SPRING BAY—The Manitoulin Cattleman’s Association and Manitoulin Island Soil and Crop Improvement Association are calling for a moratorium on any increases in farm land value assessments through the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC), until all parties involved meet to come up with an understandable agreement on the true-realistic value of these lands as of 2015.
“I don’t have any idea how many individuals are going to fight back on their property assessment,” said Kagawong farmer Max Burt at the MCA-MSCIA annual general meeting last week in Spring Bay. “I don’t know if we are doing anything as an organization, but we should.”
“Farmland is being assessed at 200 percent more on the Island than last year,” said Mr. Burt. “Maybe we should suggest that the municipal farm rating should be reduced to say 12.5 percent instead of 25 percent. But I’m wondering what we as an organization are going to do on a long-term basis on the assessments, if there is any lobbying or resolutions that have been put forward.”
It was pointed out by Jeff Hietkamp that appeals to MPAC have to be in place by February 7.
“As an organization we need to put a resolution forward, the assessments are too high,” stated Mr. Burt, adding that, “less than 50 percent of people will appeal and even if they do there is no guarantee they will win.”
Neil Tarlton, of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, said the province downloaded a lot of legislation and control onto municipalities. He pointed out one township in Bruce County appealed and the government lowered the farm land rating to eight percent.
Paul Skippen told the meeting that, “as an organization we should speak to the minister and province on our concerns.”
It was pointed out by John McNaughton, chair of MCA-MSCIA, that the assessment on agricultural land seven or eight years ago was only 17 percent.
“How are we going to try and fix this?” asked Mr. Skippen. “If we have to pay what we are being assessed at under the new assessments, we might as well sell all of the land, it is not worth the assessment—and to appeal by each individual farm is ridiculous, we don’t have the time. This should be done as a group.”
Jeff Hietkamp noted, “some of you were out at the meeting in Burpee-Mills (prior to Christmas) with a representative of MPAC from Sudbury. She said they looked back five years to comparable sales of farm properties. She said they did not take into consideration say a doctor buying farm property (instead of a farmer).”
“I still don’t believe anyone has sold or purchased farm property on the Island for $3,000 an acre,” said Mr. Hietkamp. The MPAC representative said each farmer should go through their assessment and make sure the property they owned is at the correct classification.
During the December meeting about 25 landowners listened patiently as Mary Dawson-Cole, valuation and customer relations manager from the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC), explained the details behind the revised assessment process and how property assessments are now determined.
“MPAC has extensively re-tooled the property assessment process,” explained Ms. Dawson-Cole during that meeting. “When it comes to farm properties, we’re careful to only include sales to genuine farmers as we assign values. We ignore sales at the top and bottom ends of the range. For Ontario as a whole, we reviewed about 36,000 sales across the province to determine current property values for this latest round of assessments. We’re seeing farmers in southern Ontario selling land for $20,000 per acre and $3,000 per acre in Northern Ontario. Manitoulin used to be divided into three or four areas for assessment purposes. Now the whole Island is one.”
She said all Manitoulin farm property assessments are based on 21 farm property sales that have occurred on the Island since 2012 and noted that prices from southern Ontario don’t influence Manitoulin farm assessments.
Mr. Burt noted that one of his neighbours sold the farm next to his, however his assessment went up 200 percent when this increase should have been much smaller. “The assessments should remain status quo until all parties involved meet and agree on what the real-true assessment should be on these properties.”
The group passed a motion that the MCA and MSCIA lobby for a moratorium on any increase in farm assessment until all parties involved meet and come to an understandable agreement on true-realistic value on farm properties as of 2015. The motion will be forwarded to the province, cattleman’s and soil and crop organizations in the province for their support, as well as the Manitoulin Municipal Association (MMA) for support.
