Tax-free plan to replace Kamloops hotels criticized as 'generous gift'
Kamloops city council wants to incentivize developers to replace hotels and motels throughout the city.
After getting a nod from most councillors on July 19, developers will get a ten-year tax exemption for any multi-family or mixed-used build that replaces the city's hotels.
While most of Kamloops council voted in favour of the exemption, Mayor Ken Christian and Coun. Denis Walsh were opposed.
"The problem is there's no measurables. No metrics to say when you've achieved your revitalizing goals," Walsh said. "We're in the business of property taxes. That's what pays for our services."
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Walsh criticized the ten-year exemption as being too broad, as it applies to anywhere in the city with a motel and without any goal to measure when redevelopment is satisfactory for the municipal government.
"I can't see why we'd move forward with such a generous gift," he said.
The bylaw was first intended as a way to incentivize a renewal along Columbia Street West, which has several low-cost motels. Some of those were deemed "nuisance properties" under a City bylaw in recent years and were fined.
City engineering and development director Marvin Kwiatkowski said staff later expanded the exemption to avoid excluding other motels like those in Valleyview or downtown. There's no provisions in the bylaw to dictate exactly which hotels and motels it would apply to, but Kwiatkowski said he doesn't believe developers or hotel owners would use it to turn newer hotels into multi-family housing.
"We have a housing crisis in our city, and province, like we've never seen before," Coun. Kathy Sinclair said. "This is one thing we can do."
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In practice, the tax exemption applies to the property's renewed assessed value after it's been redeveloped. A developer would then pay its previous tax value for ten years.
A similar bylaw helped redevelop the property that now hosts the Sandman Hotel.
The property is one of six downtown, and 13 across the city, exempt through a revitalization tax.
Northland Properties, owner of the Sandman Hotel, saved $267,818 in property taxes last year, and the City exempted $1.8 million to property owners in Kamloops though the bylaw in 2021.
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