Milton Canadian Champion Article: Derry Rd. underpass could be built sooner than planned.

Snippets:

Residents of west Milton who flooded the e-mail inboxes of regional councillors earlier this year asking for Halton Region to speed up construction of an underpass on Derry Road might be getting what they asked for.

and

“I am relieved and delighted to hear that,” said Milton resident Zeeshan Hamid, who began a petition asking for the underpass in August. “The underpass cannot happen too soon. I hope the council will continue to consider this need a priority.”

but

Wanting to make sure Regional staff weren’t recommending the project be pushed up due to public pressure, Dennison asked Zamojc if the underpass would come at the expense of other higher priority projects

finally

The proposed 10-year capital budget forecast envisions construction beginning in 2012, subject to council’s approval.

So keep up the pressure by signing the petition until the budget is approved!

Why doesn’t Halton just require ultra-low-flow aerators? I replaced aerators on my faucets with these 1.0 gallon-per-minute aerators. I cannot tell the difference. Imagine the savings if every new home built in Halton had these on each bathroom faucet!  New homeowners can always take them out or replace them if they like.

Walmart, Superstore and other retailers sell hardcover books for less than the cost.  Why?  It gets people to the store.  Specifically, it is better than selling toasters or socks at a discount because it gets the right customer in the store. Customers who buy hardcover books (which is arguably a luxury item) buy other items too. 

Does your municipality have a loss leader?  Something it offers in a discount to attract desirable businesses or residents?

Click here to expand the rest of this article

I just thought of something.

Say development charges for new homes go up by $20,000.  Two things happen :-

1. The person buying a new house needs to get a mortgage of additional $20,000.  Their mortgage is $20K higher, so they pay higher interest
2. Since the house price goes up by $20,000 because of the additional tax (ya ya, it’s a tax), they pay higher GST!
3. Their property values are assessed $20,000 higher, so the Town / Region collects more property tax

So let me get this straight: first we hit people when they buy a house, then just because we taxed them more, we increase their property taxes. Lovely :)

A person buying a $550,000 new construction in Halton next year will pay :

• Development charges that the builder passes on
• GST [higher because of highest development charges]
• PST (both actually combined into HST)
• Ontario Land Transfer Tax [also high.  The guts of Province: first they take PST and then they also take the land transfer tax]

By the time it’s all done, the poor person purchasing a new home will end up paying over $100,000 extra just in taxes.

Sweet, sweet gravy train. 

Here is a run-down:

• The Region passed an approximately $7,888 increase in Development Charges for SDE residential construction
• Mattamy Homes passed that on to homeowners who have purchased but not closed.  Many of them got a $7,888 bill in mail
• The Region insists that it’s a fee payable by Mattamy and implies that they should not be able to pass it on to consumers.  More info in their FAQ
• Mattamy cries foul, especially since they paid millions in development charges in advance (you can think of it as an interest-free loan). Perhaps the region should not be able to back-charge if it accepts money in advance.  Their point of view is here
• But then again, Mattamy rushed through the approval of 1500 homes in 2007 and agreed to pay remaining charges when they were calculated in the 2008-2009 budget.  They took a business risk (that the increase would be low) and lost the gamble

I have been asked where I stand. I don’t know yet.  I am trying to get more info.  I sympathize with people.  I’d be pissed if I had to come up with an extra $8,000 for closing.  That’s a lot of money.  Here’s what I agree with :-

General:

• New residents pay for all development costs.  Everyone, including Mattamy, agrees with that
• It has been argued that the Region / Town could be more efficient with projects that cost DC money.  [Zeeshan says: Perhaps]
• I am personally against stealth tax.  People should know how much of their house price was due to development fees and where that money is going. They could find out if they really cared, but it would be nice if this was spelled out for them
• I want to see development charges stay in the locale they are raised from.  If residents in a subdivision that requires an underpass have higher development charges, then that’s fair.  If residents in that subdivision pay through their noses but still do not get their infrastructure, then that’s unfair.

