Comment 35792

By James (registered) | Posted November 26, 2009 at 20:44:45

Yes, it's not 100 percent through development charges...it's usually around 20-30 percent directly but then the tax base is increased and existing residents usually benefit from new services, so pays for itself eventually.

And actually you do get to pick what services to provide - municipalities classified as towns or counties have different servicing requirement to cities. It's why Oakville continues to call itself a town even though it's effectively a city. But let's say for the sake of argument one says one should have to pay for all services on principle - shouldn't the delivery and availability of those services then be equal across the geographic area as well?

It's all very well to take the high road here and talk about everybody paying the same because "we're all part of society" - but the reality is, Hamilton is a massive municipality that is unique and unlike any other municipality in Ontario. For all intensive purposes, Hamilton should really be a two-tier municipality with a regional government (in which case there would be a variation in taxes between the different areas) - but it's not. We're one big, dysfunctional city where a farmer in Beverly would be no different to a single mother in Beasley (I'm stereotyping for illustration so please let it go if your offended). That's not realistic and doesn't happen anywhere else in the province because both sides lose.

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