[Glen]

As noted by other posters above and by councillor Pantalone, there are almost 3 times as many square feet of commercial office space under construction in Toronto, as in the 905.

As noted that statistic is cherry picked.

There are at LEAST, 3 more significant office developments that are LIKELY to break ground in Toronto in the next 12 months. Together they represent another 1,000,000 sf ft +

Did they require tax incentives?

Let me note that the '905' is facing enormous new troubles.

There is of course, the vast manufacturing decline, which not only means increased unemployment, and low-income people, and therefore higher draws on social services, but also depleted commercial tax assessments, which will end up meaning higher tax rates for businesses in the 905, as we are already seeing. Due to residential tax rates being substantially higher in the 905, the only real avenue for the area is a higher business tax rate. This is especially true for built-out municipalities where development charge revenue was significant and will be declining precipitously in the next few years.



Add to that, that the job losses are not just in manufacturing but in the head office operations of places like Nortel, and you will see notably higher unemployment in many 905 communities in the next year.

****

All this and that is without taking into account any increase in gas prices or any budgetary pressure on 905 Cities for better services or to deal with costs of aging infrastructure.

If the province decides to fund the 905 cities as well as it does Toronto the 905 cities could absorb the losses and offer tax reduction.

There is a legitimate point that Toronto's inner suburbs have been in modest decline in the last decade or 2.

That was to be expected.

Why?

However, beyond any benefits from lower business tax rates, and lower residential tax rates to boot (vs. 905), look for some very significant investments in the inner-burbs in the next decade.

A short-list

1) Massive renewal of public housing sites, including Lawrence Heights, and the Jane-Finch area.

2) Spadina Subway Extension

3) Six-points intersection in Etobicoke and a facelift of the south-Etobicoke industrial area.

4) Major investments in transit and associate streetscape improvements that will renew Eglinton, Sheppard and Kingston Road.

5) The overhaul of the 427, due to involve several aesthetic improvements to the abutting areas.

6) Toronto gateway investments, look for new parks and landscaping features on Kingston Road/Highway 2 as you enter the City starting this year.

7) The suburban 'catch-up' of service quality in libraries and rec. centres.
- library hours will expand this year and next
- a dozen suburban branches are being rebuilt/expanded over the next 4 years
- new rec centres in York, Jane-Finch and the Warden Woods areas.

That is all fine and dandy but government money does not demonstrate discretionary investment. The city has invested in film studios and the harbour front. What has been the result? Is it cost effective?

 

[TOinTO]

So, here is the umpteenth report documenting a 20 year old trend that is immediately obvious to anyone who drives a few minutes across the city boundary on any of the 400 series highways.

The Star - always ready to be stunned by common knowledge - slaps it on the front page with a sensational headline, and still manages to get the story wrong.

Toronto a suburb?

Toronto is not becoming a bedroom community. Employment in Toronto is not declining relative to population. (The population grew at 0.3%/a 2002-2007, employment grew at 1.1%/a 2002-2007).

Employment is growing more slowly than it is in the 905. (Where, interestingly, population growth continues to outstrip employment growth 3.5%/a vs 2.8%/a).

It has begun?

Is this R. van Winkle reporting? The 905 communities have been expanding their commercial/industrial base more rapidly than the city for 2 decades. I started work in '91 for a company that had just relocated to from Don Mills and Eglinton to Highway 7 and the 404.

I would argue that it is ending. The city is moving to reduce the property tax gap, so is the province. The established 905 cities are running out of greenfields that provide the development charges that help keep their taxes low. The province is also moving, although too meekly, to make further greenfield sprawl more difficult.

The older neighbourhoods of the 905 are also starting to face the same increasing poverty that we find in the suburbs of the 416. This will increase social costs.

The real challenge for the region is how to reduce the poverty in these older suburbs. And I think that will require increased density, incentives to build commercial properties on brownfields, and better transit.

 

[doady]

Doesn't matter the taxes are, many businesses (offices and especially industrial) will continue move outward because of lower land and rent costs. Even MCC has seen very little office development in the past 15 years. Lowering taxes is a futile effort.

 

[lordmandeep]

Doesn't matter the taxes are, many businesses (offices and especially industrial) will continue move outward because of lower land and rent costs. Even MCC has seen very little office development in the past 15 years. Lowering taxes is a futile effort.

well of course once your built out, you can't build 1 million sq foot warehouses can you??


You have to go to Milton.

 

[Glen]

Doesn't matter the taxes are, many businesses (offices and especially industrial) will continue move outward because of lower land and rent costs. Even MCC has seen very little office development in the past 15 years. Lowering taxes is a futile effort.

If it is your assumption that land and lease rates are lower in the 905 you might want to verify that.

 

[Glen]

As further evidence that the importance of the issue not recognized by our Mayor and his supporters.....

A long-term program of property tax relief for Toronto's business community could be put on hold in 2010 to help pay for rising costs of the recession, Mayor David Miller warned Tuesday (March 24) afternoon.
"We have a program to reduce commercial property taxes in Toronto - particularly on small businesses," said Miller following a special Executive Committee meeting looking at the city's $8.7-billion operating budget. "That is going fast - we're cutting faster than we thought. But next year is going to be a tough budget year, and I'm hoping to evaluate whether we can slow that down or not next year."

http://www.insidetoronto.ca/article/65686

Toronto needs to stop acting like a petulant child who refuses to take his medicine!

 

[lordmandeep]

Of course the whole NDP crowd may get angry that Miller is helping "big business" but in fact its mostly helping small business.


However to socialists, business always means BAD....

