Toronto relies heavily on manual review processes for oversight of approximately 8,400 registrants currently approved to offer short-term rental accommodations in their principal residences.

Proposed new policy directions could open the way for a broader range of redevelopment projects in specified downtown Toronto districts and at the midtown Yonge & Eglinton node.

Debate about a proposed surcharge on commercial parking spaces in Toronto has been deferred until City Council begins to consider 2025 budget measures.

Toronto is backsliding on the upkeep of municipal facilities, with a state of good repair backlog that’s projected to surpass $1 billion this year and then continue accumulating to nearly $1.47 billion by 2033.

Commercial ratepayers took on a larger share of the property tax burden in eight of 11 large Canadian cities this year, with 2023 commercial tax rates more than tripling residential tax rates in six of those cities.

The recent regulation to postpone Ontario's property reassessment for another year stretches the assessment cycle to double its originally intended time span.

Commercial properties are central to Toronto’s efforts to find more cash as the city government considers how to address massive budget shortfalls projected for 2024 and into the future.

Beginning in 2023, municipalities will have flexibility to pull more revenue from their non-residential tax base, potentially cancelling out a phased 15 per cent reduction in the provincial property tax rate that was introduced this year.

Ontario’s overdue property reassessment is on hold until at least 2024, leaving many commercial ratepayers with a further wait to realize tax reductions from pandemic-related value erosion.

Assessed values in Ottawa and Toronto will be at least seven years out of date and Winnipeg’s will be nearly five years behind before new assessment cycles begin in those cities.

Economic fallout from COVID-19 is shifting more of the tax burden to this flourishing group of assets via the mill rate, while also driving up the tax rate, for a double-whammy of consequences in jurisdictions that update valuations annually.

As announced in the provincial budget, the Ontario government plans to equalize the business education tax (BET) rate at 0.88 per cent for 2021, equating to a $450-million tax cut province-wide.

The commercial property tax rate is at least double the residential rate in eight of the 11 surveyed cities, with commercial ratepayers in Montreal, Toronto and Quebec City shouldering the most disproportionate shares.

The City of Winnipeg has invited commercial building owners and institutional facility managers to affix their Energy Star Portfolio Manager results on a publicly accessible map.

The study assesses and scores 110 prominent international cities on 22 indicators deemed to support and/or influence the age cohort born between 1997 and 2012.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing says the underlying principle of improving accessibility will be maintained, and connects the revisions to the government's commitment to cut red tape that is slowing down the production of new housing.

The new policy would give developers a basis to challenge any local government's veto of non-employment land uses in suburban office parks.