TAX suburban parking spots!... now there is an idiotic idea if I ever heard of one.

MY RESPONSE

Wow...that's it...let's tax everyone so much they LEAVE...then we'll really have a great place to live...no...we won't, cause noone will be left except the criminals and those on social assistance...who don't pay taxes ANYWAY!

Is the CCPA funded in ANY way by government or tax contributions? Let's get rid of them...there's a BIG savings right there.

While freezing property taxes each year may not be the way to go...neither is inventing frivolous taxes to drive potential taxpayers (especially businesses) out the door.

Do they really think anyone is going to pay those ideas?
Parking-lots? They'll just reduce parking stalls in general...and lose revenue, and lose customers, and go out of business...GREAT IDEA!
New housing starts? Who's going to pay that? Not the builders...it will be passed on to the buyers...who can barely afford it now!!! So why would anyone buy a home here...and pay taxes?

Yes, there needs to be some change in how some things are done...but the solution is NOT to punish the people who are actually contributing to the solution already.

Looks more like this person wants in on the whole pie, not only a piece... The city has a deficit, and this person just wants more money from it's citizens and wants to get rid of it as soon as possible... I wonder if...
Naw...
Think positive....
Uhm......
........
........
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Tough one......
JTF, any thoughts?

simple question for mayoral and council candidates do you endorse this plan.

Yes
No

Of course the new housing starts fee would get passed onto the buyer. That's the point. I think the article says it would only be on suburban development so it introduces an incentive to build new in-fill housing. Suburban housing is the problem, not the solution. The solution in in-fill housing, which I'm assuming wouldn't have a fee applied to it. The parking spot thing sounds pretty useless. Property taxes eventually need to be ramped up so that should at least start sooner than later so the increase can be more gradual an managable.

Property taxes only need to go up if we have not other available source of revenue.

oh wait.. the province wont allow that

but yeah... no increase in revenues when inflation is always going up = not a good place to be, efficiencies can only be found in so many places before we end up cutting programing.

I think taxing suburban parking spots makes good sense.

Take a look at any industrial park where there are one storey office blocks surrounded by hundreds of parking spots. Buildings should be taxed (to a certain extent) on their total footprint with parking included since the additional space requires longer roads and infrastructure. If it gets offices to reside downtown, then I am fully for the idea.

Shopping malls, big box outlets and even restaurants are brutal as well. You could easily consolidate a good chunk of mall and big box parking into a larger multilevel parking garage. For restaurants and other scattered retail, you could have the combine their parking so that they don't each need their own individual parking lots. Hell, even throw the parking behind the buildings (like they did until the 1960s) and give people a chance to be able to walk from store to store.

Drive down streets like McPhillips or Pembina and it is ridiculous how much space is wasted on empty parking stalls and massive lots.

That said. If you are going to tax parking, you better put that money DIRECTLY into rapid transit funding or other needed infrastructure (roads, sewers etc).

"I think taxing suburban parking spots makes good sense"

I'll be god damned if I am taxed on my parking spot at my house.

"Shopping malls, big box outlets and even restaurants are brutal as well. You could easily consolidate a good chunk of mall and big box parking into a larger multilevel parking garage."

But why?

Does it not make more sense to simply refuse to allow developers to develop something with the large footprint?

I remember a few years ago. Walmart basically said. This is what we are doing.. if you dont like it we will leave.

The city (and surrounding area) should have said. F U .. leave.

AGEsAces wrote:Parking-lots? They'll just reduce parking stalls in general...and lose revenue, and lose customers, and go out of business...GREAT IDEA!

Other than perhaps on Boxing Day or a few days before Christmas, when have you ever had trouble finding a parking spot at a big box retailer or shopping mall? Also, would you be against the tax if upper levels of parkades were exempt?

AGEsAces wrote:New housing starts? Who's going to pay that? Not the builders...it will be passed on to the buyers...who can barely afford it now!!! So why would anyone buy a home here...and pay taxes?

The buyer SHOULD be the one that foots the cost. If you want a shiny new house in a new suburb you should be responsible for the costs of building such a place including the infrastructure infront of your house and in the area. People will still buy houses here, they just might buy fewer NEW houses and look into buying condos or older houses instead.

If you can barely afford a new house now, chances are you probably shouldn't be buying a new house.

Deank wrote:"Shopping malls, big box outlets and even restaurants are brutal as well. You could easily consolidate a good chunk of mall and big box parking into a larger multilevel parking garage."

But why?

Does it not make more sense to simply refuse to allow developers to develop something with the large footprint?

I remember a few years ago. Walmart basically said. This is what we are doing.. if you dont like it we will leave.

The city (and surrounding area) should have said. F U .. leave.

That is definitely an option and should be the case in extreme situations.

However why not also give them the option to build whatever they want, but tax the bejeezus out of them to do it so that they at least are covering the infrastructure costs (and then some). I suspect that developers will look at the tax bill and realize that building a parkade would be a better option than paving 10 acres of parking lots.

Same with houses. We could deny the construction of Waverley West or just heavily levy people who want to live out there and probably result in a smaller less sprawling community.

I would rather the "you gotta pay to play" model combined with good planning practices.

Deank wrote:"I think taxing suburban parking spots makes good sense"

I'll be god damned if I am taxed on my parking spot at my house.

I suspect they are talking about commercial parking spots.

Otherwise I would just put some sod over my driveway.

"However why not also give them the option to build whatever they want, but tax the bejeezus out of them to do it so that they at least are covering the infrastructure costs (and then some)."

100% agree on that.

"Same with houses. We could deny the construction of Waverley West or just heavily levy people who want to live out there and probably result in a smaller less sprawling community."

