Pundit Predicts 1% Lansdowne Tax: SARAVANAMUTOO
The City of Ottawa has avoided any real discussion of the financials behind Lansdowne. We’re told that the project will cost $419 million, of which taxpayers will only have to pay $5 million a year.
That is almost certainly not true.
Lansdowne makes its calculations based on cost and revenue projections out to 2066. Any calculation that projects out 4 decades is a guess at best. And furthermore, the City’s Lansdowne business plan is full of holes and wishful thinking.
I’ve prepared a 10-minute video that provides the full breakdown of Lansdowne financing below. I’ve also prepared a 3-minute version — even further below — that summarizes the key points.
The full analysis
If you want to get to the bottom of Lansdowne finances, then take 10 minutes to watch the explainer video below.
The 3 minute version
For all the movers and shakers who can only spare 3 minutes, here is a summary version just for you.
Bottom line: assume a 1% property tax
The Lansdowne partnership has a bad record of putting forward projections that simply do not come true.
Lansdowne 1.0 promised taxpayers almost $100 million in profits. That amounted to nothing.
Lansdowne 2.0 promises taxpayers over $350 million in profits. Do we expect those to come through?
Unlikely. And even if they do, taxpayers will still be on the hook for far more than the City is promising.
For taxpayers, the safest assumption is that Lansdowne will eat up the first 1% of your property tax increase.
If this project goes ahead, thank Mayor Sutcliffe for his 1% Lansdowne tax.
Neil Saravanamuttoo is a director of CitySHAPES and the author of The 613 on Substack.
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I for one, am NOT supportive of any TAX for which I get next to nothing BUT, OSEG and friends get virtually FREE use of the facility and make a profit from it. Ottawa would have been much better served to “go it alone” from the onset, refurbish, change and keep ownership as well as control over the property gifted to and OWNED by the citizens. Is it too late to return to sensibilities?
… and these are best-case-scenario figures. The costs are based on today’s construction estimates which have already grown from the first set of figures that we got in 2022 to the 2024 numbers from the Auditor General. That jump is from $333M to $493M in just two years. Of course, the AG’s figures are more reliable than the first set because she’s looking at facts – she’s not the proponent trying to sell you something.
Given that construction costs will invariably increase year over year, by the time there is any work started on this project the price will have increased considerably. Then you have to add cost overruns and delays to the figures. This City builds nothing that’s on-time or on-budget.
I think the tax increase will be well over 1% and will go nowhere but up as this project plays out. Sutcliffe and his cronies will be long gone; OSEG will be reeling in the profits and Ottawa residents will be paying the bills for an unnecessary renovation of a sports facility most of us will never use while more of Lansdowne’s Park disappears for the benefit of OSEG.
The 10 minute session is well presented. The numbers he cites are clearly supported (all drawn from city reports), and clearly articulated at a non-finance level. I strongly recommend that you watch it.
Ask your councillor whether they have ‘invested’ 10 minutes of their time to watch this video. Ask them what their reaction is.
Ask them if they are prepared to request staff to respond with a clearly supported rebuttal to the financial figures presented.
Ask them to ask themselves whether they believe they have been as fully informed about the financial risks of Lansdowne as they should be, before they make a half billion dollar decision.
Ask them if they are prepared to take Planning Committee Chairman Jeff Leiper up on his rhetoric about there being off ramps to the Lansdowne 2.0 project.