I have followed for some weeks the growing Ottawa discussion over impending property tax increases as the post-freeze scenario resets to current market values. At the heart of the story is the fact that urban, core properties will reset higher while the suburban rates lower or at least remain relatively static. In this tale of two cities, cries of ‘unfair’ may be heard on both sides: those on Frank Street overlooking the canal claim their long-standing dreams of an urban haven are at risk as market muscles flex; those on Rue Topello in Orleans can firmly and pragmatically suggest that if you want to dance, you should probably pay the fiddler.
There is no fair. There is, however, some reality to discuss. Unless someone puts a working model on the table where an alternative to property appraisals is applied, and I haven’t seen one short of a Stalinist scheme, the insatiable city bills will be paid. The tax cards will fall where they may, and some of those extrapolated ‘mays’ happen to include the verifiable notion that specific property values vary for specific reasons.
I have lived on Frank Street. It was the seventies and I was a Carleton student, mostly cashless and carefree, more likely ravenous than Raven on any given day. It was the time when somebody figured that if you cleaned the snow off the canal you could skate on it. It was the time when a quick walk across the bridge to St Patrick’s College would get you a free hop to the Carleton campus on one of the seemingly immortal blue and white Mercedes shuttles. It was the time that a bakery would flood the neighbourhood with those wonderful sweet, doughy smells every morning; the nut and fun-loving black squirrels could be mistaken for fat cats. A short walk over to and up Elgin was always fun, and the return down a tulip-laden Rideau was comforting in the civilized sense. My monthly budget was $400 and that was stretched to include tax, title, tuition, rent, books, brew and sometimes food. And it worked. Not quite halcyon days, but closer to the best of times than the worst.
Is that today’s reality? Tuition costs alone across the country hover around 5K. Canal skating is now closer to an institution than a lark. The bakery is gone as is the free bus. My former nest on Frank housing my single room for double-digit rent, is probably more desirable than ever in the quaint sense, and probably unreachable without going to six digits.
Do times change? Sure they do. Except for the squirrels, of course, those kitties on the Rideau. Last time I indulged the canal with a stroll, seems like their numbers may have edged up.