Budget draft shows property taxes don’t have to be so high: PoCo mayor

PORT COQUITLAM (NEWS 1130) – A mayor in the Tri-Cities is taking a soft jab at other municipalities across Metro Vancouver as the City of Port Coquitlam has approved its draft budget, but property taxes are barely going up.

Residents living there can expect to see a 0.48 per cent increase and businesses will see a 0.11 per cent decrease.

“I know it sounds fishy and I’m sure people are wondering, ‘OK, what’s the catch?’ Here’s how we did it. Firstly, our council has stayed incredibly focused on our priorities and the core services of the municipality. I think it’s very easy for cities to get pulled in 100 different directions and to, at times, lose focus of what is that they’re actually responsible for. There are actually some core services that the municipality is mandated to deliver,” explains Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West.

Although West is touting his city’s decisions, not everyone agrees. Vancouver City Councillor Pete Fry say comparing the City of Vancouver and Port Coquitlam are like comparing apples and oranges. Fry points out PoCo has 1/10th the population.

Pretty basic research stuff here. Ignore sale price. Assessments are what taxes are based on.

Vancouver, 662 E 7th
2019 assess: $1.724m
Tax $5,429

PoCo, 1647 Manning Ave
2019 assess: $1.211m
Tax $5,821

Even w proposed 2020 increases you’d pay less taxes to live in Vancouver pic.twitter.com/h51H6fOoDN

— Pete Fry (@PtFry) January 8, 2020

West won’t directly suggest other cities can’t or aren’t doing what his city has, but he feels as though they can follow in PoCo’s steps.

“As tempting as it is, I don’t know the process that other cities go through. I’m sure they put a lot of due diligence in their process as well but different cities have different priorities and based on that, they’ll come to different outcomes. Our staff apply an incredible amount of rigour to identify smart efficiencies and I’ll give you one example: we were able to renegotiate our photocopying contract. We saved the city and its taxpayers $80,000. That maybe doesn’t sound like a lot of money and some people will poo-poo that as a small amount in a large budget, but if you replicate that in all of your city departments and have everyone taking the same attitude and approach of, ‘Where can I find efficiencies? Where can I save some money?’ It can add up to some real savings and those savings get passed on to our taxpayers.”

This comes after the hubbub late last year when the @CityofVancouver (eventually) passed a 7% property tax increase.

“The focus on affordability that we have is important and it needs to extend to our approach to property taxes as well [across the region],” says @BradWestPoCo. https://t.co/RQdaP4tq1u

— Sonia Aslam (@SoniaSAslam) January 8, 2020

West claims making some cuts here and there doesn’t mean the city has stopped investing in new infrastructure and increasing existing services like weekly curbside green waste pick-up and giving things like crosswalks and sidewalks a makeover, while building a brand new rec centre.

“In the last year we’ve had significant development and growth [and] when that happens there is a financial benefit to the city. The city receives more property tax money and what we’ve chosen to do with that is not squirrel it away for a rainy day or special project but give that back to the taxpayers because it’s their money — that’s where it belongs. It belongs back in their pockets and so when we see strong growth in our community and more people sharing the tax burden, we think that should lessen the burden on everyone else and that’s the approach we have taken. We saw in excess of $1 million of new revenue to the city from our growth and development over the last year and we’ve chosen to take that money and lessen the property tax burden on all of our existing residents.”

West is on the board of directors of Metro Vancouver and he admits this discussion came up not that long ago.

“Because Metro Vancouver also has a levy on property tax across our region and they had a very significant increase this year and they’re projecting to have significant increases over the next couple of years. My belief is the same approach we used in Port Coquitlam is the one that Metro Vancouver should be using to ensure those increases are as minimal as possible.”

This comes after weeks of controversy surrounding Vancouver City Council which, eventually, approved a 7 per cent property tax within its 2020 budget, down from the proposed 8.2 per cent.