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Background

What should residents pay and what should they receive in return?

Municipal taxation is a concern for homeowners, businesses, and residents on fixed incomes at a time when Niagara-on-the-Lake faces significant infrastructure, service, and capital requirements.

The challenge for Council will be balancing affordability with the need to maintain and improve municipal services.

Residents may want candidates to address:

• Municipal and Regional tax increases balanced against spending priorities.

• Municipal spending priorities.

• Service levels.

• Infrastructure financing municipal reserves and debt.

• Capital projects and their long-term costs.

• Development charges and growth paying for growth-related costs.

• Opportunities for efficiencies and cost savings.

• The balance between taxation, service levels, and community expectations.

• Incentives and building standards for residential climate resilience programs like sanitary

• sewer backflow preventers, abolition of grinder pumps in new construction, storm

• resistant roofing materials, wind-resistant windows, stormwater sump pumps, water

• detention and SWMS backups

• Community programs for climate resilience like managing powerline and tree

• proximities, elevating ground level transformers, removing legacy poles and abandoned

• cables

• Support shoreline resilience initiatives to mitigate erosion that threatens bird habitat and

• indigenous forests

• Establish emergency cooling or warming centres for seniors who can’t afford robust

• HVAC systems,

• Enhanced access to charging stations in parking lots, and more bicycle racks to allow

• locks and theft prevention

• Do candidates support or oppose data centers?

Key question for candidates:

What services should the Town provide, what should they cost, and how should those costs be fairly shared between existing residents, businesses, and new development?