{"id":32714,"date":"2023-03-02T19:25:23","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T00:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32714"},"modified":"2023-03-02T19:25:24","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T00:25:24","slug":"taxes-town-square-in-focus-during-chamber-qa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/taxes-town-square-in-focus-during-chamber-qa\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxes, Town Square in focus during Chamber Q&A"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Future tax rates and future benefits of Town Square were top of mind for the Aurora Chamber of Commerce last week when they hosted Mayor Tom Mrakas for his annual speech and luncheon with business leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Held at the Royal Venetian Mansion on February 22, the Mayor sat down with Sandra Ferri, President & CEO of the Aurora Chamber of Commerce to answer just three pre-selected questions from Chamber members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTown Square completion has now been delayed until Spring of 2024,\u201d said Ferri in her opening question. \u201cCan you provide an update on the cost, sponsorship, and when businesses can expect to see the benefits of the project?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Mrakas said completion of the project had indeed been delayed due to \u201ca lot of labour shortages\u201d and the rising cost of materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re about a year off from what we originally intended on the Square being up, so we\u2019re looking at late fall this year to the New Year,\u201d he said, adding that Council the previous evening approved a $1.2 million increase to the Town Square budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Mayor Mrakas said the previous Council made the right decision to move forward with the project, then dubbed \u201cLibrary Square,\u201d with the momentum being maintained by lawmakers today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will always say we made the right decision at the right time because we\u2019re locking the pricing and we\u2019re able to make a major investment into our community, that our community needed. I think that anyone who has been in Aurora long enough knows that that is a decision that has been talked about for over 30 to 40 years and it is something the past Council made the decision to move forward and we\u2019re looking forward to great times ahead, especially in our Downtown Core and how the rate of return for all our businesses in the downtown. It\u2019s going to be incredible, exciting\u2026 and I will make sure we\u2019re all there in January with the grand opening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the subject of rates, the next topic brought up by Ferri was Council\u2019s approval in early February of the 2023 Budget, one which resulted in a 3.5 per cent increase to the municipal portion of the residential tax bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile taxes increased 3.5 per cent in these difficult times for business, we know that some municipalities are also looking at reviewing their revenue streams, including Development Charges [and] absent owners\u2019 levies,\u201d she said, before asking whether the Mayor foresaw Council \u201cincreasing or adding fees in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Replied Mayor Mrakas: \u201cI think we\u2019re always evaluating what we can do to, as I have always said, provide the best possible service at the best possible price, and what we\u2019re always looking at [is] can we do better? Can we find efficiencies in our budgets and within the corporation? The reality is that we\u2019re not the same as Toronto. Toronto has some other abilities for revenue creation through the City of Toronto. Other municipalities aren\u2019t as fortunate. I think we need to continue to work with the Province as well as with our federal partners to find new revenue streams for small and urban municipalities so we can actually keep our heads above water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe collect nine to 11 cents of every tax dollar, yet we\u2019re responsible for over 60 per cent of infrastructure. It\u2019s an unstainable model, so we need new revenue tools, we need new funding, we need help from the Province and the Federal government. I know municipalities in the past have advocated for one per cent of the sales tax to help municipalities\u2026move forward, but if we\u2019re not going to work together to find a solution to this, we have an unsustainable model currently and eventually we will get to a point where municipalities won\u2019t be able to continue to provide the services as we continue to grow and as our infrastructures start to crumble. That is the problem\u2026and that is also part of what we see through Bill 23 from the Province, eliminating or reducing development charges in certain aspects. I have always maintained that that legislation is not going to create affordability or attainable housing. All it is going to do is shift that burden on to our residents and businesses. That\u2019s going to create problems as we grow, continuing to build those services that our residents and businesses need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final question looked at development from a different standpoint: economic development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEconomic development is key to the Town of Aurora,\u201d said Ferri, asking for more on the types of businesses the Town\u2019s Economic Development Board is focused on bringing into Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Mrakas said a Strategic Action Plan on economic development is in the works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While he said people are starting to \u201cnotice the benefits\u201d of moving their businesses to Aurora, help needs to also be in place for existing businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur existing businesses shouldn\u2019t be struggling,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to put in place many things that will help our existing businesses grow and that is also part of some of the investments that we\u2019re making as a Town, whether it is our rec facilities, whether it is the Town Square, you need to invest in the community if you want your community to grow and be successful \u2013 and we\u2019re doing that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re taking those steps, we\u2019ve taken that first step last term, and we\u2019re going to continue building upon that momentum and create an environment where our existing businesses will thrive and new businesses are going to be looking and actually pushing through each other to get here to open up their business here because they know the great talent and great community we are.\u00a0 I honestly wish everyone in this country could experience what it is like to live in the Town of Aurora because we are an incredible community and everyone deserves to be in an incredible community such as Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Future tax rates and future benefits of Town Square were top of mind for the Aurora Chamber of Commerce last week when they hosted Mayor Tom Mrakas for his annual speech and luncheon with business leaders. Held at the Royal Venetian Mansion on February 22, the Mayor sat down with Sandra Ferri, President & CEO […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8vE","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 13:33:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}