It's Jamie
@SjamieIt
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Municipal issues, data, transportation, history, yelling at drivers. Serious ideas, unserious person. Lots of original content. Pretend journalist. 🚲👶🌳
Centretown, Ottawa, Ontario
Joined February 2022
In 2009, a small change to the way Ottawa collects Development Charges resulted in a very significant subsidy on sprawl. This change was made by city staff, against the direction of council, buried in a 450 page background study, and nobody on council seems to have noticed.🧵
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Ottawa’s photo radar cameras shut down today
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Doug Ford replaces "cash grab" on speeding drivers with cash grab on all taxpayers.
Ontario invests $210M in traffic calming measures to replace speed cameras https://t.co/lhFDMJIRvl
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To be clear, in case there's any misunderstanding, these properties are all in the same city and pay the same tax rate. It's the assessed value that's broken. First example again, even though they have the same listing price, the assessed value is: ↙️ $679,000 | $565,000 ↘️
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Ontario property assessments haven't been done since 2016 and it's getting ridiculous. Suburban homes are paying much lower property taxes than they should be. Annual property taxes: ↙️ $8575 | $6360 ↘️
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The city is taking on a $331 million loan for this, which if things don't pan out as projected, taxpayers are on the hook to repay. Taxpayers are also on the hook for any cost overruns on the construction of the north side stands and the arena/event centre.
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$15.6 million from city reserves - that is just cash collected from taxpayers, no longer going to city services like fixing roads and sidewalks, maintaining other city facilities. I assume we saved this up by letting everything else in the city fall apart.
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$65 million for "air rights", but the city is spending. $19.2 million to build a parking garage for under the towers, and we're also giving the developer $6.7 million from those funds. We're basically just selling off city parkland to a private developer.
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$118.4 million from a waterfall deal that only pays out if OSEG makes a profit, which they never have. We're left making payments on the debt, even if OSEG never pays us a penny.
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$69 million in future property taxes from the two towers. Property taxes are general revenue for city wide services. If we didn't build those towers, the city will still collect taxes from whatever new housing those same residents choose to live in instead.
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The math on Lansdowne 2.0 is all lies and gimmicks. Like, $6 million from raising the hotel tax. That doesn't actually have anything to do with Lansdowne. If we raised property taxes 2% and just said it all goes to Lansdowne 2.0, is that Lansdowne 2.0 paying for itself? No. 🧵
Lansdowne 2.0 is a smart, responsible investment for Ottawa. We receive more than $400 million in value for only $130 million. New northside stands, a modern event centre, more money for affordable housing, and a greener, more accessible space - all at less than one-third of the
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I must have been holding up traffic so badly on this 30km/h, single file, local street, that this pickup driver decided to ride my ass, yell things at me, and try to run me off the road. He said "you're not a car!" I guess to him that means I can't use the road or something.
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Close-passed by a transport truck this morning, which by the way, isn't even allowed to use this road (NCC Driveway - no commercial vehicles).
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Had to hold my tongue here. Why do they always park on the sidewalk?
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Hey @arthurwhiteCBC This is a pretty big deal. Less than two years ago staff said they can't keep up with front yard parking violations and limited enforcement to post 2007, https://t.co/lf41ZF2G8s Now they're not enforcing it at all.
An email I got today from Ottawa By-law: "Management has just announced a pause on all further enforcement for driveway and walkway widenings, including those on the City Right of Way, while the City discusses how to navigate the large influx of reported issues around the City."
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An email I got today from Ottawa By-law: "Management has just announced a pause on all further enforcement for driveway and walkway widenings, including those on the City Right of Way, while the City discusses how to navigate the large influx of reported issues around the City."
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