New Westminster will explore whether provincial property tax relief legislation is suitable for the city.
At its April 8 meeting, council received a staff report about Bill 28, property tax relief legislation. Council unanimously voted in favour of directing staff to conduct further analysis to determine if such a tax relief program is suitable for New Westminster.
“As development increases in the Lower Mainland, concerns arise about valuing development potential and its tax implications,” said a staff report. “The intent of Bill 28, development potential relief, is to allow municipalities to reduce property taxes for eligible commercial properties by taxing all or a portion of the assessed value of the land at a municipal tax rate that is lower than the tax rate for the property class.”
Under Bill 28, municipalities have the authority to grant tax relief for up to a maximum of five consecutive years to eligible properties, said the report.
A staff report said cities would be required to implement a tax relief program in order to implement the program.
“Additional analysis and policy development needs to be completed in order to assess whether the tax relief legislation will be of benefit to the intended recipients,” said a staff report.
Mayor Patrick Johnstone questioned if other cities have implemented this legislation and may be able to share their experiences with Bill 28.
“This has been a relatively new phenomenon as far property taxation is concerned,” said Indeep Johal, the city’s manager of financial services. “The City of Vancouver, in 2023 they started a pilot program to test the effectiveness of this program itself. But no other municipality in the Lower Mainland has engaged in this process so far.”
Johnstone questioned if any reporting is available on the City of Vancouver’s pilot project.
“There has been some preliminary reporting, and I can report back with the summarized findings of that and also additional details of how those would apply to the City of New Westminster,” Johal said.
Johnstone said that would be good information for council to have when it’s discussing whether the property tax relief legislation is right for New West.