Halton:

• Halton’s share of development charges go into a general pool and can get spent anywhere.  So Halton can take a few dozen million dollars from Mattamy home buyers in Milton and spend it on overdue projects in Burlington.  That’s where the theory breaks since this money, raised by home buyers in 2009 and 2010 in one location may not necessarily fund their growth.  By the way, I am not accusing the Region.  I am saying that it’s possible.  It should not be. 
• I also agree that the Region cannot have it both ways.  Either it should take fee from a builder in advance or it should wait until it finalizes what the charges are.  That means no advance approvals of homes for builders either (sorry Mattamy).
• Does it really cost two to three times more to put infrastructure in Halton than it does in other places?  Has the cost really gone up nearly 3 times in last few years?  Is it a ploy to stop growth?
  [It’s not.  It’s all Ontario’s fault (yes, I am serious)]

Province:

• I sympathize with the Region as well. The Province funded a lot of new growth in Peel and other regions but have now left Halton with the bill.  Halton is growing like crazy and managing that growth costs a lot of money. Ontario’s Place To Grow will only make things worse.  Ontario needs to foot up the bill
• I am disappointed that Ontario even allows a builder to pass on additional cost after a purchase and sales agreement has been signed.  Ask yourself this, if your income goes down after you sign the agreement then can you pull out?  Can you buy a smaller house?  No!  You have to put up with whatever your financial circumstances become. Why shouldn’t the builder do the same? 

Builder:

• I feel bad for Mattamy, I really do.  But it seems like consumers are being used as pawns in politics between the Region and builders. That’s not right, no matter what hardship Mattamy is going through.  As I said, Mattamy gambled when it agreed in advance to a charge without knowing what it was going to be.  It was a business risk that did not work out.  Tough!

Finally, shame on lawyers who reviewed Purchase and Sales agreements but did not cap the cost to $1,000 like many other lawyers did.  Shame, shame, shame. They should refund their client’s fees and close for free!

It’s a tough situation for everyone, but especially for people who got stuck in the middle. It seems like the Region doesn’t care about them, since they represent a tiny number of votes (and new residents don’t vote anyway). The builder does not care about them, because these people are already stuck.  The Province doesn’t care.  These people are really in a tight spot.

I will write more once I have more information, I am on the case.  It is just remarkably difficult to get simple information.  You’d think that halton.ca would have a history of residential development charges in a table format that’s easy to find.

Stay tuned!

With the CN Rail petition thing I started thinking, Milton seems really under-represented in the Halton Council. 

Milton’s population growth between 1996 and 2001:

  
Source: http://www.halton.ca/PPW/Roads/PDFs/MasterPlan_FinalReport.pdf

With this chart Milton’s share of Regional Councillors make sense.  But it’s not 2001, it’s 2009.  Lets see a forward looking estimate:

Population growth estimate until 2021:

  
Source: http://www.halton.ca/PPW/Roads/PDFs/MasterPlan_FinalReport.pdf

Explosive growth means Milton has far more infrastructure needs than rest of Halton does.  The most recent census (as of mid-summer 2008) puts Milton’s population at 72,500. 

Take a look at the growth forecast until 2021:

This table estimates that Milton will hit 82,700 by 2011.  Considering Milton had 72,500 people a year ago, I am willing to bet that Milton will have 80,000 people before 2009 is over.  Heck at this rate Milton may have closer to 100,000 people by 2011, instead of the original just over 80,000 forecast.  So if anything then population growth forecast underestimated Milton’s growth.  However, for the purpose of this post we will stick with forecasted numbers.

This table shows that in 2021 Milton will have a much larger proportion of Halton’s population, twice as many people as Halton Hills and not too far below Burlington.  Right now the Halton Regional Council has 20 people (not including the chair), only 3 of them from Milton.  If we are to hold Burlington at 7 councillors and Halton Hills at 3 (to maintain their current levels), then the Halton Council will need to re-adjust its size to 25. It will need to change Oakville’s seats to 9 (giving it two extra) and Milton’s to 6 (giving it three extra). 

Hey what do you know, that will give Milton a chance to think about full-time councillors too (something I argued against doing until Milton has more representation in the Regional Council).  Essentially Milton will be able to work with 5 full-time Councillors + a Mayor instead of 8 part-time Councillors + a Mayor. 

It’s too late to do this for the next 2010 election, but 2014 will be here before we know it.  This is something Milton should really push hard for.  Considering Oakville gets extra seats too, this should be doable. 

That is the only way to get a fair deal from the Halton Region. 

I have been debating for several weeks whether to do this or not. I have been unsure about the format as well (should we collect signatures and take them to the Council, or have individuals e-mail them?)

Here is the issue :-

There are already thousands of homes west of the CN Rail track on Derry Road. The only practical way to get to the town is to go east on Derry, which requires crossing the tracks. Many trains take that track every day, causing a lot of traffic delay. Once traffic backs up, it takes a long time to clear, especially during rush hours. The situation is getting worse every day as more and more people move. We need an underpass on Derry NOW!

