AG - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, February 2, 2

000 ; TERRACE STANDARD:

BusINnEss REVIEW

An unpleasant welcome to city

Airport businesses facing massive tax hikes

By JEFF NAGEL OWNERS of busi- nesses at the Terrace- Kitimat airport are bracing to shell out twice to three times as much property tax as they paid last year.

The tenants at the air- port - from car rental booths to large hangars operated by flight firms — all became part of the city last year when Terrace’s boundaries expanded ta take in the airport.

The change means they .

will now pay the same city property tax rate charged to downtown businesses, some 80 per ‘cent higher, than the rate charged by the regional district.

“It results in increases ,to the businesses out there .that are very steep,” -said ‘Frank Hamilton, president 'of the Terrace-Kitimat Air- Port Society.

Frank Hamilton . It’s a double hit be-

cause the businesses — which are all tenants leas- ing their space from the

society — no longer get an. individual exemption from. tax on the first $10,000

paid $210 tax a year ago faces an $844 bill this year, said city treasurer Keith Norman.

And the largest private- ly owned building at the airport — Don Hull and Sons’ hangar, which paid

$14,275 in taxes last year,

‘faces more than $25,000 this year.

Assessment appeals are underway, Hamilton said,. in an effort to push down. assessments at the airport and reduce the. property

~ tax hit.

Hamilton put the plight of businesses there to council last week and asked if the city will con-. sider some means of phas- ing in the tax hikes.

That would most likely:

worth of improvements.; consist of a grant-in-aid

That’s because there’s now, only one tax notice going: out to the society and one’ rather than’

exemption, Separate notices for each ‘business.

_ A car rental booth in- the airport terminal that’

council could give the so- ciety, which in turn would be able to reduce the tax payments it would charge its tenants.

Council will consider -

the idea in upcoming budget meetings.

B.C. housing starts pick up

MORE HOUSING starts than expected in the last part of 1999 made for a better picture for the year in B,C, than first an- ticipated, says the Canada Mortgage and

Housing Corporation.

Most forecasters were expecting starts to drop below 15,000 but the year ended at 16,309 single family and multiple fam- . ily starts. Still, that’s a decline of 18.2 per

cent from 1998.

2001.

Now. forecasters say there should be 18,000 starts in 2000 and 20,000 starts in

An increase in commodity prices and a growth.in high tech industries are expect-

' ed to help get to those numbers, Resort-based communities such as Whistler, Pemberton, Tofino, Harrison Hot Springs and Kimberly are expected to be popular places for primary and second-

ary residences, —

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Business pulls heavy tax load

LOCAL BUSINESSES pay considerably more than

.their share of city taxes,

while local homeowners

have it relatively easy. That’s the picture that

emerges from some

-number-crunching by city

councillor David Hull.

He says the tax dollars taised from local. business- es make up nearly 42 per cent of the $7.5 million to-. tal the city collects. That’s about double the 21 per cent of total assessment that the business class comprises.

Homeowners, who like businesses feel their taxes are too high already, make up 75.6 per cent.of the city assessment base, but con- tribute only 43 -per cent of the total tax dollars,

Hull says tocal business owners often complain that they think they pay an ex- cessive amount of the lo- cal tax burden, and says he wanted to work out the numbers for himself. _

The tax burden was-cit-

ed by some local business-

es as a. reason for opposing the proposed multiplex in November, he added.

It’s one thing to say

business pays an unfairly high amount, and another to attempt to correct it, he noted.

Since Terrace doesn’t have a lot of major indus- try to support the tax base

* it must cover most of its §

costs through some split between residential and commercial. ; Right now the rate busi- nesses pay is about three and.a half times what resi- dential homeowners pay. Making those rates equal, Hull says, would slash the city tax bill for businesses in half but

would jack homeowners

taxes by about 75 per cent.

~ not a realistic option. The regional district's

business tax rate is limited

‘by law to no more than

2.45 times residential.

H the city were to adopt that ratio, Hull said, the city business rate would go down by about 12 per cent, while the residential rate would go up by about 25 per cent.

Hull says he’s not adva- cating a major shift. .

“It’s not a proposal or anything,” he said. “It’s just food for thought.”

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