The Mayor of the City of Clarence-Rockland, Mario Zanth, discusses their plans for the coming year regarding various developments in the City, as well as decisions made for the 2025 budget such as increased development charges for future development and their strategy for minimizing tax increases.

Benjamin Richard - Local Journalism Initiative

When asked about the upcoming tax increases, Mario Zanth told us that they “settled on 6.98, and we’ve settled on 6.98 percentage that evens out to 169$ a year on the average price of a home”. Comparing other municipalities in the united counties of Prescott-Russell, Zanth added “if we look at other municipalities around us, we’re looking at, I think there are some out there that started their budgets at 21%, at 19%, at 15%”.

After receiving a larger invoice from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) than expected, the City asked the provincial government for more financial support to cover the cost, which they received as an amount upwards of 580 000$. Instead of putting all of the funding to counterbalance the tax increases, the council decided to bring it down by a percentage point and keep the rest for the future instead of raising the taxes even more in future years.

Development charges increases in Clarence-Rockland
When we asked why development rates were soaring this year, Mr. Zanth replied that “if you look at every other municipality that has low development charges, they all started this budget with very high taxation rates.” Instead of passing on the difference in cost for new development to taxpayers, the mayor hopes that developers will understand the necessity of the increased development charges that the City wants to pass-on to them. Developers will therefore be inclined to absorb the difference in development costs through their profits, bearing in mind that if the cost of houses rises so drastically, selling will be much more difficult.

Zanth explained that “going from 27 000$ to 59 000$ is a massive jump, and we understand why builders are frustrated at that” and when addressing a number of developers, he reminded them that “their job is to build a house that will stand for 50 years and [his] job as part of the council is to make sure that the money is going to be there in 50 years to manage the growth that that house brought”.