Members of the Mimico Cruising Club prepare their boats to be put in the water this weekend in Toronto.Kevin Van Paassen
With Lake Ontario water levels at a 10-year low and yacht-club property-tax assessments hitting record highs, many Toronto boat owners are wondering how they'll keep from running aground this spring.
Facing average tax-roll increases of 600 per cent, members of Toronto's 18 private yacht clubs are saying that the landlubbers at the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation are as shifty as an east wind bouncing off the Scarborough Bluffs.
Though some envision crews of tax-shy skippers wiping their self-pitying tears with silk ascots, most sailors would refute that stereotype: Not all clubs are created equal. Like any other kinds of sportsmen, some have fewer resources than others.
Club members claim that when the MPAC issued new four-year property assessments in 2008, it scheduled tax burdens to rise by an average of 600 per cent by 2012. The statistic is based on the re-sale value of commercial land adjacent to the clubs. While MPAC later offered to cut the increase in half, the majority of clubs appealed both assessments and are now reefing in for an expensive, prolonged process during which time they will be taxed at the full amount.
For its part, MPAC suggests what is at issue is simple land value. "Our values are more accurate now. We discovered there was a substantial increase in the value of the land, especially in urban areas and on the waterfront," explains Peter Thachuk, a valuation manager for MPAC.
The clubs argue they should not be taxed near the rate of a commercial enterprise, since they are not-for-profit organizations that lease park or conservation land from the city to provide a way for Torontonians to remind themselves they live on a lake. Commodore Grace Morrison of the Bluffers Park Yacht Club estimates their assessment increase of 959 per cent will result in members paying up to $500 more per year to sail.
Hikes on that scale will make it harder for the clubs to provide an accessible service, argues Gord Hines, the former commodore of the Etobicoke Yacht Club. He says few of the nearly 600 members in his club are the type to re-heel themselves with a pair of Top-Siders each year. Instead, each member works to keep the cost of sailing down by doing 30 hours of maintenance work per year. The members only pay to staff three employees, and they fund a bursary for 40 students in their mainly public summer sailing lessons.
"Taxes are a major expense for a non-profit organization like ours," says Mr. Hines. "We work hard on accessibility, and an increase of 600 per cent risks changing the fabric of the club."
Next door at Mimico Cruising Club, 64-year-old Ron Meredith-Jones is plain-spoken for a man with the title of "chair of the council of commodores," a prow that lets him speak for 41 recreational sailing associations on Lake Ontario.
Mr. Meredith-Jones says his club's list of 500 members includes many who are living on comfortable but relatively modest incomes. "Jack up our taxes and we'll lose our lower-income members, the ones sailing used 25-foot boats that cost $3,000.
"We are open to all comers. The only reason we have turned down candidates for membership is because their boats were too large and wouldn't fit in our slips."
Members at both clubs, the second- and third-largest in Toronto, will show up in work clothes to launch nearly 600 boats this weekend, with no help other than a few hired crane operators. Mr. Meredith-Jones says such do-it-yourself efforts toward boat launching and club maintenance and operations help to keep annual costs for members down to around $2,200.
"You can't moor a boat at a marina anywhere on the lake for that amount of money," says Mr. Meredith-Jones. "These clubs provide most of the boating opportunities on the lake, to the widest group of people, at the lowest cost."
Special to The Globe and Mail