Real Estate
Real Estate Portfolio Management
The City of Hamilton manages real estate assets and real estate portfolio activities including:
- Leasing, acquisition and disposition of properties owned by the City
- Site improvements
- Environmental audits
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Real Estate Portfolio
The City's Real Estate section focuses on:
Acquisition
- Acquisition for city capital infrastructure programs such as roads, sewers, storm water facilities, airport expansion, parkland and open space development
Appraisal Services
- Internal and peer review of external appraisal reports
- Market valuations for cash-in-lieu of parkland, parking and patio licences.
Approval Process
- Purchases and sales up to $250,000 can be approved by the City Manager within 2 weeks.
- Purchases and sales up to $150,000 can be approved by the General Manager or designate within 2 weeks.
- Sales over $250,000 require City Council approval which takes 6 to 8 weeks or more depending on their complexity and Council’s reporting cycle.
Land Sales
- Land sales of industrial business parks, residential or commercial properties, and road closures
Leasing
- Long and short term leasing of city-owned properties
- Securing long and short term leases for City use
The City is required to optimize the use of its properties by:
- Purchasing properties planned for future municipal use when they becoming available.
- Leasing these properties for short terms until development can start.
- Charging fair market rates for property leases.
- Leasing space for program use from other agencies instead of purchasing property.
Portfolio Management
- Asset rationalization of municipal assets
- Identifying and disposing of non-core municipal assets
A real estate appraisal is an estimate of value of real property on a specific date. It is an estimate of market value of a whole interest but could be a partial interest such as an easement.
Appraisals and/or valuation advice are required by the City to support decision making related to issues involving real property assets, including:
- Acquisition of land for municipal projects
- Sale of surplus municipal property (required by the City’s Sale of Land Policy By-law No. 14-204
- Land valuations for calculating cash-in-lieu of parkland dedication and parking
- Land valuations to support the storm water management facility component of developments charges
- Valuation advice to other City departments as an input in their planning and budgeting for municipal projects such as Class Environmental Assessments which include proposed roads, storm drainage, rapid transit, etc.
- Estimating market lease rates to assist in negotiating office space leases.
- Appraisals are undertaken by City appraisal staff as well as independent fee appraisers. When independent opinions are submitted to the City, staff fullfill a due diligence function by reviewing the independent appraisals regardless of whether the client who ordered the appraisal is the City or a property owner/developer.
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