not meeting  his previous campaign promise of not raising taxes if everyone were paying their fair share.

Why don’t you write an email to Larry O’Brien and ask him if he wouldn’t have found it easier to balance the City’s Budget during the past 4 years if everyone were paying their fair share of taxes?  And ask him why we should believe him that he can manage our tax base if re-elected when he has let millions of tax dollars slip through this loophole in the past?

You can also email to Jim Watson and Clive Doucet who are running for mayor and ask them if they will plug this loop hole if elected.    While you’re at it, you might want to ask Jim Watson if he is still accepting campaign donations from Urbandale.  (Clive Doucet is the only mayoralty candidate who doesn’t accept donations from developers.)

It’s time to send the message that the average taxpayer will no longer tolerate free rides for developers in the South March Highlands or anywhere else in Ottawa!

1990-2004

Canada’s tepid response on ratifying Kyoto was no doubt based on our appalling and shameful compliance to the objectives of Kyoto.  According to Canada’s 4th National Report on Climate Change:

“On September 28, 2006, the [Canadian] Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development released her 2006 Report on Climate Change. The Report described that even though the [Liberal] federal government had announced billions of dollars in funding since 1992 toward meeting commitments to address GHG emissions, as of 2004 Canada’s GHG emissions were 26.6% above 1990 levels.

The Commissioner urged Canada’s New Government to come up with a credible, realistic and clear plan that should address the long-neglected need to help Canadians cope with the consequences of climate change and to commit to specific actions with timeframes for completing them.”

In other words, the Canadian Commissioner was quite sickened over our lack of progress and kicked our government’s butt to get serious or give up. 

1990-2006

Ok, so we changed governments, how are we doing now?  According to the most recent data available from the UNFCC, Canada is now the 3rd worst nation in the world having gone from a 27% miss to a 54% miss in our Kyoto targets!  

 

 LULUCF = Land use, Land-Use Change and Forestry Total emissions and removals from activities relating to land use, land-use change and forestry (from the following categories: forest land, cropland, grassland, wetlands, settlements and other land).

Why We Suck
In the 4th National Report on Climate Change, our new Conservative government responded with:

“The cornerstone of Canada’s new approach is legislation tabled in Parliament on October 19, 2006. Canada’s Clean Air Act takes a comprehensive approach to the problem of worsening air quality and GHG emissions. … The Act represents a significant shift from a voluntary to a regulatory approach.”

So far so good, but (here comes the water):

“Over the next three years, new regulations on all major sectors will be implemented. … Compliance options being examined include:

• an industry-led emissions trading system; [industry-led - what happened to regulation??]
• a technology investment fund that would support the development of transformative technologies for emissions reductions to which companies, and potentially governments, could contribute; [potentially contribute?  so its up to industry to invest, wonder how much?]
• opt-in mechanisms that would enable entities not covered by regulation to voluntarily assume emissions targets; [opt-in?? what happened to regulation??]
• incentives that could see companies receive credit for investments in technology; [more investment, but where's the regulation??]
• mechanisms to recognize credit for early action; [pats on the back!!]
• domestic offsets in which verified emissions reductions outside the regulated system are recognized as eligible for compliance in the regulated system. [more pats on the back!!]“

Thats it. Thats all the compliance that we have in place to enforce our “regulations”. Basically our shiney new “regulatory compliance program” is entirely based on industry-led initiatives and investment fueled by “atta-boys” from our cheer-leading government.

Wow – no wonder the rest of the world thinks we’re idiots.

Intense Pollution
But it gets even more ludicrous when we look at our regulatory targets in more depth:

“Targets are an important dimension of Canada’s new approach. … Short-term intensity based GHG reduction targets will be set in consultation with provinces and territories and all affected industry sectors.”

Intensity-based targets are a made-in-USA concept (courtesty of G.W. Bush) where your GHG target is based on efficient you are at polluting.  Suppose you crank out X tons of GHG to generate Y dollars of revenue.  Your intensity is X/Y. 

If you cap your emissions but raise your revenue, then your intensity is less. So even though you are still polluting the same amount, you get an atta-boy from the government because you are more efficient at it!

But we are ALREADY the 3rd worst country in the world relative to our 1990 baseline target.  We can meet all our government’s intensity targets and still fail because we are not making absolute progress in REDUCING GHG emissions that we are already 54% behind on.