City finances, taxation, and service delivery
88 commitments from 12 parties, grouped by who published them.
OneCity Vancouver 27
- Explore a progressive property tax in Vancouver so the wealthiest landowners contribute more.↗↗
- End tax write-offs for owners with building permits who do not build housing and infrastructure.↗↗↗
- Protect city services through fair annual property tax rates that enable new critical infrastructure such as pipes, parks, and pools.↗↗
- Produce a readable budget, implement participatory budgeting citywide, seek a fair-share contribution from the most resource-intensive landowners, and introduce a ranked ballot for mayor.↗
- Bring forward a motion proposing a progressive property tax system for Vancouver after October 17.↗↗↗
- Bring forward a motion targeting developers who designate undeveloped land as a dog park to reduce their tax obligation after October 17.↗↗↗
- Ensure the Park Board retains the revenue it earns rather than losing it to the general city coffers, as part of a long-term strategy to increase Park Board independence and financial resilience.↗↗
- Introduce water meters citywide to monitor usage and inform infrastructure investment.↗↗
- Replace property-tax funding for storm and sewer infrastructure with a stormwater fee based on lot size, so that condo owners and renters pay less, with freed property-tax revenue redirected to parks and community centres.↗↗
- Guarantee that a typical home on a typical lot will pay less overall after the water metering and stormwater fee changes are enacted.↗↗
- Invest in water system upgrades enabled by a progressive water metering system to reduce long-term costs.↗↗
- Double the Infrastructure Levy from 1% to 2% and pay down the current Infrastructure Deficit 20 years sooner.↗
- Run an Infrastructure Liability Audit to disclose the city's true deferred maintenance bill.↗
- Adopt a Public Services Protection Test — requiring analysis of service, workforce, equity, and long-term cost impacts — before cutting, contracting out, privatizing, or reducing any municipal service, implemented via a Council motion amending budget and procurement reporting requirements.↗
- Recertify the City of Vancouver and School Board as living wage employers, applied to new contracts and renewals in the next budget year, via a Council motion or budget direction, and establish a plain-language compliance process so workers can raise concerns without legal assistance.↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗
- Adopt a preventative maintenance and scheduled renewal approach to aging city infrastructure, identifying issues early and carrying out repairs before manageable problems become expensive failures.↗↗↗↗
- Introduce water meters to lower utility costs for average residents and charge heavy water users — such as mansion owners — proportionally more.↗↗↗
- Protect existing city services through annual property tax rates that fund new critical infrastructure such as pipes, parks, and pools.↗
- Produce a city budget in a publicly readable format.↗
- Secure a fair-share contribution from the most resource-intensive landowners.↗
- Publish the city budget in plain, line-by-line detail so finances are transparent and accessible.↗
- Research a progressive property tax to reduce the burden on low- and middle-income property owners while balancing revenues.↗
- End tax concessions for developers who obtain approval but do not proceed with development on land held empty.↗
- Protect public services and infrastructure by rejecting budget austerity, maintained through stable and equitable property tax rates.↗
- Implement preventive maintenance of public facilities to reduce long-term infrastructure costs.↗
- Apply fair wages and responsible procurement standards to city purchasing.↗
- Prioritize Vancouver-based businesses in city procurement.↗
Green Party of Vancouver 14
- Require the City and its major contractors to pay a Living Wage to workers who deliver public services.↗↗
- Make City spending easier to understand through clear, accessible line-item budgets showing how public funds are allocated and spent.↗↗
- Adopt evidence-based asset management to guide infrastructure investment, reduce deferred maintenance, and ensure public assets are maintained in a state of good repair.↗↗
- Give residents a direct role in deciding how a portion of City funding is invested in neighbourhood projects, community amenities, and local improvements through participatory budgeting.↗
- Upon assuming office, push to reveal the final costs and revenues of the FIFA event.↗↗
- Require permits, public benefit standards, and appropriate fees for privately owned land used informally as parks or gardens while awaiting redevelopment, to prevent tax-sheltered land banking.↗
- Properly fund best-practice renewal schedules for infrastructure including streets, sidewalks, sewers, buildings, and green spaces.↗↗
- Accelerate upgrades so that new infrastructure and development meet modern seismic standards, prioritizing investments that protect residents, essential services, heritage, and community resilience.↗
- Create a Vancouver Affordability Index that tracks real household costs against local incomes and uses that data to guide housing, transportation, taxation, and planning decisions.↗
- Respond faster to dumping and graffiti, add more waste receptacles, and enhance cleaning near transit and schools.↗
- Strengthen enforcement against illegal dumping and chronic offenders.↗
- Require fair contributions from high-volume e-commerce delivery operators to fund public infrastructure.↗
- Deploy low-cost smart technology and less disruptive repair methods for city infrastructure.↗
