Hitting you where you live

Sonia Toor 206781181

There are many differences in the places in which we dwell in, ranging from the landscape, environment, community and the prices we pay for living in that particular place. While reading the Toronto Star I came across the article titled “Hitting you where you live” on the front page and I continued to read it as it seemed to interest me and also related to the course. The article simply discusses the disparity amongst various regions in regards to the price in property taxes homeowners pay and the reasons behind this difference.

The highest property tax in the GTA is in Oshawa, while Toronto and Milton have the lowest property taxes. This comparison seems to create an array of questions by the community because Oshawa is an aging industrial city while Toronto and Milton are the country’s fastest growing communities. The reason that Oshawa faces such a high property tax is due to many reasons, one of them being aging structure, low property value and increased capital costs. It is difficult to do a city-by –city comparison for many explanations, one of them being that the same amount of money buys “less house” in Toronto than it does in Oshawa, but the house in Oshawa has a bigger bill in taxes than the house in Toronto. Toronto homeowners pay taxes to single entity: the city, while in other places residents pay both a city and a regional tax.

Chris Brown who is the director of finance in Oshawa states that residents do face higher taxes than others, but it is due to low property value and the fact that the city has made a decision to invest largely in infrastructure projects. Oshawa has even implemented special incentives to encourage companies to build residential and commercial buildings downtown. “This type of investment attracts assessment, if assessment increases, individual taxes could go down in the future” stated Brown.

To compare Oshawa with Milton it can easily be seen that Milton is a booming city where development is helping to pay for new infrastructure. Milton is located along Highway 401 between Toronto and the U.S. border, which makes it an attractive place for businesses. The population of Milton has grown by 71.4% in the last 5 years, making it the fastest growing community in Canada. Big companies like Magna and Whirlpool have picked Milton for its new distribution facility. “We feel blessed. We are well positioned geographically. We are three hours from the Windsor border” stated the Mayor of Milton, Gordon Krantz. The Mayor of Ajax, Steve Parish stated that “in the case of places like Mississauga and Vaughan, one real driver that attracts industry is the proximity to the airport.”

This article simply is portraying the difference amongst cities in the Greater Toronto Area, and it is surprising to see how places that are next to one another can differ so much in regards to the prices homeowners pay, what the district has to offer and why some cities are doing better off economically than others. It all depends on where the city is located geographically and the amount of economic activity that is taking place. These factors all in turn create an image of the city and lead to either people moving into or out of the place.

Source: Toronto Star, Monday March 31st, 2008 page A1 and A6