The program which builds on provincial legislation from 2018, was recently put in place for areas of high rents and few vacancies, mostly in the larger urban areas and much of Vancouver Island.
Monday night Council reviewed a report from CFO Corinne Bomben, related to a Speculation and Vacancy Tax Resolution for the upcoming North Central Local Government Association meetings.
The five page report for Council available from the City's Agenda package, provided some background to the issue and how it would impact on Prince Rupert.
Among some of their early themes of note from the discussion, who collects the tax and why is that the Regional Districts would receive the revenue.
Councillor Cunningham offered up an amendment that the city receiver the revenue but as CFO Bomben explained it the province has chosen to use Regional Districts in the Lower Mainland area as they can address the issue on a wider basis.
"Now of course I will recognize the fact that in the North Coast it's a very different situation compared to some of the Lower municipalities, but right now that is the way that it is structured with the province.
Although you will note that the report mentions that there is a credit which basically says that if your house is worth 400,000 dollars or less you won't actually have to pay any of the tax, provided that you qualify.
So in our areas in the North Coast and probably all the way up through the north, there's probably not a whole lot of homes that are vacant that are above that 400,000 dollar assessed value.
What this particular resolution is really looking for is to try to dissuade people from having vacant homes and instead turning those homes into long term housing.
Whether the change in the future is to have the vacancy tax actually go to each community from where it actually originated from; that would something that I believe that the entire prnce can probably under UBCM's guidance be able to lobby for" -- CFO Corinne Bomben
Councillor Cunningham also raised the question of how it impacts on suites, a question that the Mayor noted was something that will require additional research.
Councillor Wade Niesh noted of the large volume of houses that are held by a housing group that purchased up a number of houses that now sit empty.
" I definitely think that this would be a great thing, I mean I've talked about this before as far as vacancy goes.
We have a housing group in this town and I can't remember their name, that actually purchased up many houses years ago and rented them out and they have fallen short on funding.
And now we've got a whole bunch of their houses, that are sitting there for years have been sitting empty because they don't have the funds to repair them.
So it's time for them to either sell them, or fix them.
Because you know there's plenty of houses that should be returned back to the system and this is I guess one way hopefully in doing it"
Councillor Cunningham observed in that case, most of the properties would not be taxed as they would be valued at the 400,000 mark.
To keep the discussion on the focus for the resolution, the Mayor advised staying with the current language for the resolution and that once the topic is presented to the Province the council should then involve itself in that discussion.
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