Supreme Court of Canada
Regional Assessment Commissioner v. Downtown Oshawa Property Owners, [1978] 2 S.C.R. 1030
Date: 1978-06-29
The Regional Assessment Commissioner, Region Number 13 and The Corporation of the City of Oshawa (Plaintiff) Appellant;
and
Downtown Oshawa Property Owners’ Association and Lovell Holdings Limited and G.A. Drew and T.A. Canning, Executors of the A. Drew Estate (Defendants) Respondents.
1978: May 10, 11; 1978: June 29.
Present: Martland, Spence, Pigeon, Dickson and Beetz JJ.
ON APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO.
Assessment—Review—Transitional period pending reassessment—Inequitable assessment—Need to show an inequity with respect to the assessment of similar property in the vicinity—The Assessment Act, R.S.O. 1970, c. 32, as amended—The Assessment Act, 1968-69 (Ont.), c. 79.
The respondents had appealed the assessments made upon certain central downtown Oshawa properties in the year 1970 for taxation in the year 1971. Their appeal was rejected by the Assessment Review Board, and later by the Ontario Municipal Board, but was allowed by the Court of Appeal which directed that the matter be returned to the Ontario Municipal Board for the consideration of market value. The appeal was based in the first place before the Assessment Review Board on the provisions of The Assessment Act, 1970, R.S.O. 1970, c. 32, and 1968-69 (Ont.), c. 6. In 1971 The Assessment Act was further amended by 1971 (Ont.), c. 79, which in particular added ss. 85 to 96 to The Assessment Act; section 90 providing that in determining the value of property reference is to be had to the value at which similar real property in the vicinity is assessed, and that a real property assessment is not to be altered unless the reviewing board or court is satisfied that the assessment is inequitable on that basis. Section 90 was continued in force after October 1, 1974, by s. 95, for the purpose of pending complaints, appeals, proceedings or actions affecting taxes for the years 1971 to 1974. The decision of the Ontario Municipal Board involved the question of the applicability of s. 90 to the present appeal, an issue considered in Regional Assessment Commissioner v. Ontario Steel Products, [1976] 2 S.C.R. 721, where it was not necessary to determine the point, although the judgment of the Court of Appeal had held that s. 90 was
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not retroactive.
Held: The appeal should be allowed.
It is a misnomer to speak of retroactivity in relation to s. 90, the plain meaning of which is that the criteria set out should apply to a series of bodies including the Ontario Municipal Board at the time when each tribunal decides an assessment appeal. The legislative purpose of ss. 85 to 96 was to freeze the 1970 assessment for a period of five years to permit reassessment of all property by provincial assessors and the sections were intended to be temporary. Assessment appeals on the ordinary basis that the assessment varied from the “actual value” (prior to 1968-69) or the “market value” (after 1968-69) became impossible and an appellant had to prove an inequity “with respect to the assessment of similar real property in the vicinity”. While the respondents’ appeal was based on such an inequity the Municipal Board did not consider the example given as similar property. That was a decision of fact and, as the Board did not fall into any error of principle in considering the applicability of the words “similar property in the vicinity” to the comparable property submitted to it, it should be allowed to stand.
Regional Assessment Commissioner v. Ontario Steel Products Company Limited, [1976] 2 S.C.R. 721; Re York Condominium Number 26 551, The West Mall and Assessment Commissioner for the Borough of Etobicoke, [1972] 1 O.R. 492, referred to.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Court of Appeal for Ontario[1] allowing an appeal from a decision of the Ontario Municipal Board, dismissing an appeal from a municipal assessment for the taxation year 1971. Appeal allowed, no order as to costs in the Court of Appeal or on final appeal.
B. Chernos, Q.C., and J.P. Conway, for the appellant Regional Assessment Commissioner.
H.J. Couch, for the appellant, the Corporation of the City of Oshawa.
M.J. McQuaid, for the respondents.
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The judgment of the Court was delivered by
SPENCE J.—This is an appeal from the judgment of the Court of Appeal for Ontario pronounced on November 4, 1976. The respondents had appealed from the assessment made upon certain properties in the central downtown area of Oshawa in the year 1970 for taxation in the year 1971. The Assessment Review Board rejected their appeal on November 20, 1970. The respondents filed a further appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board on December 9, 1970 but the Board did not make its decision until November 9, 1972. The Board, by a judgment of the latter date, rejected the respondents’ appeal and the said respondents appealed to the Court of Appeal.
Argument on the appeal before the Court of Appeal for Ontario was commenced on November 24, 1972 but the hearing was postponed pending the decision of this Court in Regional Assessment Commissioner, Region Number 2 v. Ontario Steel Products Company Limited[2]. The decision in the latter appeal was subsequently rendered by this Court but it does not decide the issues which are to be considered in the present appeal.
As I have said, the judgment of the Court of Appeal upon the present appeal was rendered on November 4, 1976 and, although the appeal case was filed on June 6, 1977, the respondents’ factum was only filed on February 10, 1978 and the appeal was argued on May 10 and 11, 1978.
During this protracted course of litigation, important changes were made in the legislation affecting the matter.