 

[syn]

IIRC some of those got tax breaks.

So do many suburban developments.

 

[Glen]

So do many suburban developments.

Which ones?

 

[Tewder]

A healthy 905 makes for a healthy 416, and vice versa. Of course some jobs are being lost to the burbs, they simply 'fit' better there, but others come into the city too. What's wrong with that? Do people in Toronto really want big sprawling office parks popping up? Toronto should be a place for high-profile headquarters, finance, the arts industries, education and many other things but not necessarily large-scale manufacturing (is there any left in Ontario anyways?), warehousing and office park-type outfits.

 

[Archivist]

This trend is observable in many parts of the world. I agree with TOinTO, it's hardly new, it's hardly news, and it's not something that I spend a lot of time worrying about.

 

[Glen]

Toronto is not becoming a bedroom community. Employment in Toronto is not declining relative to population. (The population grew at 0.3%/a 2002-2007, employment grew at 1.1%/a 2002-2007).

Employment is growing more slowly than it is in the 905. (Where, interestingly, population growth continues to outstrip employment growth 3.5%/a vs 2.8%/a).

You might want to compare 2009 statistics with 1989 ones. A generation ago Toronto had a smaller population and 200,000 more jobs. It also had similar transit ridership as today's. Toronto is lucky that the BoT picked the 2002-2007 period as it demonstrated Toronto's only decent performance of the last twenty years.

 

[doady]

well of course once your built out, you can't build 1 million sq foot warehouses can you??


You have to go to Milton.

Yes, it is simple economics. Higher supply equals lower prices. Lower demand equals lower prices. Milton has more space and less demand, less competition for space, therefore it will always be cheaper to do business there. Of course, that's assuming that land cost is the only factor.

There are other factors as well, which is why there are still a lot of businesses left in the Financial District. It would actually cost more for those businesses to be located in the 905, no matter how cheap the space or how low the taxes are. The reason is because these firms require face-to-face contact, and if those that do not need it will move outward or those that do will split off certain part of them that don't need it, especially with the improvements in telecommunications.

You have to differentiate between the types of office and industries, because each type of business has a different geography and there are certain ones where the cost of land is the biggest factor in their location and even some of the ones in the 905 will continue to move outward. You can see it happening on the nationwide scale too. Do you honestly believe that lower taxes would make Canada more competitive with China for manufacturing? As wealth (and therefore wage costs) in China increases, will it be able to keep all those factories?

I just think there is much more to these processes than just taxes. But that's just me, I guess.

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

I do not see Y&E in trouble. I can't speak for NYCC though.

Really? Look around Yonge & Eglinton,... see those new condo towers,... condo towers near Yonge & Elginton interection that should ideally be for office use only. Former office buildings converted to residential condos buildings,... condo being built on school land where developer make deal to rebuild the school,... pretty soon Yonge & Eglinton will be like North York City Center,... a vertical sleeping bedroom community suburb!

In North York's downtown core (along Yonge between 401 to north of Finch and 100-200m east & west of Yonge Street) between 1974 (Yonge subway extended to Sheppard & Finch stations) and 1998 (amalgamation) had basically one office building along with one condo building built every year, a 1:1 ratio. Since 1998 amalgamation, there was only ONE office building built (20 storey Transamerica - Aegon Place in 2004) but in that same time period, 45-50 new condo buildings! Now, AM net flow of people is out of the downtown North York area,... A recent city of Toronto traffic study of the downtown North York area shows a pedestrian can walk faster from Doris Ave & Sheppard Ave East to Yonge & 401 than a car can drive during AM rush. During AM rush, various outbound routes from Doris Ave & Sheppard Ave East to Yonge Street & Avondale Ave will take a car 8:32 & 9:25 (minutes:seconds), whereas the same routes inbound will take 1:52 & 3:13 (minutes:seconds). This shows a strong net migration of cars (and people) out of the downtown North York area,.... remember those suburban "sleeping bedroom communities" where everybody leaves for downtown to work,.. well, downtown North York has now become a vertical "sleeping bedroom community" suburb!

It really doesn't matter squat that politicians draw circles on a map and claim downtown North York is a commercial centre or a mobility transportation hub,... when developers build 45-50 residential condo buildings in the area since amalgamation and only one office building in that time,.... the area no longer functions as a real downtown,... it only functions as a vertical "sleeping bedroom community" suburb.

Ask yourself, when areas like downtown North York that are supposed to be real downtown areas but actually function as vertical "sleeping bedroom community" suburb,... and other non-downtown areas of North York and non-downtown areas of Toronto with predominately single family units (houses) functions as bedroom communities,.... what part of North York and for that matter Toronto actually function as non-bedroom communities???

 

[Hydrogen]

Ask yourself, when areas like downtown North York that are supposed to be real downtown areas but actually function as vertical "sleeping bedroom community" suburb,... and other non-downtown areas of North York and non-downtown areas of Toronto with predominately single family units (houses) functions as bedroom communities,.... what part of North York and for that matter Toronto actually function as non-bedroom communities???

Working on the assumption that humans sleep and typically set aside a portion of their home for that act, then my neighbourhood of King-Spadina is increasingly becoming a bedroom community as well. I look out my window and see vertical bedroom communities rising all around (including some hotel bedrooms).

It's not only Toronto that has this happening. Downtown Mississauga is also largely a vertical bedroom community. So are so many developments in the GTA outside of Toronto. The fact that the region is being increasingly knit together suggests that maybe the time has come to put aside the them-versus-us approach headlined in the Star, and to look at the means that will allow this region as a whole to better function.