Vancouver report proposes 9% annual property tax increase until 2028

Vancouver property owners could face a series of hefty municipal tax increases unless council can find other options to explore.

A City of Vancouver staff report suggests taxes could rise as much as nine per cent each year, over the next five years until 2028.

But it seems there’s no reason to panic just yet.

“On Tuesday, council’s going to receive the budget outlook and this is a routine report that comes forward to council, it comes from staff, it’s not direction from council,” Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung explained to CityNews Friday.

She says the report is just an initial “look” at what the situation is “if we remain status quo and what the property taxes would look like.”

“But, again, it’s a starting point, there’s no direction from council here and we have not determined what the property tax increase is going to be.”

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Staff say the main drivers behind the possible move to increase property taxes by as much as nine per cent are fiscal ones. Factors include inflation, supply chain issues, and a tight labour market, with the report adding those three things combined could make it tough for the city to meet its $730-million-a-year commitments.

However, Kirby-Yung says council is looking at all its options.

“We are working to bring that down, and that’s one of the reasons, for example, that we started a budget taskforce, that is looking at opportunities right now,” she said.

The possibility of a rise comes after previous suggestions from Ken Sim and his ABC Vancouver party that money for things like hiring additional police officers would come from “reprioritizing” funding for certain budget items, and not increases to taxes.

“We got to this figure because of years of under investment in things like core city infrastructure,” Kirby-Yung said.

Pointing to things like the infrastructure collapse at the Aquatic Centre, the councillor says investments in community centres and other services is needed.

“We did see the City of Vancouver and past councils investing in a lot of areas that have traditionally been the responsibility of senior levels of government, like childcare and housing. Now that we have the province investing more in childcare, it will allow the city to pull back on that and start to refocus. But we have a huge gap to catch up on,” she said.

Large property tax increases ‘not sustainable’, councillor says

Debate over future increases also comes after council voted in May in favour of a nearly-$2 billion operating budget that will see a property tax increase of 10.7 per cent.

Kirby-Yung says the mayor has been “very clear” that such increases are “not sustainable,” especially given inflation and other financial pressures that people and businesses are facing.

“We are working to look at all the opportunities to keep that tax increase reasonable,” she added.

“We also know recently, for example, our independent auditor general completed a report where he found that the city had left $12 million of permitting revenue on the table because we were not fully cost recovering on permits that were coming forward for delivering and building housing. So there’s opportunities, I think, for efficiencies, there’s opportunity for new revenue generation … and we’re going to be looking at all of those.”

The budget taskforce, Kirby-Yung says, is expected to come back with a report to consider in October, before council passes its next budget in December.