There is optimism among community leaders that changes to the Revitalization Tax Exemption by-laws for the downtown and North Shore will lead to new developments this year.
At its meeting this week, Kamloops City Council voted 6-2 in favour of including new commercial developments in the bylaw. As a result the 10 year, 100% tax exemption (on the municipal portion) will now apply to new builds.
Councillor Mike O’Reilly spoke on the NL Morning News saying up to a half dozen commercial developers could go ahead with local projects in a timely manner.
“I would say there’s five or six in the wings that are waiting, that have been on a yellow light for a long time. This is going to move developers from a yellow light to a green light on projects, and that’s a difficult thing to do.”
O’Reilly says developers will still pay development cost charges up front when building, which are used to build and improve public infrastructure like sewer, water and roads.
“So that kind of covers that off there. If you look at the Sandman Signature Hotel that went in there, that road and that area was very dilapidated. When $20, $30, $40 million are being spent on a property, the developer’s not just going to let that area look poor. And that’s where money gets spent.”
Mayor Ken Christian was one of the no votes on the issue. While on The Jeff Andreas Show he says it was important to have a commitment to review these changes later this year.
“I think if that’s the direction that we’re going to go then we need to do it right. Look at perhaps a sliding scale tax exemption so it’s not the 100% for the 10 years, but rather we wean them off their tax exemption after a period of time.” He wants to see the boundaries reviewed as well.
Kamloops Chamber of Commerce President Joshua Knaak says he’s aware of two purpose-built commercial buildings that were under consideration. “I think it’s not just perhaps the developers that were waiting, but it was also some of their anchor tenants were waiting on as well because that’s the first question that tenants ask when they’re considering something is ‘What are my costs going to be?’ There’s a few building coming up in the very near future downtown.”
Downtown B-I-A Executive Director Carl DeSantis appeared on NL Newsday. He believes it’s a big incentive and thinks we’ll see the community benefit from big city office space while enjoying a smaller city lifestyle.
“Absolutely going to be a catalyst for growth for our downtown community and there’s going to be benefits in many regards. Economic development, we’re going to see job creation, attraction of new businesses to Kamloops and that of course is going to lead to well paying jobs and increase the tax base overall”
Prior to Tuesday’s vote, the tax exemption only applied to improvements made to pre-existing commercial buildings. Council approved amendments to the eligibility criteria to include commercial development to receive a tax exemption for 100% of the increased value of the improvement for a 10-year period.
– With files from Colton Davies
