OREA continues to lobby for fairer property tax treatment of brownfields under redevelopment. Research undertaken by the Canadian Brownfields Network (CBN) has indicated that property owners and developers trying to remediate brownfield properties are at a significant tax disadvantage compared to agricultural land. A summary of our proposal to the provincial government including the CBN research is contained within OREA’s 2011 Pre-Budget Submission.Since our last update, OREA has continued to refine our issues briefing material and to meet with other stakeholders.
OREA recently met with Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) and the Ontario Home Builders’ Association (OHBA) to educate them on our brownfields proposal. We’re very pleased to advise you that the OHBA has formally endorsed our proposal and are working with us to convince the Ministry of Finance to move ahead.
OREA also attended a joint meeting with the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the Ministry of Finance, CBN and MPAC to discuss the concept in detail. The meeting was both informative and successful.
The Ministry of Finance acknowledged that our proposal had merit but, at the present time, the government is committed to using existing tax incentive programs to remediate brownfields. With this in mind, OREA will revise its briefing materials to highlight why existing brownfield incentive programs are inadequate. In addition, OREA will continue to build consensus around this issue by scheduling meetings with other industry stakeholders in the near future.
As always, we welcome your comments and ideas on this proposal by using the commenting function below.
Leave a Reply