- Modernize City procurement to recognize Canadian value in technology, software, data, intellectual property, food, clean energy, and other sectors while maintaining competition and value for taxpayers.↗
Vancouver Liberals 12
- Implement a tax on luxury yachts over 40 feet and use the revenue for property tax cuts for family doctors, walk-in clinics, food banks, and the creative sector.↗
- Ban foreign travel for councillors and city staff.↗
- Exempt the Greater Vancouver Food Bank from property tax on its Vancouver space in the first budget, with savings directed back into food.↗
- Cut property taxes on businesses disrupted by City-permitted construction, including transit expansion, and require landlords to pass the relief through as lower rent.↗
- Apply development-potential tax relief so small businesses are not taxed on land they will not develop, and advocate to the Province for a small-business property tax class reflecting actual use rather than development potential.↗↗
- Reduce property taxes on family practice medical offices using tools available to council so more clinics can open in residential neighbourhoods.↗
- Cap property tax increases at the rate of inflation and provide transparent explanations for any changes.↗
- Reform middle-management roles, require every department to justify its spending, reduce management layers, and review every program's cost, performance, and value rather than automatically rolling over prior budgets.↗
- Use the City's Auditor General to audit major projects and city-owned agencies that are over budget, including the Vancouver Art Gallery build and PNE finances.↗
- Hire 400 unionized CUPE front-line workers to improve city services including parks, streets, sanitation, community centres, and libraries.↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗
- End the practice of hiring consultants and managers whose role is to manage other managers, redirecting those funds to front-line workers.↗
- Cancel any plans for a second city hall and redirect the approximately $800M in savings toward the Parks Plan.↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗
TEAM for a Livable Vancouver 10
- Make core municipal services and infrastructure the highest priority in City budgeting, with increased investment in road and street maintenance, sidewalk repair and accessibility, clean streets and public spaces, maintenance and renewal of existing infrastructure, parks, recreation and neighbourhood amenities, and public safety and emergency services.↗↗↗
- Cap annual property tax increases at or below the annual-average percentage change in Statistics Canada's unadjusted All-items Consumer Price Index for British Columbia.↗↗↗↗↗
- Examine discretionary and non-core expenditures and redirect identified savings toward core municipal services such as roads, sidewalks, infrastructure, cleanliness, and public safety.↗↗
- Undertake a comprehensive line-by-line review of the City's Operating and Capital budgets, examining cost increases, program results, alignment with core responsibilities, duplication, and consulting contracts.↗↗↗
- Request detailed audits of Downtown Eastside funding and outcomes to determine whether public resources are being used effectively.↗
- Conduct a line-by-line budgetary review, increase transparency, and capitalize on efficiencies identified by the Auditor General to ensure tax dollars are spent wisely.↗↗↗
- Stop spending City funds on programs that are clearly provincial or federal responsibilities, while holding senior governments accountable for funding those services.↗
- Continue the Long-Term Financial Sustainability and Municipal Finance Reform initiative—the joint UBCM–Provincial Government review of new options for funding municipal services and reducing property tax impacts.↗
- Review the City's financial structure and policies to ensure consistency with best practices and transparency for citizens.↗
- Request federal funding to support increased municipal costs associated with the federal government's immigration policies.↗
COPE 7
- Introduce a progressive property tax of 1% on residential property value above $5 million to generate revenue directed at ending homelessness.↗
- Fight for libraries, city-wide tenant protections, tripling the Empty Homes Tax, and universal meal programs for students.↗
- Work on a motion to tax the wealthy using the Municipal Energy Value Assessment (MEVA) mechanism.↗
- Support the motion to restore the City's Living Wage policy.↗
- Conduct an Affordability Audit for Families to identify cost pressures and create a strategy using public power to fill market gaps, create affordable children's programming, and lower everyday costs.↗↗
- Appoint a team to conduct an Affordability Audit identifying areas of growing cost of living, city levers to lower costs, new targets, and a path to a more affordable city.↗↗
- Advance an emergency transitional budget to stop and reverse changes made at the city under the previous administration.↗
ABC Vancouver 6
- Audit City Hall's core services to identify redundancies, protect taxpayers, and publicly share the audit results, within the first 100 days.↗
- Deliver a property tax freeze for residents and businesses.↗
- Ensure taxpayer dollars are spent only on municipal responsibilities.↗
- Freeze property taxes in 2026 and 2027.↗↗
- Keep future property tax increases tied to inflation.↗
- Pass a 0% property-tax increase for the 2027 budget.↗
Annette Reilly 3
Affordable Housing 2
- Implement a land appreciation tax on the sale of land, applied only to value above the 2022 land assessment and only triggered upon sale.↗
- Implement a progressive property tax with an additional rate bracket for the most valuable 20% of single-family lots, with deferral available for owners aged 55 and over until the property is sold.↗