UW Indigenous Residence

[dtkvictim]

For anyone who doesn't read both threads, I shared a photo of the new crossing in the Trails thread (trying to not make this one too off topic): https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/...#pid110885

[nms]

Preliminary construction has started with a significant number of trees cut down, the pedestrian bridge blocked off and parts of the parking lot fenced off.

[ZEBuilder]

The parking lot A expansion for this is well on it's way to being complete, they have curbs poured, this happened earlier this week or late last week. They should be able to get the base coat of asphalt down before the asphalt plants shut down in late November/Early December. They have started to dig footings for the building, the crane base is also formed but not yet poured so the crane should be coming soon. I'll try to get a photo next week.

[Vojnik_Vahaj]

I wish my school would just shell out the money to build a structured parking garage and reforest or build even more residences on the rest of the land. The sea of parking is such a waste of space.

[bravado]

I wish my school would just shell out the money to build a structured parking garage and reforest or build even more residences on the rest of the land. The sea of parking is such a waste of space.

UW leadership would rather have a cheap maintenance parking lot cash cow than a meaningful space for their students and faculty .

[Vojnik_Vahaj]

I wish my school would just shell out the money to build a structured parking garage and reforest or build even more residences on the rest of the land. The sea of parking is such a waste of space.

UW leadership would rather have a cheap maintenance parking lot cash cow than a meaningful space for their students and faculty

Common western institution L

[ijmorlan]

I wish my school would just shell out the money to build a structured parking garage and reforest or build even more residences on the rest of the land. The sea of parking is such a waste of space.

I just wish they would switch to a sensible charging model for parking. Right now daily parking is the same rate whether one arrives at 08:00 and stays into the late evening, or arrives at 17:00 as everything is emptying out and stays for an hour. Completely loony. Then there is a further away lot which is free, which makes some sense, but it’s always free, even during the day on class days when it therefore predictably fills up completely. What we need is SFPark.

[plam]

I wish my school would just shell out the money to build a structured parking garage and reforest or build even more residences on the rest of the land. The sea of parking is such a waste of space.

It is, but also structured parking garages are extremely expensive. We do have, like, one in Uptown and some on Kitchener, but I wonder what the economics are. Anyway I really don't see any funds going into construction of parking garages by universities at the moment.

[tomh009]

It is, but also structured parking garages are extremely expensive. We do have, like, one in Uptown and some on Kitchener, but I wonder what the economics are.

Two public ones in Kitchener (Duke/Ontario and Charles/Benton) plus some underground parking. Additionally, private structured parking at Market Square, Google, Sun Life, Grand River Hospital and Crown Plaza, at least.

[bravado]

I wish my school would just shell out the money to build a structured parking garage and reforest or build even more residences on the rest of the land. The sea of parking is such a waste of space.

It is, but also structured parking garages are extremely expensive. We do have, like, one in Uptown and some on Kitchener, but I wonder what the economics are. Anyway I really don't see any funds going into construction of parking garages by universities at the moment.

just a little note: parking garages are expensive mostly because by comparison, surface parking is insanely cheap (for the property owner, not for the city + tax base that has to suffer the opportunity cost of that kind of land use)

For the local experts out there, does UW have any special property tax exemptions since they are a bit of a special land user or do they pay it just like everyone else?

[danbrotherston]

It is, but also structured parking garages are extremely expensive. We do have, like, one in Uptown and some on Kitchener, but I wonder what the economics are. Anyway I really don't see any funds going into construction of parking garages by universities at the moment.

just a little note: parking garages are expensive mostly because by comparison, surface parking is insanely cheap (for the property owner, not for the city + tax base that has to suffer the opportunity cost of that kind of land use)

For the local experts out there, does UW have any special property tax exemptions since they are a bit of a special land user or do they pay it just like everyone else?

Haha...oh yeah. Although I don't know the specific details, I only know I've heard staff grumble any time UW is involved.

[nms]

The Ontario Assessment Act states: 

Property assessable and taxable, exemptions

3 (1) All real property in Ontario is liable to assessment and taxation, subject to the following exemptions from taxation:

<snip>

Public educational institutions
4.  Land owned, used and occupied solely by a university, college, community college or school as defined in the Education Act or land leased and occupied by any of them if the land would be exempt from taxation if it was occupied by the owner.

Land leased and occupied by universities, certain conditions
4.0.1  Land leased and occupied solely by a university if the following conditions are satisfied:

i.  the land forms part of the main campus of the university,

ii.  the land is used for administrative, educational or research purposes or such other purposes as may be prescribed by the Minister,

iii.  the university is a not-for-profit corporation without share capital, and

iv.  such other conditions as may be prescribed by the Minister.

This also means that both the CIGI property (owned by CIGI, I believe) and the Perimeter Institute property are exempt though I believe in the case of Perimeter, the City still retains title of the land but has leased it to Perimeter.

[bravado]

The Ontario Assessment Act states: 

oh well that should give them lots of really good incentives around how they decide on land use 

[tomh009]

The Ontario Assessment Act states: 

Property assessable and taxable, exemptions

3 (1) All real property in Ontario is liable to assessment and taxation, subject to the following exemptions from taxation:

Public educational institutions
4.  Land owned, used and occupied solely by a university, college, community college or school as defined in the Education Act or land leased and occupied by any of them if the land would be exempt from taxation if it was occupied by the owner.

This also means that both the CIGI property (owned by CIGI, I believe) and the Perimeter Institute property are exempt though I believe in the case of Perimeter, the City still retains title of the land but has leased it to Perimeter.

I don't think so. The exemption is really "used and occupied solely by a university, college, community college or (school as defined in the Education Act)". CIGI and Perimeter Institute are not universities, colleges, community colleges, elementary schools or secondary schools.

[Vojnik_Vahaj]

Crane is up