Number of Tower Cranes 2015

[Viewfromthe42]

And even though politicians may want taxes to go down and may even shift the tax rate downward, if all the increased development puts pressure on land prices to go up, then the dollar value of your property taxes will go up anyway.

That's not how I understand Ontario municipal taxes work.

What happens is that first the city and region decide that they need $100M in taxes for 2015 and property values are $10B. Then the tax rate gets set to 1%.

OK, now let's say it's 2016. The city and region now need $110M. But the values go to $15B. The tax rate would then go to 0.73%.

(http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home...e14831630/)

You are both correct. The important link is that we are affected by how our property value (property, building, etc) changes relative to everyone else in Waterloo. If the tax rate saw no change, you would think that your taxes wouldn't change. But if you and your neighbour both had $400K houses last year, and this year your neighbour's was worth $200K and yours was worth $600K, the tax paid (which is what we really care about) would be halved for your neighbour and increased by 50% for yourself.