montreal beats yellow door’s bid to lower property assessment in court

the yellow door housing corp. has lost a legal round to the city of montreal in its bid to lower its municipal property tax bill.a superior court judge ruled last week in favour of the city's appeal of a 2024 ruling that had given a partial victory to the yellow door.the registered charity, which provides 20 low-rent rooms and small apartments to people in need in plateau-mont-royal, has spent six years contesting its $2-million municipal property assessment so it can have its $17,000-a-year municipal tax bill lowered."we're completely flabbergasted," richard phaneuf, president of the yellow door housing corp., said of the latest ruling on wednesday."we are non-profit and asked for a lower evaluation so that we can house homeless people."lawyer julius grey, who represents the non-profit, said he's drafting a motion to seek leave to appeal the ruling.the city had opted to appeal the 2024 court of quebec decision that agreed with the yellow door's argument that municipal assessors should take into account that its six greystones on jeanne-mance st., near milton st., can never be sold or turn a profit under a private bill passed by the national assembly in 1987 that created the milton park non-profit community.in a ruling dated may 6, superior court judge ian demers said that at the time of the court of quebec's judgment, "no parameter allowed for taking into account a property's purpose in establishing its actual value."the ruling also said that "the role of the courts is not to adapt the (municipal taxation) regime to correct a perceived or proven imbalance."the judge also rejected the yellow door's argument that the private law creating the milton park community is relevant to its property assessment. property assessment "must be based solely on objective elements," the ruling said.the mission of the yellow door, also known as the corporation d'habitation porte jaune, is to house vulnerable people at very low rents. its tenants include people at risk of homelessness, people leaving homelessness, refugees and people with mental health issues.non-profit housing in several cities in the rest of canada gets tax breaks or is tax-exempt.phaneuf said he's angry with the city and its municipal assessment department for raising the non-profit's property assessment like any for-profit building on the speculative market and for forcing the non-profit to spend money on a drawn-out legal battle."they never made a phone call to negotiate," phaneuf said of the city's assessment department.he added that a representative of the city assessment department, who visited the yellow door's buildings when it contested its property valuation, said: "'your problem is you don't charge enough rent,'" phaneuf said. "these are cruel people."the city did not respond to a request for comment by late wednesday afternoon.lgyulai@postmedia.com