WAR IN THE GTA
Golden Will Cause Political Chaos




JORDAN H. GREEN
Regional Affairs Columnist

  War has been declared, as municipalities
hammer out tax reforms in the Greater
Toronto Area (GTA).
  Anne Golden's report to be released
tomorrow, calls for a nemesis that plagued
previous premiers David Peterson's Liberals
and most recently NDP leader Bob Rae.
  Now, it's up to Mike to make things alright.
  Will Ontario Premier Mike Harris' Tories
succeed where previous governments have failed?
  The nemesis -- property tax assessment.
  Replacing the current market value assessment
with Golden's recommended actual value assessment
isn't a walk in the park.
  Actual value assessment is supposed to be fairer
and easier to calculate, according the Golden 
Report.
  However, it could cause your property tax to 
jump a whopping 100 per cent because all mun-
icipalities are currently using an assessment
from years gone by. Metro's assessment is 
40-years-old, while many municipalities in the
regions of York, Halton, Durham and Peel are based
on 25-year-old assessments.
  Golden's report suggests the province have a 
$200 million fund set aside for low income 
earners.
  This won't quiet the battle sirens in the 
regions outside of Metro, as their primary
selling feature ever since their creation over
25-years-ago is their lower taxes.
  Lower taxes caused the farmlands in the regions
to give way to industrial and business parks
fueling the local economy. This paved the way for
developers to create subdivisions and a whole new
working class emerged -- the suburbanite.
  Farming communities became prosperous urban 
centers, attracting the corporate elites such as 
IBM, DeHavilland and Magna International.
  Suburbanites for years enjoyed fresh air, less
traffic and lower taxes. They had to put up with
longer commute times, but the lower taxes, more 
direct contact with politicians and cleaner, 
safer neighborhoods were an appealing trade off.
  The Golden winds of change are blowing through-
out the GTA. These trade-offs which made the 
regions outside of Metro attractive may be whisked
away under the guise of reform.
  Many mayors appear ready to jump into the ring, 
battling to keep their area successful through 
lower taxes.
  Richmond Hill mayor Bill Bell has been saying
for months that his town's finances are in order
as they "don't have a cent of debt", so "if it
ain't broke, don't fix it."
  King Township mayor Margaret Black has been
promising a fight with Queen's Park to maintain
King's suburban, low development feel.
  Nancy Diamond, mayor of Oshawa calls this whole
fiasco a Metro tax grab.
  Maybe it is a tax grab for Metro, the Golden 
Task Force is calling for a pooling of educational
taxes from businesses across the GTA. That will
lower downtown Toronto's taxes by as much as 8.5
per cent!
  Commercial property taxes would also be lowered
in the downtown core, while increased in the areas
north of Metro. So economic successes such as the
Beaver Creek Business Park in Richmond Hill may
turn into industrial slums, as businesses are
lured back to the city from which they originally
fled.
  Imagine the uproar when the mayors of the newly
formed Greater Toronto Area Services Board 
-- another Golden recommendation -- get together 
and talk about how their businesses will be hit
with taxes aimed at saving Metro's economy.
  Even more harmful, imagine the increases in 
commuters, traffic jams and pollution as more 
people are forced to commute to an overcrowded
downtown core, because their once suburban-based
jobs moved south.
  Why live outside of Metro when our jobs move
south? Why not move en-mass to Metro as well?
  Then, 25 years later, we'll be doing the
GTA reform dance, all over again.

Covering the areas outside of Toronto, Regional
Affairs Specialist Jordan H. Green's column
appears weekly.