After a lot of thinking I have decided this :-

• Halton’s Regional Chair, Gary Carr (sort of the “boss” of the Council) himself admitted that the underpass “should have been done years ago” and was “an example of poor planning”. He also admitted that the development west of the rail tracks “should never have happened without a grade separation”. This tells me that the Regional Council agrees that we need the underpass NOW.
• In 2007 the Town of Milton passed a motion calling the Regional Council to finish the underpass. This tells me that the Milton Council agrees about the urgency.
• The project is still not expected to start until 2016, with an end date of 2017 (and many recent projects have been delayed, some by over a year). By then who knows what the population will be. This points to a disconnect between the first two bullets and this one.
• Our Councillors already know about the issue. However, Regional Councillors are mostly from Oakville and Burlington (2/3rd of the Council) and may not completely grasp the situation
• We tax-payers, as employers of Councillors, have the right to contact them.
• I debated whether I should just encourage people to contact our councillors (Barry Lee, Colin Best and the Mayor, Godon Krantz [who also sits on the Regional Council]). However, after I lot of thinking I concluded that these individuals already understand the situation and need the support of other Councillors in the Halton Council.
• If Councillors mind getting an e-mail from residents who pay their salaries then they do not deserve to be in the Council (my opinion of course, you may disagree)
• I thought about contacting the staff instead. I have found Milton staff to be very approachable and helpful. However, the Halton website has a department e-mail (MiltonRoads@Halton.ca), but not a point of contact (an individual with a name). Your e-mail (should you decide to use the form linked below) will go to the engineering department as well.
• Finally, it is the Council that will approve or disapprove this project. I feel that getting one e-mail from the tax-payer who suffers from this everyday is not too much to ask. Sure, an individual Councillor may get 100 e-mails, but that is still 1/100th of 10,000 residents impacted by this

Based on this, I reached the conclusion that I should ask residents to contact all Regional Councillors, asking them to move up the project date for the underpass.

To help residents, I set up an online form that will send the e-mail for you. In fact, I even put some sample messages so you dont even have to type a message, if you don’t want to. Honestly, if Mattamy can bombard them for its interest, I think we have the right to do the same for ours.

If you disagree then please do tell me why, because I may have missed something. This is a case where I feel it’s better to ask for forgiveness later, if they mind getting e-mails from residents. Otherwise please follow this link to the petition page . It has link to the online form, as well as individual contact information.

I appreciate your help :).
ps. I am willing to take the e-mail form down if most people find it inappropriate. Please leave a comment telling me if you disagree. Thanks.

This is a follow up to my previous post titled ‘Stealth Tax – Developer Fees.’  

I was surprised to learned that very few people knew about development charges.  This is a charge that builders pay on each home that they obviously pass on to customers.  This can be high.  Not thousands, but tens of thousands of dollars!  A typical detached home in Oakville, for example, may carry a development charge as high as $50,000 (no wonder homes in Oakville cost so much more than homes in Mississauga). 

I’ll leave the claim of “lowest property tax in GTA” for another day.  If I already paid $40,000 in taxes up front then my taxes aren’t really low now, are they?   Next time someone tells you that Milton has low property taxes then tell them it’s because they paid many years of taxes up front. 

In theory development charges make sense.  New developments require new infrastructure that existing residents should not have to pay for.  However, in order for them to make sense in practice the revenue from those charges should be spent around the communities it is collected from.  That, unfortunately, doesn’t happen.  In practice, development charges have turned into a tax on new home buyers so existing home-owners don’t have to pay for services they receive (see the post on the Nassagaweya Tennis Club where the town proposes spending $3 million on a tennis club with less than 200 members).  Other recent projects using development charges are the expansion of Milton Sports Centre and the construction of a central library and arts complex on the Main Street.  These would make sense if the needs of new residents who paid dozens of millions of dollars in taxes were met.  Instead, my neighbours and I are stuck with a Derry Street that should’ve been expanded two years ago, the neighbourhood park area that is a pile of dirt collecting garbage, schools that are overcrowded and delayed, and the underpass on Derry Street that isn’t planned for almost a decade when it should have been built before construction ever started.   

Development Charges are only fair if there is a bylaw that forces a majority of those charges to be spent in communities they were raised from.  Otherwise they cause a serious moral hazard.  The region starts considering this as free money.  This caused huge issues in cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix that were addicted to developer charges.  In those cities the planners thought not of residents when approving new construction, but at $$s coming from developers.  As a result they overbuilt and brought down home values in the entire area. 

If you think that cannot happen in Milton then think again.  Milton doubled its population in less than a decade.  Even Brampton has a growth cap of around 5000 homes (that’s for a population of 433,806.  Milton equivalent for this would mean less than 1000 new homes would be allowed every year in Milton so infrastructure could keep up).  Instead Milton has no development cap, none.  That’s horribly risky for your property values, if not for your quality of life because of ever-crowded streets and schools.  This sort of stuff happens because the town and the region sees dollar signs.

