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2022 Municipal Partnerships Report

2022: Partnering Today for a New Tomorrow

After two challenging years, we know a lot has changed. Still one thing remains constant - MPAC’s commitment, as Ontario’s property market experts, to provide property values, insights and services that municipalities and property owners can rely on.
Our 2021-2025 Strategic Plan prioritizes elevating the property owner and municipal experience. With this plan as our guide, we will demonstrate our support for property owners and our commitment to our municipal partners to enhance communities across Ontario.
Alan Spacek, Chair, MPAC Board of Directors
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“On behalf of MPAC, I’d like to congratulate all the new and re-elected officials following the recent municipal elections and thank you for your service. We look forward to the partnerships our MPAC team will continue to build with you and your municipal staff to support your community and local decision-making.”
Alan Spacek
Chair, MPAC Board of Directors
image of MPAC Representatives at the Ontario Municipal Tax and Revenue Association Conference
image of a property inspector outside a house

Who We Are

We are Ontario’s property market experts. Our job is to assess and classify more than 5.5 million properties across Ontario worth a combined value of more than $3 trillion. Since our last report, Ontario has grown by approximately 100,000 new properties and we have added more than $37 billion in new assessment from new construction and improvements to existing properties. Every municipality uses our assessments to make informed decisions about their community, including the distribution of property taxes.
We continuously update our property data so that municipal tax records are accurate when local governments are making important tax decisions.
Our work to maintain Ontario’s property database includes:
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Collecting property data in consultation with municipalities and property owners
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Analyzing and verifying changes to property and property transactions
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Inspecting properties in response to building permits, sales reviews, neighbourhood reviews and more
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Monitoring sale trends in property sectors
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Processing severances and consolidations
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Addressing Requests for Reconsideration and appeals
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Responding to vacancy and tax applications from municipalities
Tracking school support
"Our work in recent years has advanced our business processes and added more data than ever to ensure the quality and accuracy of our values. Building on these successes, we stand ready to deliver a predictable assessment base, accurate data and insights, and provide quality products and services that municipalities, property owners and other stakeholders can count on."
Nicole McNeill
President and Chief Administrative Officer, MPAC

Capturing New Assessment

Each year, MPAC updates property records to capture changes in properties from additions, improvements or new construction.
In 2022, we worked diligently to capture new assessment that provides additional revenue for municipalities. Throughout the year we assessed more than $37 billion in new construction, additions and renovations across Ontario.
Our ongoing collaboration with municipalities made this milestone possible. Together, we are modernizing and digitizing building permit collection and exchange to create efficiencies for municipalities and to help us capture new assessment faster, resulting in new municipal revenues up to two months sooner.
image of a Property Inspector at a site
“As I have recently returned to the municipal sector, I found our local representative and MPAC team have been extremely helpful to explain, answer questions and provide valuable information in a timely manner. MPAC’s continued support confirms they are a valuable partner for our municipality.”
Angela Millar
Treasurer, Township of Drummond/North Elmsley

Connecting With Partners

With the return of in-person conferences, MPAC had the pleasure of reconnecting with municipal representatives at events across the province – from the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA) conference to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference, to name just two. Our Municipal and Stakeholder Relations team attended 14 municipal conferences this year, in-person and virtually.
As a speaker, exhibitor and attendee at these events, we shared organizational updates and operational highlights, had the opportunity to discuss municipal priorities and work together on solutions.
Beyond events, our MPAC team engaged with municipal staff and elected officials more than 1,500 times in 2022 and responded to 97.7% of municipal inquiries within the time periods outlined in our Service Level Agreement with municipalities.
We’re looking forward to keeping our connections strong as municipal councils begin their new term this fall.
“We are pleased to take part in many sector conferences and events, delivering updates, and receiving feedback during our workshops and one-to-one discussions. Your insights help us to enhance the municipal experience, determine how to best support municipal operations and consider future collaboration opportunities.”
Mary Dawson-Cole
Director, Municipal and Stakeholder Relations, MPAC

Property Insights

MPAC is uniquely positioned as the only organization with a complete data set of all building permits in Ontario – we process about 300,000 each year on properties of all types. Our understanding of this data enables us to identify trends in various permit categories across the province.
During 2022, we shared these property insights with municipalities and property owners. Through a targeted media campaign, we provided the latest information on the significant increase in new residential builds and home improvements, decrease in condo sizes, growth of self-storage facilities, continued demand for office space and more.
To learn more, visit Our Stories-Building Permits on mpac.ca.
“Our relentless focus on maintaining Ontario’s property inventory gives us unique insight into Ontario’s changing property landscape. Much like the census informs us about population, property data can provide municipalities with insights on market changes and growth metrics that can enhance their planning and decision-making. We look forward to sharing more property data insights in 2023.”
Carmelo Lipsi
Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, MPAC

2021 Residential Home Improvement Building Permits

Total Permits
122,334
15%
Northwest Ontario
Residential Total Permits
1,677
12%
Northeast Ontario Residential Total Permits
6,887
4%
Eastern Ontario Residential Total Permits
21,576
1%
Southwest Ontario Residential Total Permits
17,859
12%
Greater Golden Horseshoe Residential Total Permits
22,158
15%
Central Ontario Residential Total Permits
15,007
19%
Greater Toronto Area Residential Total Permits
37,170
25%

