perhaps - but at a certian point it starts being a giveaway to developers without really being needed to achieve it's goals.
It also has to be balanced with Hamilton's major problems with a poor tax base. Hamilton right now has a very below-average tax base compared to the costs it has to incur because of poor assessment values on properties in the lower city and a lack of a strong commercial tax base, which is why taxes are so high while services are relatively poor. Developments like this one will go a long way to improving this ($2.5 million is equivalent to 0.25% of the entire property tax base of the city in this project alone), and foregoing that revenue just compounds the issue.
It's a delicate balancing act of trying to encourage the creation of a stronger tax base and actually collecting on that tax base. Before, and maybe even still today, the tax break was needed to make projects work. Increasingly though, I wonder if the time is coming downtown where it's really not needed any more.
Unrelated, but I think a lot of people in the lower city are in for a shock whenever MPAC finally gets around to performing a reassessment. Lower city property values have skyrocketed (even more than elsewhere) since 2016, and I think reassessment will really help with Hamilton's tax base a lot as those properties will see much higher assessment values (and therefor taxes) following reassessment.
This house in Stoney Creek, sold for $675,000, pays $3,900 a year, while
this house in the north end, sold for $683,000, pays $2,628. And the lower city is supposed to have a higher mill rate, too! Basically, the north end property is underassessed by over 30%.