The appeal was based, in the first place before the Assessment Review Board, on the provisions of The Assessment Act, R.S.O. 1970, c. 32, and Statutes of Ontario 1968-69, c. 6. In 1971, The Assessment Act was further amended by Statutes of Ontario, c. 79, and for these purposes the importance of that amendment was the addition to The Assessment Act of ss. 85 to 96 inclusive. Sections 85, 90 and 95, as added by that amendment, are as follows:
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85. Subject to the alterations, amendments and corrections authorized by this Act, for the purposes of any general or special Act, the assessment roll of every municipality prepared for the year 1970 for taxation in 1971 shall be the assessment roll of the municipality in the years 1971 to and including 1974 and the assessment of all real property as set forth on the 1970 assessment roll shall be the assessments of the real property and the assessment commissioner of a municipality shall not cause to be prepared a new assessment roll for the municipality until the year 1974 for taxation in 1975.
…
90. The Assessment Review Court, county judge, Ontario Municipal Board or any court, in determining the value at which any real property shall be assessed in any complaint, appeal, proceeding or action, shall have reference to the value at which similar real property in the vicinity is assessed, and the amount of any assessment of real property shall not be altered unless the Assessment Review Court, judge, Board or court is satisfied that the assessment is inequitable with respect to the assessment of similar real property in the vicinity, and in the event the assessment of the real property shall not be altered to any greater extent than is necessary to make the assessment equitable with the assessment of such similar real property.
…
95. Section 90 ceases to be in force on the 1st day of October, 1974, but shall continue in force for the purpose of any pending complaint, appeal, proceeding or action which will affect taxes for the years 1971 to and including 1974.
The decision of the Ontario Municipal Board was concerned with the effect of the provisions of s. 90 of The Assessment Act as I have cited it, and the first question which it had to consider was whether that section applied to the present appeal. Section 90 came into effect on July 23, 1971. The appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board had been filed December 11, 1970 but the Board was of the opinion that the section applied and governed it upon the decision of the appeal. This issue was debated before this Court in the Ontario Steel Products case, supra, but it had not been found necessary to determine the point, although the judgment of the Court of Appeal has held that the section was not retroactive. I am of the view that it is a misnomer to speak of retroactivity of this
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section. The plain meaning of the words of s. 90 is that the criteria so set out should apply to a series of bodies including the Ontario Municipal Board at the time when each tribunal decides an assessment appeal. It is simply not a question of retroactivity at all. It is to be noted that s. 95 provides that s. 90 should cease to be in force on October 1, 1974 and both the decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario and of this Court occurred long after that date. Section 95, however, continued:
but shall continue in force for the purpose of any pending complaint, appeal, proceeding or action which will affect taxes for the years 1971 to and including 1974.
The present appeal, as I have said, concerns assessments which affect taxes for the year 1971, so s. 90, despite the early expiry date, still applies. I, therefore, turn to the application of the said s. 90 to the facts in the present appeal. Firstly, a word as to the legislative purpose revealed by the said ss. 85 to 96 inclusive of The Assessment Act as amended. I am ready to adopt the opinion expressed by the Ontario Municipal Board upon that issue and I quote the reasons of the Board thereon:
The purpose of this enactment presumably is to freeze the 1970 assessment for a period of five years whilst the Province of Ontario is undergoing a provincial re‑assessment. It would appear that said Sections 85 to 96 inclusive are of a temporary nature until this provincial objective has been achieved.
The purpose of the said section being to freeze the assessments in the years 1970 to 1974 inclusive in order to permit reassessment of all property by provincial assessors then assessment appeals upon the ordinary basis that the assessment in question varied from either the “actual value”, as it was expressed prior to 1968-69, or the “market value”, as it was expressed thereafter, thereafter became impossible and by reason of the provisions of s. 90 of The Assessment Act, an appellant had to prove something more and something different, that is, an inequity “with respect to the assessment of similar real property in the vicinity”. Therefore, the Ontario Municipal Board, in considering the appeal of the present respondents had to determine whether such an inequity existed. In doing so, of
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course, the Board had to be concerned with “the assessment of similar real property in the vicinity”. The present respondents’ appeal to the Municipal Board was based on the submission that such inequity did exist when the assessment of the properties owned by those respondents was compared with the assessment of land and buildings known as the Mid-Town Mall. This Mid-Town Mall was a modern shopping mall and it was agreed by all parties that it was “in the vicinity”. The Municipal Board, however, considered that it was not similar property to that of the appellants (here respondents) before it and therefore dismissed the present respondents’ appeal.
Blair J.A. gave reasons for judgment for the Court of Appeal in which the appeal was allowed and the assessments returned to the Municipal Board for rehearing. In such reasons, Blair J.A. expressed the view that although s. 90 did not apply to the case, a view with which I have disagreed, the Board’s interpretation of those words was an incorrect one, preferring to adopt that given by Phelan Co. Ct. J., in Re York Condominium Number 26 551, The West Mall and Assessment Commissioner for the Borough of Etobicoke[3], adopting the test of similar property to be that “of the same general nature, character or function” and that similarity was in no way limited to physical attributes.
