Editor:
I am a senior who lives in a 16-year-old condo in the Highgate area of south Burnaby.
In 2018, my property taxes increased 25.6 per cent over the year before. In 2019, they increased a further 16 per cent over 2018, for a total increase of 45.7 per cent in two years.
Our city is famous for its fiscal prudence, but a recent article posted to the CBC website, entitled "B.C. municipalities keep racking up bigger and bigger surpluses," strongly suggests that for a number of municipalities, Burnaby foremost amongst them, the accumulation of vast surpluses has become an end in itself.
According to the article, Burnaby now has $1.6 billion in net financial assets, double that of any other city in the province and amounting to nearly a quarter of the combined fiscal assets of all B.C. municipalities.
The frantic pace of development in recent years has flooded city coffers with development cost charges and fuelled runaway increases in property values, leading to the property tax increases I and many other owners have faced.
Development cost charges are intended to finance improvements to infrastructure, but the city is under no obligation to actually instigate such improvements in a timely fashion.
It is high time for the City of Burnaby to adjust its attitude and realize that good governance does not consist simply in the accumulation of massive budget surpluses, but in putting those funds to work to improve our community. I do not see how the city can justify the magnitude of property tax increases owners such as myself have endured, while they are sitting on such an enormous pile of our money.
Mark Howard, Burnaby
Editor’s note: It should be mentioned that in the article the letter writer refers to (click here to read) Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley states clearly – as he has said previously – that the city will be moving quicker than it has in the past on pushing forward with capital projects.
