Tax break for seniors’ housing

rossland record/ posted Sep/14/2006
Golden City Manor will no longer have to pay city property taxes of about four or five thousand dollars a year, city council decided this week. The two-storey building on Second Avenue has bachelor and one-bedroom apartments for seniors on fixed incomes, with rents up to $450 a month, according to councillor Lloyd McLellan. Golden City Manor will still pay city parcel taxes and utilities, as well as school and hospital and regional taxes. City staff did not provide a breakdown of the amounts involved. "I hope that tax break will be passed on to the occupants," Laurie Charlton said. "Each unit would save $40 a month," Larry Doell calculated. That’s almost $500 a year, a significant chunk of a fixed income.Lloyd McLellan replied Golden City Manor has large expenses at the moment, including a $60,000 new roof. Council voted unanimously to give them the same tax break now afforded to the thrift shop, which puts its profits into health care. (It’s also the same tax break given, two or three councils ago, to the Rossland golf course. That tax break, decided in secret discussions, was scrapped sometime in the last few years.)