Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Street parkers, parking lot owners, cat owners and anyone who owns a house or a business will feel the pinch of a city budget coping with persistent inflation and other rising costs.

On Dec. 6, the Québec Forte et Fière administration of Mayor Bruno Marchand unveiled its third budget since taking office in 2021, featuring a $131.9-million increase in spending for an overall budget of $1.9 billion.

To help keep a cap on spending, the city is raising taxes and fees on a sweeping array of services, ranging from an average of 3.9 per cent on residential housing property taxes to a new $11 charge for a cat licence.

For a house valued at $293,000, for example, the increase will amount to $120. The property tax increase is the largest since 1991.

The tax bite for non-residential properties, largely commercial and industrial, is even deeper, at 4.7 percent.

One per cent of the property tax hike is designated for the management of water and waste, and is projected to bring in an additional $19 million. A new charge on some 400 outdoor asphalt parking lots, deemed by the city as an environmentally unfriendly drain on municipal services, should raise $1.7 million.

Billing the budget at the City Hall briefing as “a gift” to residents because it kept tax increases below inflation, Marchand said, “Despite a particularly difficult economic situation, we are succeeding in maintaining the quality of services offered, accelerating our investments to respond to the housing crisis and continuing to build up a reserve to enable us to better respond to climate change.”

He added, “I am proud that we have succeeded in doing this by limiting the increase in residential and non-residential tax charges below inflation, for a second consecutive year, in addition to maintaining the priority objective of continuing to reduce the city’s debt.”

The budget is intended to moderate the impact of inflation pegged at 5.6 per cent over the last two years, for a total hike of 11.2 per cent. Two examples the city gives are increases of about 40 per cent in the cost of fuel and natural gas over the past two years.

Cat owners, as of next year, will be required to get a licence for their pet, at a cost of $11. The city said the revenue will help compensate for the cost of disposing of cat litter thrown into garbage collected. The city estimates there are some 12,000 cats on city territory and it costs $5 per cat per year to treat disposed litter.

The tramway project may be on hold, but that doesn’t mean the city isn’t still paying for it. According to city officials, about $613 million will have been spent by the end of the year on preparatory work. Because of the freeze imposed by the provincial government while the Caisse de dépôt et placement studies the issue, the city has budgeted $300 million rather than $600 million to pay for already scheduled work and land acquisition in 2024.

In that regard, a report in Le Soleil confirmed the city concluded on Dec. 1 the single largest property purchase for the tramway, $37 million for land belonging to Industrial Alliance on Route de l’Église which would be used for a proposed exchange hub.

Other budget highlights include:

• $255 million invested in various housing and renovation programs, including $3 million for new social housing in partnership with Desjardins and the Fonds de Solidarité FTQ.
• The cost of street parking stickers will jump from $120 to $150 per year, and the cost of a second vehicle registered to the same address leaps from $120 to $225.
• Under sports and culture spending, $17.2 million will go to tennis and pickleball courts and $8.2 million to two (new?) refrigerated rinks.
• A slight decrease in overall spending on salaries, from 33.5 per cent of the budget to 33.3 per cent, will be achieved through attrition and not filling vacant positions.

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Mayor Bruno Marchand has called the 2024 city budget a “gift” to residents.

Photo from Ville de Québec