Despite city council’s promise to hold the line on municipal taxes, some city residents may find themselves paying higher than expected tax bills due to property assessment increases.
City of Powell River council adopted its Annual Property Rates Bylaw at a special meeting on Monday, May 10.
Rates will vary depending on how much assessments increased or decreased, said councillor Russell Brewer.
City residents will pay about 1.3 per cent more to cover the cost of the new library. Powell River Regional District (PRRD) requisition that pays for the city’s contribution to regional services will increase roughly 20 per cent and regional hospital district will increase just under four per cent, but school taxes will decrease about three per cent.
Owners of homes in the city with assessed values of $229,286 will pay $3,346.98 in 2016, about $60 more than 2015 taxes, when assessed values of average homes was $224,015.
For 2016, taxes break down to $1,804.81 in municipal property taxes, $628.47 for school taxes, $475.15 in utility user fees (water, sewer, garbage), $244.20 in utility parcel taxes, $125.61 for the regional district, $57.24 for the regional hospital district, $12.45 for BC Assessment and five cents for Municipal Finance Authority.
The bylaw also further reduces the city’s flat tax for properties by five per cent, to a rate of $335 per parcel for land with improvements, and $87 for vacant lots.
Councillor Jim Palm voted against the bylaw, not because there were any problems with the numbers, he said, but because he is against the reduction of the flat tax.
“That flat tax serves the community quite well considering our house prices are some of the lowest on the coast, but our actual tax on those homes is relatively high,” said Palm. “I think it should be simply left where it currently is.”
The rate is now 30 per cent less than in 2010 when the five per cent annual decreases began. Reductions will run until 2030 when the flat tax is phased out.
Palm said he is already hearing from realtors that people are choosing to live in PRRD due to the relatively low taxes compared to the city.
Responding to Palm, councillor Karen Skadsheim called the flat tax regressive and unfair.
“It taxes everybody an amount versus a percentage, so you’re taxing a lower value home at a higher rate than you are a higher value home,” said Skadsheim. “That’s a larger burden of the tax on lower value homes.”
