CALGARY RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY TAX INCREASES 2013- 2017 ( CITY AND PROVINCIAL PORTION COMBINED)

2017: zero per cent property tax increase (Council approved a 1.5 per cent property tax increase but offset the jump with a one-time rebate to give citizens a tax freeze)

$51 rebate for the typical household

$460,000 median assessed residential property value

2016: 6.1 per cent property tax jump $169.80 increase for the typical property taxes increases totalled 30.6 per cent, while this year, council used a one-time rebate to offset a 1.5 per cent hike.

According to city statistics, the tax tab on a median-assessed home in Calgary went from $1,556 in 2013 to $1,823 this year.

City hall’s detractors, says Tombe, can point to its average annual increase in spending since 2007 of nine per cent, compared to a combined increase of population growth and inflation of 3.7 per cent in those same years.

“If you held those spending increases to the rate of inflation and population growth, that spending would be $750 million smaller,” he said.

An even more stark concern, he said, is the city’s lofty non-residential household

$480,000 median assessed residential property value

2015: 4.2 per cent property tax jump $110 increase for the typical household

$475,000 median assessed residential property value 2014: 4.8 per cent property tax jump

$41 rebate for the typical household rate — usually business tax — levels that in Calgary are very high.

That rate is 3.5 times higher than that paid by homeowners, compared to 2.8 times in Edmonton.

And with the demise of the city’s downtown, it’s a trend that threatens disaster for many smaller businesses that were faced with tax hikes of up to 300 per cent to pick up that slack, said Calgary Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Zoe Addington.

“It’s just not sustainable. What we’re hearing from business is they just can’t do it,” she said.

Though the city has since capped those increases to a tolerable level, “of hopefully no more than five per cent, we haven’t heard what’ll happen for 2018 and the downtown core isn’t going to recover any time (due to $27.6 million in tax room from the province and onetime rebate of $52 million in tax room approved in 2013)

$430,000 median assessed residential property value

2013: 5.5 per cent property tax jump $135 increase for the typical household

$410,000 median assessed residential property value soon,” said Addington.

The chamber is pushing for a rollback of the ratio to 2.85 next year and 2 to 1 in a decade.

As she pounds the pavement to be re-elected in Ward 7, Coun. Druh Farrell said she’s been feeling the heat over tax hikes.

“People are concerned. It shows the flaw in the market assessment tax system,” she said.

With the opening up of the city charter, Calgary has an opportunity to move away from what she considers a regressive approach toward one with multiple sources of revenue.

But for the moment, says Farrell, in rejecting what she calls the clarion call of some election opponents, “it’s impossible to cut taxes and keep or increase services.”