I have read and reread the decision of the Municipal Board and I cannot understand the test there set out to be “limited to physical attributes”. I quote two paragraphs, as set out in the Appeal Case, from the decision of the Municipal Board:
The Central Business District is composed of a number of commercial uses, some occupying individual buildings and others sharing individual buildings. There is on‑street parking and a great number of individual owners. The buildings in the Central Business District are erected to the front of the lot line adjoining the public sidewalk and to the east lot lines; in Oshawa there is apparently no large chain store which acts as a magnet to attract customers to the Central Business District and all properties are assessed on the same basis. Most of the buildings are old, between 50 and 80 years of age, and to
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travel from one business to another a person must travel in the open air.
Mid-Town Mall on the other hand is typical of the shopping centre concept which contains a number of commercial uses occupying separate areas in one large building under one roof and under one ownership. There is off-street parking; there is one owner and a number of tenants involved; the buildings are not erected to the lot lines and there is admittedly at least one large chain store which acts as a customer magnet. Commercial users are not treated equally, in that the rent of each chain store is usually less than that of the smaller commercial users on a per square foot basis. The Mid-Town Mall is of recent construction, having been built in 1969. It is an enclosed mall, heated and air conditioned.
Reading those two paragraphs in which the Board found that the Central Business Properties and the properties in Mid-Town Mall are not similar, I find that the Board considered many points of comparison between the two sets of properties and on the basis of the consideration of them all came to the conclusion that the properties were not similar. I do not need to express the view of whether I would have come to a similar conclusion although I find the reasons very persuasive but I am of the opinion that the finder of fact, i.e., the Municipal Board, did not fall into any error of principle in considering the applicability of the words “similar property in the vicinity” to the sets of comparable property submitted to it. Again, I am influenced by the purpose of the amending legislation of 1971. It was not the intention of the Legislature to permit during the years 1971 to 1974 the regular course of the correction of the assessment rolls to permit a reflection of market value and, therefore, the lack of similarity between the market value and the assessed value could not be the subject of a successful assessment appeal. That matter stood to be corrected when the provincial assessors’ appeals were completed under the plan. What only was to be subject to an assessment appeal was this inequity between “similar properties in the vicinity” and the finding of the Municipal Board that the properties offered as comparable were not similar properties in the vicinity when made, as I believe they were, upon a proper understanding of the words in that section enacted for that purpose should be final.
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Under these circumstances, the direction of the Court of Appeal that the assessment should be returned to the Ontario Municipal Board for the consideration of the market value is unnecessary. I would, therefore, allow the appeal and restore the decision of the Municipal Board.
Considerable debate occurred in this Court as to the provision in the judgment of the Court of Appeal granting to the appellants (here respondents) their costs in the appeal and reserving for the determination by the Municipal Board upon the rehearing the costs of the proceedings before that Board. Counsel for the present appellants objected that the jurisdiction to award costs upon assessment appeals before the Assessment Review Court or a judge had been controlled by ss. 59 and 60 of The Assessment Act, R.S.O. 1970, c. 32, and that those sections had been made applicable to the Ontario Municipal Board in assessment appeals by s. 63(4) of the same statute but that such jurisdiction had been removed by the provisions of The Assessment Amendment Act, 1972 (Ont.), c. 125, s. 16, which was assented to on the 30th of June 1972, and which repealed ss. 59 and 60 of The Assessment Act with the result that s. 63 applying such provisions spoke to nothing since ss. 59 and 60 dealing with the order as to costs has been repealed. Under such circumstances, there were simply no provisions in The Assessment Act applicable as to costs on proceedings before the Municipal Board. Then there was available, of course, s. 96 of The Ontario Municipal Board Act, R.S.O. 1970, c. 323, which provides:
96. (1) The costs of and incidental to any proceeding before the Board, except as herein otherwise provided, shall be in the discretion of the Board, and may be fixed in any case at a sum certain or may be taxed.
(2) The Board may order by whom and to whom any costs are to be paid, and by whom the same are to be taxed and allowed.
(3) The Board may prescribe a scale under which such costs shall be taxed.
Certainly subs. (1) of s. 96 gives the Board jurisdiction to award costs and the Board could have acted under that section in complying with the order of the Court of Appeal which is the subject of this appeal.
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Since I would restore the order of the Board, then that order, including its provision for costs which, I have said, the Board could make under the provisions of s. 96 of The Ontario Municipal Board Act, will stand. As to the costs in the Court of Appeal and in this Court, I have in mind the fact that the appellants here are public bodies, that the respondents are a group of representative property owners and that the issue was a proper interpretation of important amendments to The Assessment Act including a series made after the commencement of the litigation. Under the circumstances, I would make no order as to costs in either the Court of Appeal or in this Court.
Appeal allowed, no order as to costs.
Solicitors for the appellant, the Regional Assessment Commissioner: Feigman & Chernos, Toronto.
Solicitor for the Corporation of the City of Oshawa: H.J. Couch, Oshawa.
Solicitors for the respondents: Weir & Foulds, Toronto.