ICE TIME
• Girls win ice-time power play on city rinks [ Toronto Sun ]
• ‘Compromise’ over ice time [ National Post ]
• City resolves tussle over ice time [ Toronto Star ]
CITY HALL
• Province, city spar over TTC [ National Post ]
• Dalton McGuinty, David Miller spar over TTC [ Toronto Star ]
• Miller to McGuinty: Butt out of city’s election [ Globe & Mail ]
• The Minutes: Other business this week at City Council [ Toronto Star ]
NEIGHBOURHOODS / COMMUNITIES
• Fiorito: In Weston Rd. grocery, Seoul food reigns supreme [ Toronto Star ]
• Young activist honoured for work in Jane-Finch neighbourhood [ Toronto Star ]
OTHER NEWS
• Dog owners find spiked beef tongue [ Toronto Sun ]
• Why it took 10 hours to clean up 401 crash [ National Post ]
• Mammoliti courts seniors with promise to end property tax [ Globe & Mail ]
• Girls’ hockey group claims victory on ice shoot out [ Globe & Mail ]
• Editorial: Too many marathons [ Toronto Star ]
• Goar: Tapping Canada’s urban breadbasket [ Toronto Star ]
• Is Captain John’s Restaurant too weird to sell? [ Toronto Star ]
• Melting hearts in High Park [ National Post ]
9 comments
If Dalton McGuinty and his MPPs think that public transit is essential, perhaps they should start giving it better financial support.
‘What is missed in comments is the “new chief” of Toronto Housing. Instead of looking for a qualified outside candidate the Board lead by Councillor Fletcher did not even request applications or interview any outside candidates for an agency that is just as dysfunctional as the TTC and appointed internally a social worker with no business experience to run a $billion corporation. It will therefore be business as usual in a corporation that is the biggest slum landlord in the City. Extremely short sighted but to be expected from a Miller administration that appoints only leftist allies like Fletcher to important Boards and Committees. Someone like Fletcher has absolutely no qualifications or fiscal experience to manage anything and is only a trained seal to repeat the Miller mantra “ we want more money” and everybody else is to blame.’
Excellent point Bill. Not surprising though.
Here is an interesting news link…….
http://www.yourhome.ca/homes/realestate/article/770395–development-charges-a-concern-for-developers
On average in the GTA (excluding Toronto), the development fees per single family dwelling unit is $36,222. In Toronto it is $12,910. Giving us a difference of $23,312 per unit. Toronto has had over 10,00 starts per year since 2001. Some years it has been over 20,000 starts per year. If we use an average of 15,000 per year and apply a development fee of $36,222 per unit the city would generate $349,680,000 per year in additional revenue. That is over and above what it receives today.
And for those who think that this will increase housing cost’s, I assure you that it will do nothing of the sort. The cost will simply be capitalized into the cost. In other words, it will come out of the developers, and land owners hides.
Glen: “And for those who think that this will increase housing costs, I assure you that it will do nothing of the sort.”
I’m not sure what mechanism you think will prevent developers from raising the prices of the things they sell when it costs more to make them.
Hi Glen,
I appreachiate your point, but disagree that the developers will “eat” the cost. Not unless we have a real slump in the housing market. Businesses have a target profit margin, and they will charge to achieve it if they possibly can.
Eric and Laurie,
Research and history shows that such taxes/fees do get capitalized into values. Price elasticity is determined by the buyer, not the seller. Developers would take a loss on there existing holdings but not with subsequent ones.
Look at it like this. If I am a developer and I want to buy a parcel of land to develop into 100 units and have a projected profit of $20,000 per unit. I might do the following.
100 – 700 sq. ft. units
Construction cost $12,000,00
Dev. Fees: $3,622,000
Arch Fees etc. $1,000,000
Net projected profit $ 2,000,000
If I assume that in this particular case these units will sell for $280,000 each I know that after construction cost and NPP the land value that I am going to build on can cost no more than $9,378,000.
If the development cost were reduced to a lessor amount, say $1,291,000, I would have been willing to pay up to $11,709,000 for the land.
The cost get capitalized into values. In the end it is the original land owner who pays.
Glen, I think that the stronger argument is that not all housing and office space that people buy is built new. Prices on existing square footage wouldn’t include the increased development charge, and would tend to keep the market rate from rising instantly to match the development charge increase.
“In the end it is the original land owner who pays,” you assert, but it seems to me that if the land-owner laughs off your offer of $9,378,000, you either have to reduce your profit expectations or raise your selling price. If the development fee were $5,700,000, you would absolutely have to raise your selling price, because you’d have to reduce your profit to less than zero otherwise.
You say that “Price elasticity is determined by the buyer, not the seller,” but consider this: I, a buyer, would be happy to pay 25 cents for a house. Alas, it seems that the price isn’t that elastic.
Eric, the development fees are for new development, existing footage is not subject to it. Insofar as the incidence goes, again look at where the elasticity is. If the city places a $36,000 fee for each unit of new development, it is not avoidable. Therefore the impact will must fall on either the buyer or seller. Which brings us back to price elasticity, and who sets the limits of such. Not perfectly but nearly always it is the buyer whom sets this limit.