One week after homeowners had to shell out the balance of their property taxes, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson announced initial steps the city and province are taking to implement a tax intended to temper the city’s white-hot housing market.
Monday’s announcement came hours after provincial finance minister Mike de Jong said the legislature will convene for a summer sitting on July 25 to enable Vancouver to enact the measures.
“[Housing] is a crisis right now,” Robertson said. “So far we’re not seeing any specific delivery. We’re seeing some initial steps, which is a positive thing, but we need a lot more follow through. We’re going to need significant action to address the market that has basically taken the option for home ownership, and even rental, away from many people in our city.”
Robertson offered few specifics Monday, other than to suggest a vacant home will be defined as being empty for 12 months per year.
At what rates those properties will be taxed remains to be determined, though any funds that come back to the city will be earmarked for affordable housing measures and creating incentives for property owners to boost local rental stocks.
The tax is expected to be introduced next year.
Before that time, the city needs to access data from the province, namely information pertaining to homeowners’ grants, utility rates and usage and other data from B.C. Assessment.
The province must also amend the Vancouver Charter to allow the city to create a new tax category called “residential vacant.” The administration costs of implementing the tax, and which level of government foots those bills, also need to be clarified in the coming months.
Robertson said he was unsure if other Metro Vancouver cities have approached the province for a similar tax to be levied in those communities. Should that occur, changes will also need to be made to the Community Charter.
“I don’t know that there is [an appetite] at this point… I assume there’s a wait-and-see attitude for many communities around Metro Vancouver to see how we put this tax together,” Robertson said. “Obviously enabling it at the provincial level is a first step.”
The mayor suggested the tax will not be levied on part-time residents, or snowbirds who reside in other locales for parts of the year.
“If a property is clearly not being lived in, and we’ve said 12 months of the year, that’s full time, no one’s living there,” he said. “That’s not a residence, so it shouldn’t be taxed as a residence. It’s a business holding and should have a higher tax rate.”
Robertson had previously issued an Aug. 1 deadline for the provincial government to collaborate on the tax. Outside of paving the way for new tax regulations in Vancouver, the province is also expected to end self-regulation in the real estate industry and bolster measures around governance, oversight, transparency and accountability of the sector later this month.
Earlier this year, a city-commissioned study by Ecotagious revealed 10,800 homes in Vancouver were left empty for more than a year in 2014.
The study measured B.C. Hydro electricity consumption data collected from 225,000 of 280,000 homes in Vancouver from 2002 to 2014.
The company concluded the rate of empty homes remained consistent from 4.9 per cent in 2002 to 4.8 per cent in 2014, which is in line with rates in the rest of the Greater Vancouver Regional District.
-- with files from Naoibh O'Connor
jkurucz@vancourier.com
