Vancouverites ‘overwhelmed’ by proposed tax increase, councillors say

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – As Vancouver homeowners balk at the prospect of a 9.3 per cent tax increase, city councillors say they’re listening.

The combined property tax and utility hike was brought up during a Vancouver city council special budget meeting on Tuesday and will be debated next week.

And Vancouverites are wasting no time letting their councillors know the increase, which would run in the hundreds of dollars for many households, is unwelcome.

Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung says the message she’s getting is clear – residents are overwhelmed.

“It’s not just the speakers that we heard at council, we’re getting a lot of emails and a lot of correspondence,” she says.

Like Kirby-Yung, Councillor Lisa Dominato says the feedback she’s getting will help inform the budget debate next week, when council will decide what can be cut out or put off.

“How can we bring down a proposed tax increase by a number of percentage points?” she asks.

It’s the largest property tax hike in the city in a decade, and Dominato says bringing it down is not out of the question.

“What I’ve heard informally is that there is a desire to look at how we can reduce that, bring that down, and that is my hope,” she says.

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Other members of council, including Adriane Carr and Jean Swanson, have said the increase is necessary to meet the city’s demands.

The Green’s Pete Fry says the tax is needed, in large part because of the previous council’s inaction, but says nothing is set in stone.

“We are talking and debating and really wrestling with this,” he says. “Informally, I’ve had a few staff say that they’re sharpening their pencils and seeing where they can find additional savings. We’re certainly obliged to do our due diligence and to show that we are taking this seriously and we are trimming the fat.”

Unlike Fry, Councillor Rebecca Bligh thinks the increase is way too much, but she is optimistic the opposing forces can find a middle ground.

“I think this council’s proven themselves to be quite unique and different, in that we don’t have a minority – we work pretty well together,” she says. “We certainly have demonstrated, I’d say over the last year, that we have a high workability factor.”

The additional money from the tax increase would go to hiring police officers and firefighters, affordable housing policies, and “accelerating action on climate change.”

With files from Ian Douglas