A presentation to the Columbia Shuswap Regional District board of directors by a BC Assessment Authority senior appraiser drew questions and criticism.
Tom Pringle gave directors an overview of the assessment authority’s history, role and process at the Sept. 18 board meeting.
Pringle presented the 2014 roll highlights which indicate a two per cent increase in properties to 17,313 but with a 2.65 per cent decrease in value from 2013 to $5.65 billion.
But the value of new construction in the regional district was up by 5.75 per cent over last year to the tune of $135.0 million.
Area F North Shuswap director Larry Morgan asked about “legislated values,” to which Pringle explained farmland is assessed based on what it should be able to produce – forage land would have lower value than a property that is producing grapes, for example.
Hearing this, Golden Mayor Christina Benty advised Pringle she was about to get on her soap box and rant.
“I have real frustration with the system. As local governments, our taxes are based on assessments; the more you’re assessed, the more you pay,” she said. “Our challenge is derelict buildings, and we have no tools to deal with that.”
Benty noted property owners actually have incentives to retain properties in derelict or non-usable condition and asked if the assessment authority could provide any tools to address the problem.
Addressing Pringle’s reference to a community trying to establish a bylaw to provide tax incentives for people to build or improve their properties, Benty interrupted him to say she was talking about penalties for people who refuse to clean up or improve derelict or contaminated sites.
“We have a number of brown fields, old gas stations, contaminated properties,” she said. “Is BC Assessment in any conversation about how to help municipalities?”
Area E director Rhona Martin and president of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, said the longtime issue is a provincial one that has been discussed at the organization’s environment committee often.
Pringle noted contaminated and derelict sites are always on the assessment authority’s radar, but noted a change in how assessments are done.
“What I find disturbing myself is they seem to be going away from area appraisers; I have a couple of guys who have worked in this area for many years,” he said. “They are the best assessors in the province, they know the area, but assessment is getting away from that. It seems there is a disconnect from above.”
On the other hand, a new computer tool is expected to help and Pringle says a recent desktop review of Kelowna actually picked up $50 million of new construction that had been missed – and that’s in an urban area where building permits are required.
Expressing her lack of faith in the assessment authority, Martin questioned the merits of basing assessments on market value.
“We have the wonderful opportunity or horrible disadvantage,” she said. “People are coming here and are willing to pay $1 million for an old cabin that was built years ago,” she said. “That jacks the price up for other residents. The taxes go out of the roof and people are losing their homes because they can’t afford the taxes.”
Martin referred to one house in Malakwa which sold for $500,000 “(nowhere near worth it)” and when the bottom fell out of the market, the buyer was devastated.”
Area B Rural Revelstoke Loni Parker said the same problem is rife in her area where non-Canadians are paying high prices for homes on the local ski hills, again raising taxes and putting local residents out of their homes.
Pringle noted that part of the assessor’s job is to look at what the market has done and the authority has the power to reject sales when they are not typical to the market.