Do Canadians use the word county?

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by niwell

Not as small as they used to be though! Especially if you count fees towards local roads and services boards. Without giving away too much this is something I deal with a lot.

The Government of Ontario did recently announce that the land fees collected by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry will be increasing quite a bit over the next number of years but they will still be only a fraction of what most incorporated municipalities charge for property taxes.

Timmins has seen huge annual increases in property taxes over the last decade and many people are looking for cheaper alternatives. I believe Timmins has the highest property tax rate in the province. Some unorganized townships do have service boards (for example Foleyet or Gogama) but many don't so the fees are very low. But even with service boards the fees are much lower than living in Timmins.

[vid]

The main reason taxes are going up in the north is because of MPAC. Grain elevators are now commercial, not heavy industrial (that was a $1,000,000 hit); our main pulp mill saw it's value cut by about 70%, Canadian Tire just won a settlement to devalue all of its properties significantly due to the lowered resale value as a result of many big box stores going bankrupt and leaving empty retail space and almost all stores will follow (which is millions more in lost taxes). Dryden practically went bankrupt when its mill was revalued, because it contributed about half of the city's revenue. MPAC cut its value down to almost nothing and forced the city to pay them back with money they don't have. Thunder Bay alone has paid around $12 million back to multinational corporations in the past few years as a result of MPAC's decisions.

Thunder Bay's actually seeing an increase in the value of its properties overall of about 2% per year, but because of the reclassifications and retroactive payments, we're losing about 2% of our revenue annually even with 3% tax rate increases. We'd have to grow the local economy at about 7% just to break even. They only sector that hasn't gotten a break is small business and residential, which have gone from providing a third of municipal revenue to half. We have lower tax rates than much of Ontario but people still complain it's too high because in order to maintain the budget, everyone has to pay about $50-$200 more every single year, and it's gone on for a decade now, just to lower property taxes for industries that aren't even growing in this region.

Even with our mayor on the MPAC board of directors, the problem is continuing. Municipalities just aren't listened to.

[Loco101]

MPAC is definitely a bad name here. We've had so many issues with mines where millions has to be paid back to them.

Our water and sewer rates have huge increases every year as well.

[vid]

We used to be able to subsidize them through property taxes, but the province wants them run entirely independently of that so that it's less messy when they get sold to private companies.

But at the same time, Thunder Bay alone has spent nearly a quarter billion on its water and sewer infrastructure in the past 15 years with little to no provincial help. We spent nearly $100,000,000 to convert the city to run off of a single water source and all of that money came from the municipal government, it's the most expensive single project the city has ever done.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by Loco101

The Government of Ontario did recently announce that the land fees collected by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry will be increasing quite a bit over the next number of years but they will still be only a fraction of what most incorporated municipalities charge for property taxes.

Ministry of Finance, not MNRF. The latter only collects for Land Use Permits on Crown Land. Looking at the data there are a number of areas within unincorporated areas that will end up paying more or less on par with rural municipalities in the North once levies to local roads and service boards are included. However, still considerably less than urban northern municipalities. This is mainly an issue in areas where there are unincorporated areas in close proximity to municipal limits - particularly so in Kenora, Dryden, TBay and SSM.

The property tax increase in northern urban municipalities is bordering on untenable though, even with the considerable amount of provincial support via uploading and the OMPF.

Originally Posted by Loco101

Timmins has seen huge annual increases in property taxes over the last decade and many people are looking for cheaper alternatives. I believe Timmins has the highest property tax rate in the province. Some unorganized townships do have service boards (for example Foleyet or Gogama) but many don't so the fees are very low. But even with service boards the fees are much lower than living in Timmins.

It's actually some small rural municipality in the North (I can't remember which), driven by extremely low assessments. Actual tax rates aren't really a meaningful comparison though, as the rate is an outcome of the municipal budget and assessment base. In terms of average municipal taxes Timmins is on par with other major centres in the North. Still lower than southern Ontario and especially places like London. It has increased at a higher rate though, which is the issue.

In terms of service boards, there are 46 in the North which encompasses over 2/3rds of permanent properties. Fees can range from as low as $100 or so to over $1,500 depending on what is provided. There are I think around 200 local roads boards or "50/50s" which also pay fees which can range from less than $50 to over $500.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by vid

The townships actually are very official, because property rights are still based on them. If you own land up here, you don't own "Parcel whatever in Thunder Bay", you own "Parcel whatever in Neebing Additional Township". It will appear on birth certificates and ID as well if you live in unincorporated area, though your mailing address will use whatever name Canada Post has chosen (and those change periodically). Someone living northwest of Thunder Bay will be in the township of Ware, which Statistics Canada calls Lappe, but Canada Post calls Kaministiquia, and they're probably referring to it as Kivikoski.

The ID and birth certificate thing is interesting - I had no idea about that one!

In terms of legal property description, that's the same as how it works everywhere in Ontario. The legal description of the property I live at still says "Township of York" in there somewhere.

When I said irrelevant I meant primarily in terms of service delivery and land use planning. For service delivery at a provincial level townships aren't a consideration at all other than convenient boundaries. Everything is based on the DSSABs. The one exception is the OPP in unincorporated areas, however they use Townships as a location identifier more than anything else - it has not bearing on funding. Planning boards don't necessarily follow township boundaries, nor do school boards, local service boards or roads boards. They don't delineate tax rates outside of municipalities either.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by niwell

The ID and birth certificate thing is interesting - I had no idea about that one!

In terms of legal property description, that's the same as how it works everywhere in Ontario. The legal description of the property I live at still says "Township of York" in there somewhere.

When I said irrelevant I meant primarily in terms of service delivery and land use planning. For service delivery at a provincial level townships aren't a consideration at all other than convenient boundaries. Everything is based on the DSSABs. The one exception is the OPP in unincorporated areas, however they use Townships as a location identifier more than anything else - it has not bearing on funding. Planning boards don't necessarily follow township boundaries, nor do school boards, local service boards or roads boards. They don't delineate tax rates outside of municipalities either.

In at least part of Waterloo Region, land titles still refer to the German Company Tract, the block of land purchased from the Six Nations around 1800. Waterloo County and its townships did not yet exist.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

In at least part of Waterloo Region, land titles still refer to the German Company Tract, the block of land purchased from the Six Nations around 1800. Waterloo County and its townships did not yet exist.

Yeah I'd imagine it dates back to how the land was originally surveyed when it was purchased / subdivided. I'd guess Eastern Ontario has some interesting stuff going on too. Land registry offices have a ton of old maps and descriptions dating back to the 1800s detailing all the changes - it's pretty cool.