By Jeff Nagel - BC Local News - March 10, 2008
Area mayors will have no power to stop TransLink's new unelected board from raising residential property taxes to bail out the region's businesses. The province last year abolished TransLink's parking stall tax, but gave the overhauled transportation authority a special ability to boost property tax rates to replace the $18 million a year in lost revenue. A business coalition led by the Vancouver Board of Trade is now lobbying TransLink's new appointed directors to collect much of the tax from homeowners and less of it from business and industry.
While other property tax increases in the future would require the approval of the Mayors Council on Regional Transportation, the increase to offset the defunct parking stall tax is considered a special case on which the mayors don't get a vote. "This is the one area where they are not in a position to ratify what the board decides," TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie said. "It's treated not as new revenue but replacement for old revenue."
TransLink's board will decide behind closed doors March 28 how it will split up the replacement tax between the property classes. The issue will go to a public hearing Monday, March 17 from 6-9 p.m. at the Firefighters' Hall at 6515 Bonsor Ave. (near Metrotown) in Burnaby. TransLink is also setting up a hot line and a section of its website to receive public comment. It had been widely expected the replacement tax would target business properties only – as the parking stall tax did and as a TransLink review panel had previously recommended. But initial legislation to reshape TransLink was redrawn by the province to allow the new board to shift some of the tax onto homeowners. Board chair Dale Parker said there have already been numerous meetings with business groups on the subject. "The business groups believe that all the major property groups should be paying a share of this revenue, but the board needs to hear if homeowners see this as a reasonable approach,” Parker said.
A seven per cent increase in TransLink property taxes would be required if the $18 million is raised from all groups. That would mean a $500,000 home paying $13 extra to TransLink. If the entire amount comes from business, utility and industrial properties, those groups face a 15 per cent increase. Because higher value properties pay more property tax, the replacement tax will hit businesses in downtown Vancouver much harder than those in outlying parts of the region. Parker said homeowners had not been consulted until this point because TransLink had expected up until November – when final TransLink legislation passed – that homeowners would be exempt. He said the $18 million per year is needed to run and expand Metro Vancouver's road and transit network. Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan said the back-room lobbying from business groups to make residential homeowners pay more has been "fast and furious."He predicted the complex issue will draw few people to Monday's public hearing, clearing the way for the board to say there was no serious opposition to boosting residential taxes. "This private sector board is very responsive to the interests of the business community," Corrigan said. "Who is representing the interests of residential taxpayers?"
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Don Quixote Note: Trans Link is the same group that received the right to take over the tax room vacated by the Provincial Government when they decided that the GVSC taxpayers no longer were responsible for 40% of any new Hospital Construction.
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