Helping Out the Poor Developers

Millionaire developer Steve Charest of King and Benton wants the poor overtaxed residents of Brantford to dig deeper into their pockets to help developers make even more profits.He wants the City of Brantford to pay part of the property taxes collected on new developments to the Haudenosunee/Six Nations.

City taxes are supposed to pay for services provided by the city not to facilitate development or stop illegal protests. If a portion of these taxes are given to this groups what services are they going to provide in return? Apparently this groups might not stop Mr. Charest and his group from doing their developments and thus making millions in profits. Of course their is no guarantee that other groups like the Mohawk Nation won't take up the cause and thwart these plans anyway. And who picks up the tab for those services that this tax money was intended to pay for. Why all of the taxpayers in the City of Brantford, of course.

And once these land claims are settled the monies paid are supposed to be returned. Does that really make sense? And even if that happened it could be far in the future when current taxpayer are long gone and won't benefit from this bizarre scheme.

Land claims are just that - claims that are not yet substantiated by fact. The Natives can claim that the land is theirs but there are also documents to show that the land was sold, given away or surrendered. There is also the fact that the original Haldimand proclamation might not even be valid. And complicating things is the fact that there are a number of groups including the Haudenosunee Institute, the Confederacy, the Elected Band Council, the Mohawk Nation and the Montours and their supporters all claiming to represent the Natives. A deadline to solve these claims will do nothing if one or both sides can't agree.

Development in Brantford is necessary and must proceed, but adding a new onerous burden onto already some of the highest taxed people in Ontario is not the way to go. Many, especially seniors and those on fixed incomes, faced with the rising cost of gas and other necessities, are finding it hard to make ends meet. Driving up property taxes to benefit developers will just cause more suffering and many may simply choose to leave Brantford altogether for areas where the property taxes are much lower. How will this benefit the community?

If Charest thinks that paying money to the Natives is the solution, then let him and his group of developers make the payments out of their profits. After all the money might be returned to them. Someday.

Dave's Wacky Garage Bill

Dave Levac is at again with his proposed "Garage Bill" (Bill63, Building Code Amendment Act (Storm Water Harvesting), 2008) that would require storage garages (your typical car garage) to include a storm water harvesting system before a building permit could be issued. In other words you would have to install a cistern below the garage floor when building a garage. Dave's thinking (if that is what it can be called) behind this is that the water collected in the cistern can be used for outdoor watering thus lessening the use of treated water on lawns and flowerbeds etc.

So instead of pouring a simple pad for the garage floor an excavation would have to be made for the cistern. Then either a poured cistern or a plastic or fiberglass cistern would be installed. Gutters would also have to be installed to collect the rainwater and divert it to the cistern. A pump would need to be wired in to pump the water out of the cistern and plumbing would need to be installed to carry the water out to your hose or sprinkler system. Depending on the size of the cistern (I couldn't find a size requirement in the summary of this Bill on the internet) homeowners are looking at an additional cost of at least $4,000. Mr. Levac says that builders would adapt to this requirement. Of course they will. They will simply add the extra cost on to the cost of the house or garage.

Beside the initial cost of this system, when you use the water you will be using hydro to pump the water out of the cistern and because most people water in the evening, when under the new smart metering system ( an oxymoron if there ever was one) this is when hydro will be at its most expensive. So any savings you gain from not paying the municipal water system will be more than gobbled up by the charge from the provincial hydro system. And which branch of government is it that Mr. Levac represents?

Other problems with this proposal are: because the cistern is under the garage floor, if a leak or some other problem occurs you will have to have your garage floor busted up and then replaced at a considerable expense. Also the area of collection from a garage roof is small and unless the cistern is quite large in drier summers, if the cistern water is used much, your cistern will probably run dry. But many plastic cisterns require that the cistern be kept at least a quarter full or the warranty is void. So instead of using city water to water your lawn you will be using it to fill your empty cistern. Some savings! And if your cistern is dry all that expense will be for nothing anyway. With a cistern the material used on the roof where the water is collected should not be wooden shakes or asphalt shingles treated to prevent the growth of moss and mildew, thus decreasing the life of the garage roof. More expense. But then when has a Liberal ever worried about expense to the taxpayer when they can stick their nose in other people's business and pretend that they care about the environment at the same time while accomplishing little.

Let's hope that this private member's bill is never made into law because this proposal stinks, which is also a problem associated with cistern water.