Originally posted by Sugarphreak
sputnik covered most of the points about outside users
As for my utilities and taxes; all I did was buy reasonablely sized home, with a big yard in nice neighbourhood... guilty as charged. Apparently this is grounds for upping my fees and taxing me into the ground, despite the reality that my footprint on Calgary services is much smaller than most.
It doesn't even start to address the issue of people that overcrowd residences with multiple families, or those who rent out basements... they have far more people wihtin in the household that each use roughy the same amount of water, sewer and transit as anybody else... and yet pay far less tax per person.
Should be something like a flat tax of about 2000$ and then an additional 500$ per bedroom. So a 2 bedroom house should pay 3000$ a year, while a 4 bedroom house with a 2 bedroom suite should pay 5000$ per year.
Simple, fair, catches the true cost per person rather than just punishing anybody who wants to spend the extra money on a home in a nice area of town.