East GTA property values up just 3.3%

November 04, 2008

Kenyon Wallace

Staff Reporter

Despite large jumps in property values in Uxbridge and Brock townships, Durham Region will see an average assessment increase of just 3.3 per cent in 2009 – the lowest of all GTA regions.

The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) has now mailed assessments to more than 201,000 property owners in Durham, for the first time since the province froze assessments in 2005.

Last week the Star reported average assessment increases in a ward-by-ward breakdown for every other region in the GTA.

Numbers for Durham were released yesterday.

"We found that municipalities closer to Toronto – Pickering, Ajax, Whitby, Oshawa – typically saw a lower increase between 2005 and 2008," said Kathy Blake, an MPAC municipal relations representative in Durham. "As you move out to the outer municipalities – Clarington, Brock, Scugog – you are seeing higher increases. Individuals are moving to the rural areas and the values are going up as a result."

Since the last provincial assessment, waterfront property and farmland saw some of the largest increases in the region: 24 per cent and 36 per cent, respectively. MPAC phases in assessment increases over the next four years, meaning owners of these properties will be hit with average increases of between 6 and 9 per cent in 2009 alone.

The municipal ward with the biggest gain in assessed value is Uxbridge Ward 1, with a 6.39 per cent increase for next year.

The ward, bordered by York-Durham Line to the west, Uxbridge-Pickering Townline Rd. to the south, Lakeridge Rd. to the east and Wagg Rd. to the north, is home to several exclusive residential housing subdivisions currently under construction that real estate agent Ian Morrison says are pushing up values.

"With a moratorium on development in the Oak Ridges Moraine, no more subdivisions can be created," said Morrison, who's been selling real estate in Uxbridge for 21 years.

"People are realizing that in the future it's only resale that's going to be available."

Uxbridge Township, population 20,000, boasts an extensive network of nature trails and has its own hospital, rare for communities its size. These features make Uxbridge desirable for young families and seniors, says Morrison, adding the township is predominantly a commuter community.

Oshawa Ward 6 and Ajax Ward 3 share the distinction of experiencing the lowest average assessment increase in the region: 2.28 per cent.

Both municipalities have been hard-hit by job losses in the manufacturing sectors, and are posting some of the lowest property value increases in all of the GTA.

"Oshawa is still struggling with the image of a working town," said Oshawa Councillor April Cullen (Ward 6).

"We've overcome the lunch-bucket image to a large degree, but it's a process. Nothing happens in a day."

Geoff Romanowski, an Ajax senior development planner, says homes in Ajax's Ward 3 are a mix of bungalows, townhomes and single-family dwellings built mainly in the 1960s and '70s.

The ward encompasses the town's downtown core, currently the focus of a community improvement plan.

Romanowski says most new development is happening in the town's north end, near the border with the green belt.

An increase in assessment doesn't necessarily mean a hike in taxes; it's all relative to other properties in the city or region.

The region and each of its municipalities will determine tax rates based on how much they need to collect to meet their budgets for 2009.

Properties with proportionately higher assessment increases than others in the municipality will end up paying more; those with low assessment increases could even end up paying less.