A better way of increasing revenue is to increase the tax-base by attracting good, high quality employers to the region. Many of them moved to Mississauga over the last decade, proving that an area West of Toronto can attract top employers. That’s what we need in Milton. It will help solve traffic issues (so people in this region will work in this region), give employment to people and find a more diversified tax-base so tax-rate can stay low.

I have several issues with this that I’ll summarize here quickly:

First, this option 2c will be presented to the Council that has some changes (that may not be minor to everyone).  The Staff is recommending endorsement of this plan.  However, there has not been any public input for this plan.  They presented options 2a and 2b, on which they only received 9 comments (for a population of 80,000, that is kind of sad … but I’ll leave that for another post).  I feel that the staff should have presented this plan to the public first.

Second, it is the first time they proposed an employment area West of Tremaine (see circle-1).  I am troubled by that.  Prior plans show that area to be part of the education village.  I’ve seen other employment areas in Milton (Steeles Ave for instance) and frankly, they are an eyesore.  Previous plans recommended employment areas South of Britannia, and I feel that the town should just stick with that.  At least the town should ask residents South of Derry and closer to Tremaine for input.

I would like more information on this zone.  What type of employment land would this be?  Is this general employment land or will this be dedicated to employers that need to be close to a university.  I would also like to know why this is being changed.  Other large campuses I’ve seen all typically increase demand for high-density housing (for students and otherwise) and retail space.  I cannot think of good reasons why this is getting changed to employment zone.  

Third, see circle-2 and circle-4.  Circle-4 will put people in “Milton” closer to Oakville and Mississauga than they are to Milton.  Remember Milton’s downtown urban core is North of Derry.  Moving those residential areas in circle-2 makes more sense to me because first: it will keep them closer to the employment land south of Britannia and second: it will keep them closer to existing urban Milton.  People who live so far from the city-core often lose the sense of belonging to the city, which causes other issues in the future (they do not participate in the city as much).  It also makes transit services harder since people suddenly get too far from the proposed education village site, downtown, central library, arts & entertainment centre, Sports clubs and other activities the “core” of the city provides.  Circle-2 will also put this people in the middle of two employment areas (one on Tremaine and one on Trafalgar).   

[Aside: I am intentionally using “city” for Milton instead of “town” because that’s likely what Milton will be by then]

Also, I am also troubled by the amount of traffic on Trafalgar (also because of circle-3), which is another reason why circle-4 should be somewhere else.  This area is surrounded by Natural Heritage System (the green around circle-4) which will likely be impacted by all the construction and traffic. Not to mention that residential area will be high-density, which will likely make things worse.

Before buying my house in Milton I researched property tax rates and was delighted to learn that Milton’s property taxes were comparatively lower. However, that was before I learned how expensive water was here. Now I feel cheated.

Water here is damn expensive. And you know what else? What stings more is that they just went up 6.7%. That’s right, more than three times the rate of inflation.

The people we elected shouldn’t be doing media releases trying to save me $14 / year of property tax increase. They shouldn’t be spending $millions on the new town hall. They shouldn’t be giving themselves a salary boost. What they should be doing is working to reduce our water cost.

Seriously, I have three kids. I’ve put low-flow faucets and showerheads, I am not watering the grass, heck I have even significantly shortened my showers. But there’s only that much we can do. Ultimately we have to use water!

Halton Region is proposing a bylaw prohibiting smoking within nine metres of the entries and exits of most municipal buildings.

My first thought was "awesome." However, upon further thinking (over an hour actually), I am not sure if I like the suggestion.

Let me explain.

I hate the smell of second-hand smoke. I could never be a smoker because then I wouldn’t be able to stand myself. This is why I supported the indoor smoking ban, although I think it wouldn’t be out of line to give some room for exceptions. This current bylaw, however, may be going too far.

I am noticing this trend where we feel justified in taking civil liberties away from people in minority. In this case it’s smokers. But that doesn’t change a thing.

Banning smoking indoors has good health reasons. Second-hand smoke kills. That ban has public safety justification. This proposed ban does not meet that bar. It is only there because us non-smokers are inconvenienced by the smell as we enter or exit a building. We think it’s too much to put up with a habit – albeit an annoying even – of fellow citizens even for the few seconds it takes to pass by them.

I think it’s going too far. Don’t let people smoke indoors. But as long as cigarettes are legal, let them decide where to smoke them outdoors.