Self-funding Infrastructure

A painless way for Toronto to fund new infrastructure – without raising taxes – is for the city to collect the rise in local land values generated by that actual infrastructure.

The "Mink Mile" reconstruction (Bloor between Avenue and Church) is being financed this way, and serves as an excellent model for other city improvements. Many cities around the world fund their infrastructure this way.

If infrastructure is beneficial and warranted, it will raise local land value by more than the cost of that infrastructure. When redevelopment or new infrastructure – like parks, transit, rec centres, schools, hospitals – make areas of town more desirable to live in or do business in, the increased land value should be collected to pay for that redevelopment or new infrastructure. This way traditional municipal taxes don't rise anywhere in the city.

Normally the increased economic rent goes (untaxed) to the person or company that owns affected land, even though governments paid for the improvements out of the tax base. Taxpayers everywhere are unjustly expected to pay for improvements that only benefit the local land-owning minority. Self-funding infrastructure remedies this problem.

Developing a Methodology to Capture Land Value Uplift Around Transport Facilities

Self-Funding Infrastructure and the Free Market Case for a Land Tax