Tax breaks aimed at development
Incentives apply to municipality’s downtowns, three business parks
Municipal officials are hopeful a proposed tax break will encourage more new and expanded businesses in the CBRM’s historic downtowns and business parks.
Council took measures to pave the way for the commercial district improvement bylaw that would give commercial initiatives an incentive to set up new or enlarge present operations in the downtown cores of Sydney, Whitney Pier, North Sydney, Sydney Mines, New Waterford, Dominion, Glace Bay and Louisbourg, when it approved several motions during its monthly meeting on Tuesday.
Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s senior planner Rick McCready reported that it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to attract new businesses to the once-bustling downtowns that are now years removed from their heyday.
“Our downtown areas in the CBRM are facing many challenges — some areas are perhaps
impacted a bit more than others, but in all our downtowns we do have empty buildings, we do have empty storefronts, and we do have issues and challenges that we are coping with,” said McCready.
“Specifically, developers renovating or enlarging old buildings in our downtown cores face drastically increased assessments and as a result, of course, increased taxes and this is really a disincentive to invest in these structures.”
And he cited a specific study called the Value of Investing in Canadian Downtowns as to the importance of having attractive central cores in the various CBRM communities.
“They looked at investments that municipalities have made in downtowns right across Canada and came to the conclusion that having a vibrant, dynamic downtown is really critical not just for the downtown, but for the economic health of the entire community,” said McCready, who encouraged the elected representatives to take advantage of their new-found ability to offer certain tax incentives now that the provincial government has enacted legislation to allow municipalities to phase in tax increases for new development in urban areas.
And, after several months of periodic debate, it now appears the municipality will introduce a tax incentive scheme for new and expanding businesses. However, the planning department’s recommendations also called for the break to be applicable at the CBRM’s three business parks (Northside, Sydport and Harbourside).
“We have vacant serviced land in these parks, we want to see manufacturing and warehousing activities locating there, but we need to kick start that development,” said McCready.
In fact, CBRM chief administrative officer Marie
Walsh opined that the tax incentives, combined with last year’s council decision to sell fully-serviced lots at market value at its Northside park, makes the area much more attractive in terms of luring new development.
“We just made the change to lower the cost of land in the Northside commercial park and we’re now going to be marketing it globally, so we have an acre of land for $3,500, plus we are reducing the commercial tax rate, so I think we are now competitive, not just in this area, but globally, so we are going to concentrate on filling those commercial parks,” said Walsh.
John Phalen, the municipality’s public works manager, said there has already been some positives coming out the Northside park.
“We’ve had a lot of interest and we’ve had one new business already come forward that will be setting up very shortly, and we’ve had four or five others that have also expressed interest, so we’re in the process now of subdividing the land,” said Phalen, adding that there are 250 acres of fullyserviced land available in the business park located between North Sydney and Sydney Mines.
The next steps in the process of implementing the tax incentives include giving first reading to the proposed bylaw, amending the CBRM’s municipal planning strategy, approving amendments to the north end Sydney secondary planning strategy, and approving amendments to the municipality’s land-use bylaw.