Innovative Solutions

Investing in technology and innovative processes continues to be a focus for MPAC, especially when it comes to refining services that impact municipal operations.
This year, we continued our work with municipalities to digitize their permitting process. We are currently working in partnership with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s (AMO) business arm, LAS, on an e-permitting pilot project to demonstrate the value of digital permitting for Ontario municipalities.
We have created an Application Programming Interface (API), which allows MPAC to electronically retrieve approved building plans prior to construction. This expediates our process for providing new assessment to municipalities and facilitates new revenue opportunities sooner. We’ll share the pilot results with municipalities when the project is completed in 2023.
“The Township is excited to be part of a project that evaluates the benefits of digital building permitting solutions, while supporting adoption by municipalities that might not have taken this step on their own. Thanks to AMO, LAS and MPAC for supporting municipalities to help them confidently take a step forward in service delivery modernization.”
Chris Wray
Chief Administrative Officer, Township of Black River-Matheson

Delivering the 2022 Enumeration

MPAC worked closely with municipalities and association partners to promote VoterLookUp.ca to support the delivery of a quality preliminary list of electors (PLE) to every municipality and school board for the October 24 elections.
The campaign included print and digital content, targeted outreach for tenants and students, and toolkits with information municipalities could share to encourage voters to confirm their information on VoterLookUp.ca. With more than 215,000 searches leading up to the elections, the campaign’s success was a result of the municipalities that helped promote and educate their residents about the tool.
While this is MPAC’s last delivery of province-wide PLEs, we will continue to provide the PLE for any by-elections in 2023 and are working to implement legislated changes that will transfer responsibility for enumeration products to Elections Ontario in January 2024.
“Our staff leveraged the resources in MPAC’s toolkit to promote VoterLookUp and encourage residents to confirm their information for our 2022 municipal election. MPAC’s off-the-shelf information and VoterLookUp made it easy to engage residents.”
Anne Whalen
Municipal Clerk, Township of Sables-Spanish Rivers

Prioritizing Property Owners

“Communicating the relationship between property assessment and taxes to the public is a challenge for municipal finance leaders. Enhancing public understanding and trust in the property tax system strengthens municipal sustainability and MPAC’s toolkit is a valuable resource in these efforts. It helps to clarify MPAC’s role in determining property assessments, the role of municipalities in determining revenue requirements, and the relationship between the two.”
Donna Herridge
Executive Director, Municipal Finance Officers’ Association of Ontario
We know there are a lot of questions about the property assessment and taxation process. We are making enhancements to help Ontarians better understand how we determine assessments and how this input is used to calculate property taxes.
The language on our Property Assessment Notices has been simplified to explain why owners are receiving one, and we added a QR code that links directly to more information on mpac.ca.
We have also increased our public education efforts. It’s been six years since the last province-wide assessment update, and we understand that property owners may be feeling uncertain about what’s to come. Our new public education campaign focuses on MPAC’s roles and responsibilities, how assessed values and taxes are calculated and the relationship between the two.
To support our municipal partners, we shared a toolkit with municipalities that features ready-to-use, easily digestible content to help address anticipated concerns and misunderstandings from property owners as we prepare for the next province-wide assessment update.

New Products and Services on the Horizon

As MPAC continues the essential work that is preparing us for the next update, we are also exploring innovative solutions that support service delivery and provide further value to our stakeholders.
We recently introduced the Annotated Assessment Act to support municipalities with information to help make informed decisions related to assessment appeals. Available through Municipal Connect, this comprehensive guide explains how the Assessment Review Board (ARB) and Courts have interpreted the Assessment Act, Regulations and ARB rules, and includes more than 800 case summaries.
Another area where we are innovating is our real-time values project, leveraging leading-edge data science methods and advanced analytics to produce point-in-time market estimates. We foresee many benefits of this technology and are excited to share our progress with municipalities as the project evolves.
To ensure we deliver on the commitments we make, we are developing a new municipal “Master Agreement” in collaboration with a Municipal Working Group, that will update and consolidate numerous existing municipal agreements. We look forward to sharing more information with municipalities as we roll out the agreement in 2023.
“The review of assessment appeals is a complicated process for municipalities. MPAC’s new Annotated Assessment Act resource will help the City to better understand what legislation, regulation, ARB rules, and influential decisions have said about the property assessment environment. This tool will prove to be a valuable starting point for our research and planning as we consider our interest in future assessment appeals.”
Aaron Zamler
Supervisor of Assessment, City of Vaughan

Looking Ahead

MPAC continues its preparations for a future province-wide assessment update.
As we await the Province’s direction on the next reassessment, we’ll continue to work hard every day to keep Ontario’s property inventory up-to-date to ensure that we’re ready for a province-wide assessment update whenever it is called. We’ll remain focused on capturing new construction, renovations and additions that will deliver critical new assessment to municipal assessment rolls.
In the coming year, we’ll continue sharing market insights and analysis that will support municipal decision-making to build thriving communities. And we’ll explore innovative ways to optimize the way we work to evolve the services that municipalities rely on while helping Ontarians better understand who we are, what we do and the relationship between property assessment and taxation.