Rescinding Secondary Suite Rental Bylaw Carries a Price- Says Report
Prince George, B.C.- The issue of secondary suite business licensing is back before Prince George City Council this evening.
Council had asked staff to revise the bylaw, and remove the licensing fee from those who have one or two suites in a property.
In a report to council, staff propose a change in the definition of residential rental business, changing it from 1 rental suite, to minimum of three. That means those home owners who have one secondary suite in their home would be off the hook for a rental license.
However, staff say they have already collected nearly $184 thousand dollars for secondary suite licensing, and if Council approves the change, then 1,187 refund cheques will be issued to those who have already paid the fee.
It was anticipated this rental licensing fee would bring in $450 thousand dollars to the City. The staff report says the loss of revenue “will create operating impacts.”
Also on the agenda for this evening's regular meeting of Council, a request to make some changes to the bylaw which covers second hand dealers and pawn shops. The changes would remove metal recyclers from the bylaw as they are already covered by the Metal Recyclers Act which is Provincial legislation.
Comments
So a big mistake is made and the city says we can’t change now as it will create an operating impact and now we the taxpayers will have to pay the price. I don’t think so, take out your eraser and trim the loss from staff wage increases, perks and bonuses.
There are no doubt a number of ways that they can remove this bylaw without having to raise taxes, etc;.
Seems like they want to get this message out to try and scare Councilors to keep the bylaw.
To me this is vintage City Hall politics, way to much behind the scenes shenanigans, plans made and money spent, long before the appropriate legislation approves it.
Some examples would be the purchase of property for various projects, and then when they don’t go through we are sitting on the property. Probably millions of dollars tied up with this type of BS.
They will get the money out of you one way or another sheeple.
It is an old tactic: Announce a big increase. Then somewhat reduce the amount, take credit for the reduction and make the people believe that the lower amount is a big savings achieved by wise and astute management.
So which one of the nimrods in city hall came up with the scheme. off with their heads.
I wish I could screw up and not suffer consequences personally.
Tractor, go work for the government. If you really screw up on the frontline, you don’t get fired, you get promoted. The reasoning is, so that they don’t have you making bonehead mistakes in public. pathetic way to run a office.
This exercise is nothing but vote buying at it’s finest.
he spoke, you’ve obviously never worked in government then, probably just heard what your conservative pals have already told you. don’t use municipal PG politics as a guide to all government decision making. heads ALWAYS roll when mistakes are made, and quickly. do you think it’s the heads of the managers and ministers that roll? of course not, it’s front line workers that you would never hear about in the media.
and i’m sure you’ll tell me that ‘actually, i have worked in government, but couldn’t stand the lack of results’, or some other standard talking point… now go ahead and slag government pensions.
I still have questions about this license thing. Does this mean that if Mr Smith owns an apartment building he has to buy a license for each suite? Does this apply to commercial rentals too? If he rents space to a pizza place he has to buy a license for there? If he has a company that owns these properties does it still have to buy a business license?
git’r dun, I am pretty sure if you have commercial property, you will need to take out a business liscence for the building your renting out, for every piece of property. as well if you own a business that is in your own commercial property, you will need to take out a business licence for that as well.
The purpose of the business liscence is actually for the city officials have a record of who is in town operating a legal business as well as mean of having a file of the principal owners in the event of fire or flood damage that is happening to your building or business.
The other arm of the liscence is to give the law some form for legal reasons to terminate business activity. If your business liscence is suspended than it gives the authority to shut down you business legally. However if your doing illegal business and don’t have a liscence than eventually they can catch up to you and shut you down. This helps keep residential area from becoming retail. there use to be a time when someone at the city hall go thru the classified and to catch these people.
mikmak, well, I have never worked for the government, hope I never have too.
However love your verifying statement of
“I have never worked in government, but couldn’t stand the lack of results”.
I think you meant to say, “, because I couldn’t….”
Nope, I wouldn’t want to work for the government for that specific reason. I can see why a definitive decision takes so long from officials. I like to accomplish things and git’rdun.
Yes we will, no we wont, yes we will, no we wont and it goes on and on.
Cheers
Watch the watch. Watch the watch. Your eyes are getting drowsy, drowsier, you feel sleepy. That’s it. When you wake up you will forget this happened until after November.
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