100% agree on that. The 15K for new housing thing... not too badish.... as long as it was actually directed at the services in the area...ie new CC, new firehall.. what have you.

I was asked a question during the last election about Waverly West. They basically wanted to know if I would cancel Waverly West. I told them anyone that said they would is insane.

Deank wrote:
100% agree on that. The 15K for new housing thing... not too badish.... as long as it was actually directed at the services in the area...ie new CC, new firehall.. what have you.

I would go one step further and require the community to pay for their own CC and recreation areas (playgrounds/splashpads) by forming a residents association through fees collected from homeowners in the area.

Why should a developer be allowed to build a community only for the residents to complain to city hall about lacking in CCs and such after the developer is long out of the picture?

However stuff like fire halls, transit service and better roads surrounding the community would be funded by the tax.

used to be, before amalgamation, many of the areas did do their own fund-raising for a CC. many were built through citizen sponsored tax initiatives that only applied to the people living in the area.

umcrouc0 wrote: Suburban housing is the problem, not the solution.

What I find interesting is that it seems like the same people decrying urban sprawl are the same people who are touting one of the main benefits as being able to support urban sprawl.

If you are against urban sprawl, why would that be one of your main support arguments for RT?

Just Sayin'

Deank wrote:"I think taxing suburban parking spots makes good sense"

I'll be god damned if I am taxed on my parking spot at my house.

You already are!
If the driveway is gravel, you pay less, if it's cement, then you pay more.

St Norberter wrote:

umcrouc0 wrote: Suburban housing is the problem, not the solution.

What I find interesting is that it seems like the same people decrying urban sprawl are the same people who are touting one of the main benefits as being able to support urban sprawl.

If you are against urban sprawl, why would that be one of your main support arguments for RT?

Just Sayin'

A RT system allows for in-fill housing to be built along it whose residents don't require cars. Quite the opposite of urban sprawl.

umcrouc0 wrote:

St Norberter wrote:

umcrouc0 wrote: Suburban housing is the problem, not the solution.

What I find interesting is that it seems like the same people decrying urban sprawl are the same people who are touting one of the main benefits as being able to support urban sprawl.

If you are against urban sprawl, why would that be one of your main support arguments for RT?

Just Sayin'

A RT system allows for in-fill housing to be built along it whose residents don't require cars. Quite the opposite of urban sprawl.

True.

But I have seen people use the argument that one of the main benefits of RT is that it will support urban sprawl.

And these are the same individuals decrying urban sprawl.

Ahh. Yeah, I could see that in some cases.

A TRUE RT system doesn't really benefit those who live along it...except at the designated stations/stops on the route.
An effective system won't be stopping every 200m though...it will travel at least a full km before a stop...and some express should go further than that.

What it does though is helps spread out infrastructure to reduce the number of vehicles which need to travel into the center of the city all at once (ie. rush hour), while spreading out other services (hydro, sewer, gas, etc.) so it's not all concentrated in one dense area, instead it's in "pockets" of population.

Now...I said I'm against the parking lot taxing...cause I'm against ANY extra taxes for no reason...but...
If it wasn't a tax...if it was, instead, a contribution/building requirement that offset the problems mentioned...such as...
Want to build a mall? Put multi-level parking in.
Want to build 100 homes in an area? Build a firehall, police sub-station, school, community centre, park, etc. to support THAT area. Or team up with a neighbouring builder and do the same for 2 or 3 areas at once.

Roads and infrastructure are ALREADY factored into a builder's development costs. Those costs are part of the home sales and (typically today) recovered over time by association fees for the common areas (roads, sidewalks, etc.) maintenance fund.

I am sorry but I am CANADIAN and I have a family. As such I want to live in a house with a yard. A yard big enough for me to enjoy myself in. Anyone who thinks myself and the other 80% of Winnipeggers will be forced to live in dense condo/apartment housing just to satisfy the whims of the urban sprawl whiners is themselves very dense.


"A RT system allows for in-fill housing to be built along it whose residents don't require cars. Quite the opposite of urban sprawl. "

POPPYCOCK!

We already have transit through the areas that infill housing is targeted at.

RT (I will ignore the non rapidness of it for now)
will at most put a couple of more high rise apartment buildings near it. houses themselves will not spring up because of it.

AGEsAces wrote:A TRUE RT system doesn't really benefit those who live along it...except at the designated stations/stops on the route.
An effective system won't be stopping every 200m though...it will travel at least a full km before a stop...and some express should go further than that.

I don't know about that. Some subways stop pretty frequently in highly populated areas. And many residents of downtowns in major cities rely completely on their RT system for transportation. I'd consider that a benefit.

yeah.. some cities of 26 million people.....

Deank wrote:I am sorry but I am CANADIAN and I have a family. As such I want to live in a house with a yard. A yard big enough for me to enjoy myself in. Anyone who thinks myself and the other 80% of Winnipeggers will be forced to live in dense condo/apartment housing just to satisfy the whims of the urban sprawl whiners is themselves very dense.


"A RT system allows for in-fill housing to be built along it whose residents don't require cars. Quite the opposite of urban sprawl. "

POPPYCOCK!

We already have transit through the areas that infill housing is targeted at.

RT (I will ignore the non rapidness of it for now)
will at most put a couple of more high rise apartment buildings near it. houses themselves will not spring up because of it.

We have 'transit' in those areas, but not good transit. Nothing worth promoting development. Highrise apartment buildings are high density housing. Exactly what you want as in-fill in a city. You wouldn't want individual houses built along it because their density is too low to make sense as in-fill. Better than nothing but overall not very efficient. If a RT system actually brought a couple of additional high-rise apartments, that would be a pretty good step.