Newmarket poised to pass 5.5% increase on town's portion of property tax bill

Including bumped up water and wastewater fees, tax hike for $706,000 home is $180; for $900,000 home, it's $214

Yorkregion.com
April 3, 2023
Lisa Queen

Newmarket council is expected on April 3 to pass a 5.5 per cent tax increase on the town’s portion of property tax bill.

Councillors unanimously approved the tax hike at a March 27 committee meeting, but it still must be ratified at Monday’s council meeting.

Although councillors had toyed with the idea of cutting services when a preliminary budget was tabled earlier this year with a proposed 7.67 per cent tax increase, staff shaved the tax increase down to 5.5 per cent without having to chop services.

The 5.5 per cent increase will add $125 this year to a resident or family with a home valued at $706,000. Those with a home assessed at $900,000 will see their town taxes bumped up $159 this year.

However, that doesn’t take into account the 3.8 per cent increase to water and wastewater, and a nine per cent hike to stormwater bills that came into effect of Jan. 1.

Once that is taken into consideration, the average increase is $180 for a home assessed at $706,000 and $214 for a home assessed at $900,000.

Deputy Mayor Tom Vegh voted in favour of the budget without comment at the committee meeting, although he had promised in the final days of last fall’s municipal election campaign to work to keep a tax increase at less than two per cent.

Coming out of the pandemic, dancing around a recession and facing high inflation made this a difficult budget, according to Mayor John Taylor and chief administrative officer Ian McDougall.

“This has been a tough budget, the toughest ever, for sure,” Taylor said.

“None of us want to have large tax increases, just the opposite, but we also want to make sure we are maintaining service levels. We want to make sure we are building one of the best communities in Canada.”

Taylor called the tax increase “middle of the pack” when compared to other communities in the Greater Toronto Area and keeps Newmarket close to its commitment to remain 10 per cent lower than the average GTA tax hike.

The 5.5 per cent increase does not include the 3.9 per cent tax hike already approved by the Region of York and any increase the school boards could bring in.

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The town takes up 39.7 per cent of the property tax bill, with the region’s portion set at 41.4 per cent and the school boards taking 18.9 per cent.

Want to know where your town tax dollars are going every month?

A household assessed at $706,000 is paying $53.74 on fire services, $12.38 on public library services, $32.08 on maintaining roads, sidewalks and bridges, $12.99 on community programs and events, $55.91 on facilities, parks and trails, $11.79 on garbage collection, $6.67 on bylaw and licensing services, $14.09 on planning and development services, $52.18 on water, $61.47 on wastewater and $4.63 on stormwater services.

As a comparison to other York Region communities, Aurora increased its taxes 3.50 per cent this year, Georgina hiked its taxes 6.89 per cent and Stouffville’s shot up 9.00 per cent.