Property assessment anger filling WRAFT's sails
By Roman Zakaluzny
Lindsay Daily Post
November 1, 2005
KAWARTHA LAKES - Property owners big and small continue to complain about high assessments.
WRAFT, an acronym for the Waterfront Ratepayers After Fair Taxation, first formed a year ago after a number of waterfront property owners in the area opened up their municipal tax bills.
WRAFT is back, and its sails are starting to fill.
Angry then, they are even angrier now, after Canada Post began delivering updated assessments to area homes and cottages last week.
The average assessed value of properties in the City of Kawartha Lakes is up about 18 per cent, according to MPAC (the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation). Waterfront property owners, however, said their values jumped much more than that.
"I'm still gathering the data from across the City of Kawartha Lakes," said Gary Atkins, a WRAFT director and Indian Point cottage owner for 40 years.
"All waterfront is higher than the 18 per cent. It's more in the range of 30 to 40 per cent" and even 60 to 100 per cent, he said.
But it's not just waterfront property owners voicing their displeasure.
Retired auto plant worker Earl Armitage built a modest home on 10 acres in the former Mariposa Township - for the express purpose of avoiding a high assessment.
"I built it in 1987 for under $70,000, including the 10 acres," he said.
According to the assessment Armitage got last week, the house is now worth $232,000, up almost $50,000 (about 26 per cent) in 18 months. That means it went up in value more than $2,600 per month, every month, for 18 months.
"Investors should be buying this up," he said. "Where else can you get a 26 per cent return on your investment in that time?"
He's put in a request for MPAC to check for clerical errors. He's skeptical it'll find one, and he'll likely have to go through an appeal process which costs money if he has any chance at them lowering the amount.
According to MPAC, assessments are based on recent sales of other homes in the area. Armitage said two much larger homes down the street sold for about $350,000 this year. But he said his non-waterfront house isn't comparable.
"It's a simple, two-bedroom, raised bungalow," he said. "One bath, unfinished basement, no garage, no paved driveway, composite siding made of glue and sawdust, not brick or anything ... no sidewalks, no lights, no sewer.
"Nothing fancy about it. We built it like that to guarantee ourselves low taxes. Then MPAC comes in ... and that idea went out the window."
Back to the waterfront, WRAFT is planning a meeting for its membership on the weekend to discuss strategy,
Folks there said MPAC discriminates against homeowners who happen to live on the water, and questioned MPAC's ability to do its job correctly.
Atkins said he welcomed the Ontario ombudsman's plan to examine MPAC's way of doing things, results of which are due in four months. But he added it's time to get rid of the figures this year altogether.
"The report's not going to tell (Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty) something he doesn't already know," he said. "Taxation shouldn't discriminate against any class of people. It's just such a random, indiscriminate process, and it calls in question MPAC's whole process."
He said assessments are a subjective judgment call. "It's still too full of errors and unexplained values . . There are too many non-scientific elements in the assessment process."
Atkins said he could speak with authority about his own area. His said his Balsam Lake property's value went up 27 per cent in the last 18 months, and about 100 per cent in the last three years. Even vacant lots on Indian Point, he said, jumped between 20 and 30 per cent since the last time they were assessed,
"There have been no sales of vacant lots since then," he said. "If ... there have been no sales in the area, then it's all at the discretion of the assessor.
"The system is wrong, and the Liberals have to fix it," he said. "McGuinty's hiding on this."
The Federation of Ontario Cottage Associations has planned a meeting Saturday in Toronto at the York Reception Centre (1100 Millwood Rd.). Atkins said the Kawartha Lakes chapter of WRAFT will piggyback on that, and has scheduled a sub-meeting at 2:30 p.m. at the same place.