CANMORE – Canmore taxpayers have a final number for taxes for the upcoming year.
Town council finalized the mill rate Tuesday (May 3) after all assessments have been completed and any appeals needed to be filed before the end of April.
The most significant change to the tax rate includes adjustments to tourist homes used for commercial purposes based on an April 26 finance committee recommendation to adjust the rate that would see the rate for residential homes slightly dip and tourist homes for non-personal use increase.
While there was some discussion about the potential to increase the tourist home commercial use tax further, Coun. Joanna McCallum – who brought forward the motion at the finance committee – said the aim was to create parity with what hotels pay.
“That was my only intent. Any sort of change on how we look at tourist homes or residential is part of a broader conversation and how the taxation piece falls out of that. … My intent with my motion was strictly parity between the two uses,” she said, noting the property tax task force is about 10 years old and was created as the economy was coming out of the recession.
Chelsey Richardson, the Town’s finance manager, said the tourist home subclass was created in 2002 and was set to be equal to commercial tax rate. Though councillors had received feedback from residents on pushing the tourist home commercial tax rate further, she warned it may be a cause for concern from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.
“Those are the types of things Municipal Affairs are looking for and would flag because they don’t want to see the 5:1 exceeded on the commercial side," she said.
According to Town of Canmore records, there are 607 tourist homes, with 499 used for short- and long-term renting.
Under the tax rate, residential would be 2.261 while tourist home for commercial use is 7.018 and non-residential is 7.018.
In actual dollars, it means a residential home with a median assessment of $800,000 would have its municipal taxes at $1,809. A commercial tourist home assessed at a median value of $534,000 will have its taxes at $3,748.
A property assessed at $1 million would see municipal taxes go from $2,440 in 2021 to $2,449 in 2022. A property assessed at $700,000 would go from $1,631 in 2021 to $1,714 in 2022.
Non-residential properties would have an increase of $760 to $799 for every $100,000 of assessed property.
The Town’s $61.5 million operating budget and $26.3 million capital budget were passed in December. The operating budget was a 5.1 per cent increase, with $28.1 million coming from property taxes. The amount of taxes collected will be $1.7 million more than 2021, with about $456,000 coming from growth.
The taxable assessment was determined to be $8.7 billion for 2022, up from roughly $8.1 billion in 2021.
The assessment report highlighted that Canmore had seen $143.6 million in new property values, including $126.7 million in residential.
The assessment had 12,565 accessible parcels of property. Properties are able to appeal an assessment and the deadline had 53 appeals filed. However, despite being far higher than normal, not all of them will go to a hearing since if talks are still ongoing at the deadline, an appeal is needed to have them continue before a fall hearing.
The education tax requisition was set by the province earlier in the year at $23.9 million – a $1.56 million increase from 2021 or seven per cent. The requisition for seniors housing – determined by the Bow Valley Regional Housing Authority – is $1.5 million for a decrease of $77,000 from 2021.
For every dollar collected, $0.53 is for municipal use and $0.03 is for local seniors’ housing. However, the remaining $0.44 goes to the province for education.
In 2018, the education tax requisition was $17.9 million and has increased to $23.9 million this year for an increase of roughly 33.5 per cent.
There are 9,745 residential properties and 2,230 commercial and industrial parcels at the time the municipal budget was passed. While the assessment split is 85 per cent residential and 15 per cent non-residential, the tax split is 65 per cent residential and 35 per cent non-residential.
The average assessment for a residential home in 2022 is $765,061 after being $718,000 in 2021, while the median increased to $800,000 after being $772,000 in 2021.
The median for single family homes increased from $950,000 in 2021 to $997,000 in 2022. Residential condos came in at a median of $720,000 this year after being $677,000 in 2021.
Council also approved the finance committee’s recommendation to move $2.8 million of surplus from the 2021 budget to municipal reserves.
“It’s looking to be a very difficult 2023 budget time especially because of inflationary forces,” said Mayor Sean Krausert.
Median assessments
Residential
2021: $772,000
2022: $800,000
Tourist home
2021: $460,000
2022: $534,000
Tourist home personal use
2021: $457,000
2022: $534,000
Vacant serviced
2021: $642,000
2022: $691,000
