Property taxes are increasing again this year, but at a slightly lower rate than the last two years.
The City of Merritt is looking at a two per cent increase in this year’s budget, down from the tax increase in 2013, which was 2.25 per cent.
“We’ll move forward from there and then we’ll try and get some of the savings we need out of the different departments,” City of Merritt financial services manager Ken Ostraat told the Herald.
At a budget meeting earlier this year, the increase to property taxes was pegged at 2.5 per cent.
Also in the 2014 budget will be a rewrite to the city’s Development Cost Charge Bylaw (DCC), Ostraat confirmed.
“It’s definitely due to be looked at, and we got to go through the projects that are included in it, and update the costs and then do some revamping of our projections in terms of new development and stuff like that,” Ostraat said.
The process of updating the DCC bylaw will involve a public consultation period and discussion with the local development industry, Ostraat told council at a budget meeting on March 31.
“It’s a very important bylaw in terms of financing some of the future infrastructure upgrades that we have in the community — particularly the roads, water, sewer and even parks for that matter,” Ostraat told council.
The last time the bylaw was updated was 2007.
Municipalities collect development cost charges from land developers to offset some of the infrastructure costs they incur to service the needs of new development.
“DCCs are collected in five areas: roads, sewer, water, parks and drainage, and we’re not collecting for water or parks, zero,” planning and development services manager Sean O’Flaherty told council.
Ostraat told the Herald a rewrite to this bylaw is needed because completed projects are still in it, and there are new projects that have yet to be included.
The rewrite will cost about $20,000.
One key discretionary item that will not be included in this year’s budget is the subdivision and development bylaw revision. Not rewriting that bylaw will nix $60,000 from the city’s budget, Ostraat told the Herald.
Ostraat said the city will look at amending the bylaw instead.
“We’re going to take the subdivision and servicing bylaw out. Staff will work on it and do a couple of amendments to the existing bylaw, and deal with some of the issues that we have with that particular bylaw,” Ostraat said. “We’ll see how it goes from there.”
The subdivision development bylaw regulates the infrastructure requirements a development would incur for a project.
How effective those amendments are will determine whether or not the subdivision bylaw is included in the 2015 budget, Ostraat told the Herald.
The budget is expected to go before council for approval later this month.
