Here's the Report on the Commercial Parking Levy.......which in my judgement wrongly seeks to forestall the idea, while playing footsie with MPAC.
They make the basic idea seem much more challenging than it is.
In reality - No assessment value is necessary if the fee is per space, per day. If you target only larger lots, which is the efficient way to do this, you can easily pick them out on google maps, a list of Green P assets and with a handful of other tools.
No need to bother with 10 space strip malls, the target is Yorkdale, STC, Big Box Power Centres etc etc.
In the report, staff wrongly suggest they need to capture underground lots. They certainly could and that would generate revenue, but they can choose to exempt them on the grounds that they don't have they same adverse impact to landuse or stormwater. The key is simply to set criteria which can be read as objective and fair.
Equally, they are lowballing the annual revenue estimate severely.
There are 1,000,000 commercial parking spaces in Toronto, for argument's sake, by exempting smaller lots we slash that to a mere 200,000, and assess them at $3 per space, per day, we arrive at annual revenue of 219M
This is more than double what the City now estimating.
To be blunt, the tax is being sabotaged.
www.thestar.com
