Vancouver political parties spar over property-tax records

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      NPA councillor George Affleck is defending his party's record on property-tax increases. 

      Affleck criticized the current Vision-led council Wednesday (November 27) for a cumulative property-tax increase of more than 15 percent over five years. And he’s contesting Vision Vancouver’s assertion that residents saw an 18-percent increase in property taxes over three years under the previous NPA council.

      The NPA councillor cited annual financial reports that indicate the council led by former mayor Sam Sullivan increased property taxes by 4.04 percent in 2006, by 3.98 percent in 2007, and by 1.23 percent in 2008.

      “Obviously they’re not stellar, but at that time we were in a very prosperous period of time…so the inflation rate was more like 2.5, 3 percent at that time,” Affleck told the Straight by phone. “So over the three years we were tracking the rate of inflation.”

      Vision Vancouver councillor Raymond Louie's comment referred to the cumulative three-year increase for residential-property taxpayers, after annual tax shifts from businesses to residents were factored in.

      The proposed 2014 operating budget for Vancouver was released this week. If approved by council, the $1.2-billion budget will come with a 1.9 percent property-tax increase for Vancouver residents.

      Members of the public will get a chance to ask city staff questions about the document at a session at Vancouver City Hall on December 2. City council will hear public input on the budget on December 10 at 6 p.m.

      Comments

      7 Comments

      Tim

      Nov 28, 2013 at 7:14pm

      Something tells me this is Affleck launching his bid for a certain higher office?

      NPA / VISION: Vancouver's one party system

      Nov 28, 2013 at 8:00pm

      Vote for either party and you get essentially the same policies. The keys include ongoing facilitation of the local real estate casino, unloading the costs of city government onto the middle income earners, good representation for party funders (developers). Vision's enviro talk is silly, as tho bike lanes and recycling will save the planet. It's a diversion. One is as equally bad as the other.

      boris moris

      Nov 29, 2013 at 9:07am

      I want to hear what the new NPA hatched pseudo left wing clusterfart, aka: TEAM, has to say about this or any civic issue. It's good to have fodder for absurdist humour.

      The next time the NPA wants to pull another failure, like NSV or this new group of pretenders, out of their ass they should come up with a better name (such as DRPPYDCK) that would be more provocative and more accurately describe what they are. Also...might help if they didn't have the same NPA dinosaurs preening for photo ops like they did for NSV and TEAM.

      Justin

      Nov 29, 2013 at 10:13am

      This isn't an accurate representation of Property Taxation in Vancouver. The reality is that increases in assessed values of Vancouver homes have resulted in much larger tax increases. Many home owners pay double what they did 5 years ago. Let's be honest about how much more money the city is collecting. To say that rates have only changed by 18% doesn't address the fact that that rate increases are compounded by spikes in property values.

      Bill McCreery

      Nov 29, 2013 at 3:59pm

      It is disingenuous for Cllr. Louie to try to justify Vision Vancouver's including the " ... cumulative three-year increase for residential-property taxpayers, after annual tax shifts from businesses to residents..." in their claim that the NPA raised taxes 18% (which included the 1%/year business to residential tax shift that Vision stopped during the 2011 election campaign) vs.Affleck's claim of 8.25%). That is comparing apples and oranges.

      Thomas Folkestone

      Nov 29, 2013 at 5:04pm

      Someone has to pay for all the Olympic Village cost overruns after Sammy Sullivan and the NPA spent like drunken sailors on our credit card.

      Thanks again for propping up James Green, Sammy. NOT! Jim Green should've been our mayor, and Sullivan and his NPA spend-and-spend crew were turfed for a good reason.

      mike

      Dec 1, 2013 at 11:47am

      AOBV - anyone but vision,2014,played the greens for fools as well as all the other left wing nuts, have u had enough bike lanes yet