NEWS RELEASE
HILLCREST LODGE
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The seniors of Hillcrest Lodge can sleep a lot easier now, knowing that the dark cloud of uncertainty hanging over the future of their home has been lifted.
This cloud was the result of the sudden imposition of municipal taxation on Hillcrest Lodge, which, in its first 10 years of operation, never had been collected by the city.
Hillcrest is a registered charitable non-profit corporation, dedicated to alleviating poverty and other needs of senior citizens, and had assumed that it fell into the same category as other such similar organizations, which are exempt from such taxation.
However, the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, which provides the province and all municipalities with information on all properties and their values in Ontario for taxation purposes, ruled that, although Hillcrest complied with the necessary criteria for exemption, in one aspect it did not.
That criteria was Hillcrest Lodge Corporation did not own the land on which Hillcrest is built, so therefore it was not tax exempt, notwithstanding that Hillcrest had a 50-year lease of such land at $1 per year. The owner was the Toronto United Church Council (TUCC), which administers all church property not directly used for non-secular purposes.
This ruling precipitated a chain of events that would inevitably have resulted in the ceasing of operations of Hillcrest Lodge Corporation. To prevent this, the city and TUCC became involved and it was determined that a permanent solution to the problem would be for Hillcrest to acquire ownership of the land from the TUCC and thus satisfy the criteria for municipal tax exemption. In the meantime, the city arranged for the postponement of the taxes due, for one year ending in December 2024, so the land transfer could proceed.
We are now extremely pleased to be able to report that the final land transfer agreement has been signed by all parties and that Hillcrest Lodge Corporation owns the land under which it stands and is now officially eligible for municipal tax exemption.
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