Montreal Gazette

Tenants and suburbs take hard hit, critics say

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They don’t get city of Montreal tax bills in their mailboxes, but tenants and suburban residents will be among the hardest hit by tax hikes in Mayor Valérie Plante’s first budget, critics say.

The average municipal tax increase in 2018 will be 3.3 per cent, according to Montreal’s 2018 budget, made public Wednesday. But the pain varies according to the size of buildings.

While single-family homes will see increases of 2.8 per cent, apartment buildings with six or more units face hikes of 5.4 per cent.

“In all 19 boroughs, apartment buildings are hit harder than any other category,” Coalition Montreal Coun. Marvin Rotrand said.

That’s not just because of the budget, he noted. Part of the blame lies with the fact the evaluation roll that came into effect last year imposed the largest valuation increases on apartment buildings.

“Last year, Projet Montréal (Plante’s party) strongly criticized the fact that the (Denis Coderre) administra­tion didn’t take (the valuation roll) into account. They said tenants were negatively affected and that was wrong,” Rotrand said. “Well, this year, it’s even more glaring.”

The main reason: Plante’s budget increased overall spending by $270 million or 5.2 per cent — and property taxes are the city’s biggest source of revenue, Rotrand said.

The budget, which will be the subject of city hall commission hearings starting Friday, will “create a perverse effect — some of the poorest people in Montreal will get the largest impact of the increase in spending,” he added.

Landlords are allowed to pass on tax hikes to tenants when they send rent increase notices. Rotrand said many tenants in his borough — Côte-desNeiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, where big apartment buildings face a seven per cent tax hike — spend more than 50 per cent of their income on rent.

The tax hike alone could add $10 to $30 a month to rent increases, Rotrand said, noting that would be in addition to the hike landlords planned to impose for other reasons.

People who don’t live in the city of Montreal are also facing increases because Montreal Island suburbs will have to pay a lot more for shared services such as policing and transit.

In recent years, Montreal has limited increases on the suburbs’ bills to roughly the rate of inflation. But in 2018, on average, they’ll have to pay 5.3 per cent more. Hardest hit are Town of Mount Royal (9.8 per cent) and Montreal West (9 per cent).

T.M.R. Mayor Philippe Roy said he expected a 2.3 per cent hike.

“We were stunned,” he said Thursday, noting T.M.R. will have to pay almost $5 million more than expected to Montreal. “It’s a huge, huge hit.”

T.M.R.’s $92-million budget was already prepared and will now have to be reworked, Roy said.

“There’s no magic,” Roy said. “When you have a new expense, there are two choices: you cut services or you increase taxes. Council will decide, but in T.M.R., cutting services isn’t usually something we’re in favour of.”

T.M.R.’s finances “were very, very solid, and we were going to have very good news in this budget,” he said. “But now I think we’ll have a tax increase because of Montreal.”

Commercial property owners are also up in arms. Taxes on non-residentia­l properties rise by an average of three per cent — more than triple last year’s increase. “The increase will accentuate the decline of Montreal’s already sick economy by stifling the owners of small non-residentia­l buildings and small businesses who already suffer from high tax rates,” said Peter Sergakis, president of the Associatio­n des propriétai­res de bâtiments commerciau­x du Québec.

 ?? GRAHAM HUGHES ?? “We were stunned,” said Town of Mount Royal Mayor Philippe Roy, left, who joined Coalition Montreal Coun. Marvin Rotrand in criticizin­g Mayor Valérie Plante’s first municipal budget.
GRAHAM HUGHES “We were stunned,” said Town of Mount Royal Mayor Philippe Roy, left, who joined Coalition Montreal Coun. Marvin Rotrand in criticizin­g Mayor Valérie Plante’s first municipal budget.

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