I know the special areas you're talking about, but those aren't typically applied to all of, for example, Nepean or Barhaven or Kanata. For example, Alta Vista used a special levy zone to pay for an arena. The various BIAs are under special levy zones that pay for things those zones need, like marketing. The Centretown BIA is one such rate. A similar rate used to apply to ByWard, before the BMDA was formed and it became a municipal corporation.
Also: Transit is also a specific levy on your property taxes. In rural Ottawa, that levy is lower than it is downtown. Since people who have lived there for 30 years would probably use transit as frequenty as people who've lived there for 30 minutes if transit was available, we should try increasing that and making transit available.