Gibsons council asked staff to reduce the proposed property tax increase for 2024 to three per cent, and staff delivered in their latest report.
Staff had been asked to reduce the proposed tax increase from 7.5 per cent by increasing revenues and removing the budgeted surplus. At the March 5, committee of the whole meeting, staff presented the first update to the 2024 preliminary general operating budget update. Other changes from the first preliminary budget, presented Feb. 23, include reducing professional services and legal fees in general administration, planning and infrastructure service, as well as increased transfer from reserves to cover one-time initiatives. (Neither the three per cent nor previously proposed 7.5 per cent figure include the five per cent tax increase slated for adjusting to future policing costs.)
Mayor Silas White thanked staff for “tightening things up as council requested, ambitiously, I’ll acknowledge.”
“Thanks for making miracles,” Coun. Annemarie De Andrade added.
White pointed to a few line items in the general budget forecast that needed to be changed. He said the Outrigger Race, slated for $1,000, was not expected to happen again. As for the $5,000 for the Gibsons Seniors’ Society, those funds have been paid out already, the mayor noted. He suggested moving those funds to a community festival budget line, in anticipation of upcoming event proposals.
Rates and fees
At the regular council meeting that evening, council gave three readings to the rates, fees and charges amendment bylaw. Fees and charges for both water and sanitary and storm will see five per cent increases. For the sanitary and storm fees and charges, there will also be a fee increase for accessory dwelling units. The garbage and organics user rates will see an inflationary increase for a total annual increase of $38 per user and changes for accessory dwelling units.
That bylaw is scheduled to be adopted on March 19. Also on March 19, the general five-year capital/project plan will be presented. The second update to the general operations budget and the revised general five-year capital plan will be presented at the March 24 committee of the whole for final direction and committee recommendations. The tax rate bylaws are expected to be adopted on May 7.
Pre-approved projects
At the regular council meeting on Feb. 23, council moved to pre-approve four projects for early adoption for the capital budget, and to fund them from debt. Staff have been directed to prepare a loan authorization bylaw to begin the debt funding process for long-term borrowing. The projects are the Skyline Water Main Replacement ($2,185,000), Skyline excess paving ($550,000), Ocean Outfall Design ($450,000) and Sanitary System Collection Repairs ($375,000).
Future policing costs
At the committee meeting, the committee also recommended authorizing the additional tax increase of five per cent each year to reach the estimated taxation level before the 2026 census.
The 2026 census could see the Town’s population surpass 5,000 residents (the 2021 census recorded 4,758 townspeople), triggering it to take on 70 per cent — an estimated increase of between $1.1 million and $1.4 million a year — of the cost-base of policing agreements. Councillors and the mayor spoke of being in favour of being proactive to help soften the impact.
The permissive tax policy
At the Feb. 23 committee of the whole meeting, council spent the first half of the meeting discussing the permissive tax policy, ultimately making two recommendations. They recommended adding a question of the permissive tax policy application form to ask applicants to provide details of current or future intended use of vacant and/or underutilized land, and to include a declaration for financial recovery to the application (in the case that the property is sold).
In the committee of the whole meeting, Coun. David Croal said it needs to be “perfectly clear to the taxpayers why we are doing this.” He said Gibsons is legislated to give permissive tax credits to certain institutions for part of their property but, in his opinion, anything beyond that needs to be justified. Croal added that council needs to be proactive in communicating and to basically cut back to what it’s mandated to do legislatively. He remarked that he was shocked how many people don’t realize that they pay the portion of taxes for those who receive permissive tax credits. He also said he wants applicants to include whether they are working with a developer on housing.
Coun. Andrea de Andrade said she feels council is clear with its objectives: it wants more housing, and not to shift the tax burden to residents.
Mayor Silas White asked if staff could prepare a metric that shows the ratio of the building, the lot, the people and its uses. Staff said they could review and bring information forward to the committee when it’s reviewing applications.
Those recommendations were passed at the March 5 council meeting.
