City wary of new property tax law

By Jeremy Deutsch - Kamloops This Week - March 19, 2008

Law would help social-housing projects. The city is taking a wait-and-see approach to new provincial legislation that gives property-tax relief to non-profit agencies that build provincially funded social-housing units. Bill 11, introduced through the Ministry of Small Business and Revenue last week, creates a new supportive-housing property class that would reduce assessment value to basically zero. The ministry predicts this will affect about 80 properties in the province, with the majority in Vancouver. There are a couple of properties in Kamloops that could be affected, but the final determination of how many properties would fit in to this class is determined by B.C. Housing. While the province hasn’t finalized the criteria, it’s geared toward buildings with units 450 square feet in size that offer on-site support for clients struggling with disabilities or issues of addiction. The city has permissive tax exemptions for some non-profit organizations like the New Life Mission.

There are 780 provincially subsidized units in Kamloops, receiving a total subsidy of just less than $4.5 million. Mayor Terry Lake said Kamloops wants to be a part of the solution, but the city needs to be careful it does not take on something that traditionally isn’t the role of local government. And he points out the province already gets a tax break on its buildings in the city. Lake said he’s waiting to see just how much an impact the new legislation will have on the city once the full criteria of the program is released. “Anything that costs our other taxpayers money we need to take a close look at,” he said. As far as Lake knows, there was no consultation with municipalities regarding the legislation. Lake said he appreciates the zeal the province has for attacking social-housing issues but when municipalities are being asked to step up financially, they should have a say in how that happens. Just how much the exemption will cost the city is not known, but the ministry maintains it’s nominal compared to the impact it will have on the pocketbooks of social-housing providers.If passed, the legislation wouldn’t take effect until the 2009 assessment year.