Conservation Land Tax Incentive Program
The purpose of the Conservation Land Tax Incentive Program (CLTIP) is to recognize, encourage and support the long-term stewardship of specific categories of conservation land by offering tax relief to those landowners who agree to protect the natural heritage features of their property. Many environmental organizations, Conservation Authorities and private citizens are involved in this program. How CLTIP defines eligibility for relief is very important.
In the period 1998-2000, the Ministry of Natural Resources decided that one of the program’s categories of eligible land – Community Conservation Lands (CCL) – needed tighter definition. After two proposal notices were posted on the Environmental Registry, and after a lengthy policy development process, 11 eligibility criteria for the Community Conservation Lands category were finalized in 2005. The category is restricted to non-profit charitable conservation organizations and Conservation Authorities.
The CCL category stipulates that, to be eligible, the land must meet one of 11 eligibility criteria – for example, land that is habitat for species of special concern, as designated by the Ministry of Natural Resources. Another criterion is land designated as an Escarpment Protection Area in the Niagara Escarpment Plan under the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act. (For a complete listing of the criteria and more details on the process of amending the CLTIP program, see the Supplement to this report, pages 58-63.)
Public participation and the EBR process
CLTIP was the subject of two proposal processes and comment periods, the first in 2000 and the second in 2002. The process of finalizing the CCL category criteria took nearly seven years. During this lengthy process, MNR’s approach to revamping the CCL category went from including criteria that made many areas, habitats, and natural features eligible as Community Conservation Lands to excluding many of these criteria in the second proposal. The final outcome fell somewhere in between. The ECO believes that the changing makeup of these criteria reflects efforts by MNR to accommodate the competing interests of different stakeholders. On one hand, conservationists would like to see a broad and inclusive set of eligibility criteria to ensure that local areas of interest are eligible for protection. On the other hand, some municipal/finance/ taxpayer interests felt that if the eligibility criteria were too broad, then many prop- erties would receive tax-free status and municipal property taxes would need to be raised on other lands to make up the revenue lost on protected conservation lands.
ECO Comment
The ECO believes that natural spaces deserve protection, first and foremost for the protection of natural heritage and ecological functions. Parcels of land should not be viewed solely from the perspective of the development value they might have. Nor should land that is being conserved be unduly characterized as a tax burden, given the numerous real benefits they provide, some of which can be quantified in economic terms. The mechanism of tax relief for conservation lands is one that the ECO regards as sensible. As such, CLTIP is one of the most important environment stewardship programs for private, municipal and non-Crown lands in Ontario. The program is critically important to southern Ontario where there is a great deal of biodiversity at risk, a lot of private land and little Crown land. Further, the ECO believes that the property tax incentive program can be a cost-effective approach to conserving important land and ecosystems in southern Ontario.
The CLTIP initiative has been in a state of flux for a number of years, and the resolution of the divisive issues regarding the eligibility criteria for the Community Conservation Land category is a positive development. We note that MNR did respond to stakeholder concerns about the 2002 proposal. We are pleased that MNR adopted specific recommendations for criteria from commenters, including the recommendation that Conservation Authorities be eligible to participate in CLTIP.
The ECO now encourages the parties involved – the Ministries of Natural Resources and Finance, the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, and municipalities – to honour the commitments implicit in the program’s objectives and meet the expectations of participating land conservation organizations. As of autumn 2005, many conservation organizations seemed content with the outcome of this policy development process – that is, that the 11 criteria are reasonably broad and less exclusive than the seven criteria proposed earlier, and that the program should provide enough certainty for organizations to continue land acquisition operations. These are positive changes, but it will require a number of years of fair and equitable assessment practices to reassure these organizations and the ECO that the program is operating properly again.
The ECO believes the revised CLTIP is a positive initiative and will support conservation in Ontario. Attention may need to be paid, on occasion, to certain municipalities with small populations and therefore smaller tax bases, but which also have extensive eligible conservation lands. The province may need to assist in these circumstances. Aside from this point, CLTIP’s tax exemption mechanism for conservation lands is a sensible and principled means of carrying out natural heritage protection in Ontario.
(For a more detailed review of the process of amending CLTIP, see the Supplement to this report, pages 58-63.)
| This is an article from the 2005/06 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2006. "Conservation Land Tax Incentive Program." Neglecting our Obligations, ECO Annual Report, 2005-06. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 79-81.
