It's time for a new approach to farm property assessment says OFA

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture recommends the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation use a different model to determine farm property values.

Currently there aren’t enough farm sales in many areas “to get a real value on land,” says president Mark Wales, who met with MPAC board chair Dan Mathieson earlier this week. The federation also made the same presentation to the parliamentary assistant for Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa.

Farmland in Ontario is assessed based on farmer-to-farmer sales and according to the farmland’s productive value. MPAC is the organization in Ontario that does property assessments across the province. The assessments are used by municipalities to calculate property taxes.

“We’re proposing some different models on how they can get more of an average value rather than values that are all over the map,” says Wales, noting the presentations to various officials is in preparation for the pre-provincial budget submission both the federation and MPAC will be making.

Wales says many of the changes the federation is suggesting are “operational changes.”

Wales says he can’t get into more details about what they’re suggesting because it first has to be presented as part of the pre-budget process. BF