I’m guessing, but am happy to be proven wrong, that infrastructure costs scale much faster with the surface area they cover than the number of people
I just wanted to explain why there was a big red band for people who don’t know the city.
I do think Ottawa is an interesting case. Most of the time these discussions are about urban vs suburban areas, which pay the same tax rate (as a % of assessed value). Ottawa further separates rural properties based on if they have transit service or not, and charges different transit fees based on that classification. I would probably argue that every resident and visitor benefits from reliable public transit. I know every time I have to drive in Ottawa I curse the lack of transit 🤣
The rest of this isn’t a direct reply to you, but may be informative so I wanted to add it:
I think it’s important that people understand how municipalities are funded.
I’m not implying Strong Towns made a mistake or they don’t know this, but I noticed they have a water infrastructure map with ages of water distribution, storm water collection and sanitary collection pipes. I’ll stick with Ottawa as an example here, but this is very similar through the province:
Utility fees (not property taxes) pay for the operations and maintenance of those pipes. There are fixed fees and fees based on consumption. The exception to this are properties that do not have a utility connection. They pay storm water fees on their property tax.
Development charges are supposed to cover costs of growth. If you look at the 2026 budget you will see how capital projects are funded (rate/tax/developers fee) starting on the page numbered 146. The projects are divided into Renewal, Regulatory or Growth. None of these were funded by property taxes.
It does look like property taxes and development charges made up a tiny portion of (<1%) of the operating items listed in the rate supported (utility bill) part of the budget, and I didn’t see an explanation of why.
Property taxes fund non-operational departments related to water infrastructure. It is true that the city will have higher costs for these departments as the amount of infrastructure (both planned and existing) increases. If we just pick Infrastructure Services as being most directly related to water infrastructure and most easily severed, that’s $15,465 (thousands) in gross expenditure in 2025 vs ~$542,000 (thousands) in gross operational expenditures for drinking water, wastewater and storm water departments and ~$306,000 (thousands) in capital spending in 2025, so < 2% of expenditures. Therefore, property taxes represent a very small part of the cost of building and maintaining water infrastructure.
I work in water infrastructure so it was fun to dig into what Ottawa does as an example, plus I know that even some of my colleges don’t understand how it’s funded! I won’t presume to look at other infrastructure departments, but I think everyone who pays property taxes should take a look at their bills and see what is funded based on a % of the assessed value, what are set fees etc. I think of more people did that they would pay a lot more attention to how decisions are made. Personally I want to claw my eyes out when I hear a city council say water rates need to be capped 🥲
Yup. It was insane the amount of property tax I paid living in a condo, compared to how little I pay now in a rural location. My $4k for an acre of land compared to the millions paid per year for that same area of land that a condo building was on.
Maybe rural and urban areas should not be bunched together under the same umbrella since they clearly have different wants and needs?
Guess the areas of Ottawa that pay the most tax…
source
Critical context:
Source
The NCC or the feds own almost all of the land in that image, which overlays with the lowest property tax areas on the other map.
Kanata and Orleans are on that map too, and are pretty populous, but have no spikes nearly as tall as downtown.
I’m guessing, but am happy to be proven wrong, that infrastructure costs scale much faster with the surface area they cover than the number of people.
I just wanted to explain why there was a big red band for people who don’t know the city.
I do think Ottawa is an interesting case. Most of the time these discussions are about urban vs suburban areas, which pay the same tax rate (as a % of assessed value). Ottawa further separates rural properties based on if they have transit service or not, and charges different transit fees based on that classification. I would probably argue that every resident and visitor benefits from reliable public transit. I know every time I have to drive in Ottawa I curse the lack of transit 🤣
The rest of this isn’t a direct reply to you, but may be informative so I wanted to add it:
I think it’s important that people understand how municipalities are funded.
I’m not implying Strong Towns made a mistake or they don’t know this, but I noticed they have a water infrastructure map with ages of water distribution, storm water collection and sanitary collection pipes. I’ll stick with Ottawa as an example here, but this is very similar through the province:
I work in water infrastructure so it was fun to dig into what Ottawa does as an example, plus I know that even some of my colleges don’t understand how it’s funded! I won’t presume to look at other infrastructure departments, but I think everyone who pays property taxes should take a look at their bills and see what is funded based on a % of the assessed value, what are set fees etc. I think of more people did that they would pay a lot more attention to how decisions are made. Personally I want to claw my eyes out when I hear a city council say water rates need to be capped 🥲
Yup. It was insane the amount of property tax I paid living in a condo, compared to how little I pay now in a rural location. My $4k for an acre of land compared to the millions paid per year for that same area of land that a condo building was on.
Exactly! To me, the amalgamation is a disaster.