The City of Montreal presented a deficit budget on Wednesday, but, as promised, the Plante-Ollivier administration nevertheless limited the tax increases in the residential sector to an average of 2%, relying instead on real estate dynamism to increase its revenues by 2022.
The City of Montreal’s budget will reach $ 6.2 billion, an increase of 1.3% over the previous year. Remember that in 2021, the budget had experienced a slight decrease in the pandemic context.
The pandemic, however, resulted in a cumulative deficit of more than 200 million for the agglomeration, and as the City intends to fill it from 2022 by using its surpluses, this operation will result in an “extraordinary” and “non-recurring” expenditure which will increase the budget to $ 6.5 billion, an increase of 4.7% compared to 2021. The quotas required of the 15 related cities will thus be increased by 10.9%.
The City had also granted a tax freeze to Montrealers in 2021 due to the health crisis. This respite will not be prolonged and property taxes will increase on average by 2% in 2022 for the residential sector and by 1.5% for the non-residential sector. These increases are well below the rate of inflation, which has reached record highs in recent months in the country.
The boroughs with the highest increases are L’Île-Bizard-Sainte-Geneviève (+ 5.1%), Verdun (+ 3%), the Plateau-Mont-Royal (+ 3%) and the South-West (+ 2.9%). It is in the borough of Rivière-des-Prairies-Pointe-aux-Trembles where the average increase would be the most limited, with an increase of 0.1%.
For a single-family home with an average value of $ 535,815, the tax increase will be $ 83.
As for the commercial sector, which will experience an average tax increase of 1.5%, it will still benefit from certain reductions such as a lower tax rate for the first tranche of $ 900,000 of property value, which, according to the City , does not translate into a 16.5% tax reduction for a large part of these buildings.
The City attributes the increase in the budget in particular to the increase in the workforce of 417 person-years. The boroughs will have 119 more employees. For its part, the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) will be able to count on 122 additional employees, including 103 police officers, which will increase the workforce from 4,680 to 4,784 police officers. In addition, there will be 50 employees of the Biosphere whose management has been transferred to the City by the federal government.
Real estate frenzy
To increase its revenues, Montreal is counting on the dynamism of real estate, which leads it to predict increases in transfer taxes of $ 65.8 million in 2022 attributable to observations made in recent years, namely the increase in sale prices and the higher number of transfers. transactions that were above budget estimates.
Part of this expected increase is attributable to a growth in the transfer rate applied to real estate transactions exceeding $ 2 million, which will increase from 3% to 3.5%. A rate of 4% will also apply for the first time to properties of $ 3 million or more.
In terms of investments, the 2022-2031 Ten-Year Capital Works Program (PDI) will reach $ 19.54 billion, compared to $ 18.7 billion in the previous PDI. An amount of $ 5 billion will be devoted to water infrastructure and $ 4.8 billion to road infrastructure.
The ecological transition represents a significant part of the planned investments, i.e. 45 million for green infrastructure, 268.1 million for protected areas and land acquisitions, 281.7 million for the planting of trees and the management of the borer. ash, 102.1 million for the banks of large parks and 10 million for urban agriculture.
As promised during the election campaign, the Plante-Ollivier administration will double the budget allocated to homelessness to $ 5.9 million and set aside an amount of $ 10 million for the fight against poverty and exclusion.
Housing investments
In terms of housing, the City plans to spend $ 111 million to complete its development strategy for 12,000 social and affordable housing units, the realization of which was first planned by the end of 2021. However, if the funding of new Affordable units are well underway, as of mid-October, only 1082 of the 6000 social housing units pledged were considered fully built and occupied.
The City also intends to use part of this $ 111 million envelope to launch its 60,000 affordable housing development project within 10 years. During the election campaign, Ms. Plante had proposed spending $ 800 million in the coming years to acquire land for this purpose, thanks to the City’s right of first refusal. Asked by The duty, the City said Wednesday that the head of housing, Benoit Dorais, will have the mandate to define the financial framework of this project of 60,000 affordable housing “in the coming weeks” so that it “is included in the next budget From the administration of Mrs. Plante.
In its PDI, the City also plans to spend 116.1 million for the acquisition of land and buildings for social and community housing. However, their realization will largely depend on the financial assistance expected from Quebec and Ottawa.
At a time when the number of tenants who find themselves homeless on July 1 increases from one year to the next, the Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal will benefit in 2022 from an envelope of 3.4 million to support its disaster and homeless assistance program. This amount has thus been increased by 25%.
SPVM budget on the rise
The SPVM will see its budget increased by 45 million next year to reach $ 724.1 million, due in particular to the addition of 122 employees, including 42 for the Eclipse squad and 17 for the Team dedicated to the fight against arms trafficking (ELTA).
Montreal also intends to gradually equip its police officers with body cameras, but for 2022, only an amount of $ 500,000 is budgeted. Between 2023 and 2031, an amount of 16.5 million is entered in the PDI.
Montreal will complete the installation of water meters in non-residential buildings in July 2023, but in the spring of 2022, it will file a pricing plan and send the owners of these buildings a “blank bill” that will not have to be paid. be paid, but will allow them to inform them about their water consumption and the costs they may have to incur. The implementation of volumetric pricing for non-residential buildings will begin in 2023.