City of Powell River council has given approval for its five-year financial plan and annual property tax rates bylaws.
At the May 6 city council meeting, councillor and finance committee chair George Doubt said that regarding the development of the five-year financial plan and property tax rates, it had been a long process, starting in October of last year.
“Coming through to today, there had been considerable community consultation, lots of people have had input and that’s always a good thing,” said Doubt. “The fact that we started earlier gave more time for that and gave us plenty of time to come up with this.
"It proposes a solid future for the City of Powell River over the next five years. It deals with the expense of the wastewater treatment plant that is being built and creating jobs in our community. We should adopt this plan. It puts us in a strong position going forward.”
Council unanimously voted in favour of the five-year financial plan.
Council then considered the annual property tax rates bylaw. Doubt said the city had come up with individual residential property tax rates of $5.5375 per $1,000 of taxable assessed value. He said there was also the qathet Regional District rate of $0.7243 and a Powell River Regional Hospital District rate of $0.1579 per $1,000 of taxable assessed value.
“As always, these taxes are higher than everyone would like to see,” said Doubt. “They’d like to see taxes stay the same or go down, but the fact is that there are services provided by the City of Powell River that need to be paid for and we’re lucky to live in a place where we can enjoy all of the wonders we have.
“There is a price for that. This is the tax rate we have to pay to get the services we want.”
Council also unanimously voted for the annual property tax rate bylaw.
The bylaw will result in a 2021 five per cent tax increase over 2020 for the average-priced house and property in the city.
