Calgary’s mayor calls for shift of tax burden away from businesses
Global News
Gondek said the tax mix in other cities is around 40 per cent business and 60 per cent residential. Calgary currently has a 48-52 mix.
The market didn’t save Calgary from its downtown being hollowed out or its housing becoming unaffordable for average citizens, and the mayor now wants council to take “bold” proactive steps to help businesses and homeowners as affordability challenges linger.
Jyoti Gondek urged her fellow councillors to seriously consider shifting the city’s tax burden away from non-residential ratepayers.
Addressing the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, Gondek said the city’s housing market, like the downtown office vacancy crisis, was not “magically resetting” after a market downswing, but was instead stuck in their respective ruts: a dearth of housing and a glut of office spaces.
“We figured it was just the market. You know, the boom and bust cycles that we so often refer to,” Mayor Jyoti Gondek said Thursday. “This time, however, things were not rebounding in the same way.”
She said Calgary had been regarded as an affordable Canadian metropolitan centre that was supported by well-paying jobs, a high quality of life and inexpensive homes, but that recently changed.
“We were exposed to the vulnerability that we had not invested enough in either market or non-market housing, that we had not been able to keep pace with our growth. Once again, our response to this vulnerability was to create a bold new way forward… a housing and affordability strategy that was driven by experts in the field.”
The mayor said housing is the top challenge facing Calgary right now, and it’s vital for the city to execute on all parts of the housing strategy approved by city council last month.
“Housing is a very big concern. And if we are not able to house the people that are coming here, we’re going to lose them,” Gondek said.
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