DBIA Special Tax Bylaw Given First Three Readings

Tuesday, January 05, 2010 04:10 AM

New DBIA boundary, marked in blue, all commercial properties within the boundary would be subject to special tax

Prince George, B.C. – The new bylaw, establishing a special levy for commercial property owners in the downtown of Prince George, has been given three readings.

Under the bylaw, the formula for calculating the tax will be:

Dividing the property’s total taxable land and improvements value by the total of the taxable value of all land and improvements within the DBIA, multiplied by the total annual local service tax recovered.

Let’s say you own a property in the downtown area that is assessed at $1 million dollars. For the purpose of this example we will say the value of all the downtown commercial properties totals $150 million dollars. If that were the case, and the DBIA wants to collect $200 thousand for its first year, then the equation would be as follows:

$1 million, divided by $150 million = .00666 multiplied by 200 thousand = $1332.00 you would have to pay in special levy tax.

Things get interesting if a property owner’s payable tax tops $10 thousand dollars. That property owner would be on the hook for the ten grand, and any amount over and above the ten thousand would be distributed among all other property owners in the DBIA.

There are three properties in the downtown which will see their contributions capped at $10 thousand dollars.

Now that Council has given the bylaw the first three readings, the wheels are in motion for the reverse petition that would be needed to stop this levy. Here’s the timeline:

January 8^th, The first public notice will be given
January 8^th, Letters are mailed to the property owners who may be subject to the special tax
January 15^th, Second public notice is given, which starts the 30 day period during which owners of impacted properties may petition against the bylaw
February 15^th, The 30 day period for receiving petitions against the bylaw closes at 5:00
March 1^st, The Corporate Officer reports the certified results of the petition to Council and Council considers final reading of the Bylaw.

The bylaw can be overturned if 50% of the owners, representing at least 50% of the taxable value in the DBIA area officially oppose the tax.

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Posted on Tuesday, January 05, 2010 04:10 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: lmorge on January 5 2010 6:51 AM

I hope it is overturned.

Posted by: metalman on January 5 2010 7:54 AM

A question:
Are any or all of the buildings owned by the city subject to this, or any property tax?
Maybe the city should just buy up all of the privately owned properties in the dbia
metalman.

Posted by: Municca on January 5 2010 7:57 AM

You will see more and more businesses leaving downtown all because SOME people believe they can fix the mess that the City planners caused years ago. Stick it to the businesses to pay for a pipe dream that downtown will be beautiful. I feel sorry for them.

Posted by: MrPG on January 5 2010 8:16 AM

This seems to be about generating more revenue for the DBIA than anything else. There's fewer businesses in the current boundary to impose the levy on, so let's expand the boundary.

Posted by: BCRacer on January 5 2010 8:34 AM

I don't think this is going to be a big incentive to get business in to the downtown area.
If I was going to open a business I don't think this would be one of the first areas I would be looking at. The absolute last maybe....
oh well life goes on in the downtown core

Posted by: duffer on January 5 2010 9:07 AM

Metalman, that was what I was thinking as well. If the city (the taxpayers) have to pay this levy on every building or lot in this area it could end up costing us an emormous amount of money. That would be ridiculous in my opinion.

If this is the case, do we get to vote?

Posted by: duffer on January 5 2010 9:12 AM

Sorry, I should have said "if the city has to pay this tax on every building or lot it owns" in this area.

Posted by: Loki on January 5 2010 4:14 PM

Things get interesting if a property owner�s payable tax tops $10 thousand dollars. That property owner would be on the hook for the ten grand, and any amount over and above the ten thousand would be distributed among all other property owners in the DBIA.

If I understand this statement: If your building is valued enough to be levied/taxed/extorted over $10,000, then the little guys in your area get to make up the difference.

WOW, these guys are good at bending over the little guy with nary a kiss or grease!

Posted by: onemansthoughts on January 5 2010 4:59 PM

I think it goes like this. Kirk Gable and a few others are behind this secondary tax.
The city is to collect it, then pay it to Kirk and friends company. Oh sure, its supposed to revitalize the downtown core and all. But Kirk and friends will all get a paycheck out of this. I think its smells really bad. They were voted down once already. They obviously dont care about hurting businesse downtown. Umm maybe they hate businesses. Can someone shed some light on this please.?

Posted by: Harbinger on January 5 2010 5:11 PM

I guess the DBIA doesn't think we Canadians are overtaxed. Anyone can lobby. Even if you aren't quite clear on the concept. Tax grab. Easy, eh?

Posted by: Harbinger on January 5 2010 5:12 PM

DBIA gonna issue a statement of credit and debit twice a year? Or are they not accountable?

Posted by: northman on January 5 2010 5:19 PM

Cooking the books to pay for snow removal..

Posted by: timeforachange on January 5 2010 6:49 PM

So they are going to tax businesses.
40% of that tax to go to "administration costs of the DBIA"

Rest I am sure will go to provide some additional crack pipes and clean needles and oh ya... Road repairs, city council raises and some trips

Until people feel safe walking downtown and not getting asked 10 times in a 4 block radius for spare change by, downtown will never get the shoppers to visit the area. So what exactly their plan to make downtown an area that I would actually want to visit?

Posted by: Mr. PG on January 5 2010 7:29 PM

The new owners of the PG Hotel and the surrounding properties must be frustrated by this latest announcement.

Posted by: NMG on January 5 2010 9:18 PM

Instead to taxing these businesses more, I personally think the City should pay them to relocate to the downtown core in the form of significantly reduced property taxes.

There are already far too many reasons for businesses to NOT relocate or stay downtown. Instead of giving them more, why not try and find reasons for them to move into or stay in the downtown?

This sounds like a desperate attempt to try and force revitalization, when the only way it will work is if people have a reason to go downtown. You could start that process by getting businesses to invest downtown. Lowering the costs of doing business could help accomplish that goal.

Posted by: metalman on January 6 2010 9:27 AM

This new tax is further evidence that our city government is not in touch with reality. I guess they are all of the mindset that if you are in business, you always have money. That is a typical attitude for a politician, the money well never goes dry, they don't seem to really understand how the money gets to the well, but they know that they can always go back and dip out more when they need it. It surprises me that Stolz would go along with this decision, if he is, he has been self employed for years. I wonder what the Novaks think of all this, they own a lot of property downtown.
metalman.