The lobby representing the developers proposes to the City of Montreal to encourage new constructions in order to generate new property income to balance its budget rather than knocking out the taxpayers with a heavy increase in taxes.
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
“The City has the rather hasty reflex of increasing taxes, deplores Jean-Marc Fournier, CEO of the Urban Development Institute of Quebec (IDU). It should instead increase the number of buildings on which it applies a tax rate; in other words, adopting a strategy for carrying out real estate projects to attract more investment to the Montréal area. »
The City’s property income is drawn from a rate applied to a tax base, made up of all the buildings.
On Wednesday, the president of the executive committee, Dominique Ollivier, opened the door to an increase in municipal taxes of more than 3% in her next budget, if inflation were to remain high by the end of the year. .
“We never said we were going [plafonner] at 3% [la hausse des taxes] “replied M.me Ollivier to a question from the media regarding the increase in taxes in the next budget. “Clearly, I can tell you that we will not go to 8%. In any case, I would be very surprised if we went to 8%. We will try to stay within a tax bracket that allows both to meet our responsibilities as a metropolis, but also to respect the ability of Montrealers to pay. »
Last year, Montreal limited the increase in tax charges to 2% for residential buildings and 1.5% for non-residential buildings.
For its part, the official opposition to the town hall wishes to limit the increase to more or less 3% for 2023.
Last June, the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal asked the City to limit the increase in municipal taxes to a maximum of 3% in 2023 and to spread over the following three years the additional needs resulting from higher inflation.
I heard there was an open door to this [une hausse des taxes pouvant aller jusqu’à 8 % ]. I think it is important to say today that the City should close this door quickly.
Jean-Marc Fournier, CEO of the Urban Development Institute of Quebec
If Mr. Fournier wonders about the tax choices of the Plante administration, he welcomes the hiring of a deputy director general, Philippe Krivicky, assigned to economic development, as well as the coming into operation soon of the “facilitating unit intended to improve the fluidity of exchanges between municipal services and developers. “There is a positive signal from the City that it wishes to increase real estate investments,” he underlines.
Averaging of the assessment roll
Regarding the new assessment roll that was tabled on Wednesday, Mr. Fournier invites the City to consider the idea of spreading the increase in values, which amounts to 32.4% on average, over a period of four years instead of the usual three years. The objective is to lessen the shock caused by the considerable differences between building categories. For example, the industrial sector increases its value by 60.5% on average, while offices are satisfied with a gain of 6.5% and the value of shopping centers declines by 2.1% on average.
Differences in the variations between building categories generally result in a shift in the tax burden from the categories with the lowest increases in value to those with the highest gains.
This exceptional measure of spreading the roll over four years was implemented in Montreal in 2007, following the entry into force of a roll showing increases in value of 38.6% on average.