Niagara property taxes ranked among 35 in Ontario

A report that ranks St. Catharines as having the sixth-highest property taxes and Niagara Falls the 12th out of 35 Ontario municipalities isn’t comparing apples to apples, the cities’ budget chairs say.

The rankings by Zoocasa.com took into account property taxes in 35 municipalities and how much taxes a homeowner would have to pay for a house worth $250,000, $500,000 or $1 million.

The report found Toronto had the lowest property taxes at 0.61 per cent, which would mean taxes on a home assessed at $250,000 would be $1,537.

Comparably, the tax on a home assessed at $250,000 in St. Catharines at 1.42 per cent would be $3,553 and in Niagara Falls at 1.28 per cent would be $3,211.

But St. Catharines budget chair Mat Siscoe said a $250,000 house in St. Catharines is not equivalent to a $250,000 house in Toronto.

“Those are going to be two very different looking houses,” he said.

“The Toronto house is not really a house, it’s more likely a shed in someone’s backyard, because their property values have been astronomical for more than a decade. In St. Catharines, $250,000 will buy you a pretty nice house.”

Siscoe said if the study compared homes with the same square footage, the property tax amounts would be similar.

Niagara Falls Coun. Victor Pietrangelo, the municipality’s budget chair, said a three-bedroom home in his city would be triple the cost in Toronto and that means triple the Toronto tax value.

On top of that, the homeowner would be sinking far more money into a mortgage or putting “dead money” into the cost of the house.

“The tax rate is not the comparator. You have to look at the value of what you get down here and the value of what you get up there,” Pietrangelo said.

Zoocasa.com, a real estate website, said in its report that the amount of property taxes a new home buyer needs to pay is often overlooked.

While buyers weigh listing prices and closing costs, it’s the property taxes that are carried over a home’s ownership.

The highest property taxes were in Windsor, followed by Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie. The lowest after Toronto were Markham, Milton and Richmond Hill.

Siscoe said the reason smaller cities pay more in property taxes is because the cost of asphalt, pipes and concrete is the same but the property values are significantly less.

Cities still need to pay for their buildings, fire departments and roads and have to recover the same amount of money to do so as larger cities.

“When I have the conversation with taxpayers I always say, a kilometre of asphalt is going to be the same in terms of cost for repaving here as it is in Milton, but in Milton the property values are significantly higher,” Siscoe said.

“So they can put the percentage of the tax rate lower because they’re multiplying a much bigger house value.”