Toronto property tax increase reduced to 9.5 per cent in 2024

Toronto residents will not face a double-digit property tax increase in 2024.

CityNews has confirmed Mayor Olivia Chow will present a final budget on Thursday that includes a 9.5 per cent property tax hike, which is one per cent less than the 10.5 per cent city staff had previously recommended.

If passed, the average Toronto homeowner will pay approximately $372 extra in property tax this year.

A 9.5 per cent tax increase would still be the highest since amalgamation and would eclipse the seven per cent increase former mayor John Tory pushed through last year.

The change will result in about $42 million in lost revenue and it’s uncertain where that money will come from or if further cuts will be necessary to make up the deficit.

The city was already facing a budget deficit of nearly $1.8 billion.

Mayor Chow indicated one of the areas where there could be significant savings is the Toronto police budget. The mayor wants to cut $12 million from the proposed $1.186 billion police budget but police chief Myron Demkiw has warned that would create an “unacceptable risk” to public safety.

“We’ve gone through 10 years of budget constraints – four of the last 10 budgets had zero per cent increases,” Demkiw told Mark McAllister during a sit-down interview. “If you really look at the impact over time, since 1999 the city has grown by 600,000 people – the Toronto Police Service has 37 more police officers.”

Another topic of debate when it comes to cost savings is a snow-clearing service that is available to some 262,000 homes, primarily in Etobicoke, North York, and Scarborough. Elimination of the windrow plowing service would reportedly save $16 million, however, the budget committee recommended that other savings be found to keep this service.

Earlier in the week, Chow announced she would be reducing the proposed tax increase for multi-residential properties in order to keep landlords from passing the cost onto renters. Chow said that amount would need to be 3.75 per cent or less. The current proposed multi-residential tax rate increase is six per cent – 4.5 per cent in property taxes and a 1.5 per cent increase to the City Building Fund.

Mayor Chow will present the final budget on Thursday morning at 10:30 a.m. at the Scarborough Centre TTC Station.

The budget will go before city council on Feb. 14 and Mayor Chow has previously indicated that she would not use the strong mayor powers to push her budget through.