The answer to lower property taxes: A City Wealth Fund

Since 2024, property taxes have gone up over 20%. The 2027 forecast is 4.7%. I want the city of London to have public assets that earn income with the intention of being able to afford the services we need without breaking the bank of Londoners.

London needs a City Wealth Fund, a model that creates income with the sole purpose of lowering property taxes.

The wealth fund will have three components:

1. Smarter investing: London earned $82 million from its investments in 2025. The provincial government recently updated laws to allow municipalities to have similar investment options like the largest pension funds in the country. London has the opportunity to join cities like Ottawa, Whitby and Clarington to get a better return.
2. Profit-making City assets: London Hydro already pays the City a $5.5 million dividend every year that goes back to the City.

   Vancouver created a Property Endowment Fund that started at an investment of $100 million in 1975. From that fund, Vancouver started two pursuits: becoming a landlord and leasing City land to other entities, and building market rent housing on land the City already owns. These decisions have grown a portfolio now valued at $8 billion, producing over $20 million a year in dividends to Vancouver.

   Provincial and federal infrastructure lenders will finance these opportunities at below going market rates. The income generated goes back into the City coffers.

3. Spend smarter: Not a focus on cutting services and looking beyond duplication but looking at innovation. Other cities are using more modern technologies and software to optimize waste collection routes, predict which pipes and roads will fail before they do, and use more automating on aspects of routine permits and inspections that create lost opportunities for the City and takes up unnecessary amounts of time for Londoners and staff.

What I would push for at Council

• •A staff report on pursuing better investment vehicles currently available to pension funds.
• •A public inventory of City and London Transit assets that currently earn income showing what each site earns today and staff reporting on opportunities to start building a city of profit-making assets.
• •A standing direction to staff to bring back one service innovation proposal per year with projected savings, starting with waste collection route optimization.