Westside to take concerns about speculation tax to top

West Kelowna officials to seek meeting with premier to request exemption from new tax

West Kelowna’s mayor and top bureaucrat will try to meet with NDP Premier John Horgan within the next two weeks to ask the controversial speculation tax not be applied in their city.

Mayor Doug Findlater and city manager Jim Zaffino say the tax will slow down new construction, trigger job losses, depress real estate values and significantly reduce municipal revenues.

“The damage is already being done, every day, more and more,” Findlater said during Tuesday’s council meeting.

Nervous developers may cancel already-approved projects, Findlater said, out-of-province owners of properties in West Kelowna could sell their homes, and local businesses will be hit hard if far fewer Albertans vacation and invest in the city.

“We have to try to make this tax go away,” Findlater said.

Anticipating the difficulty Findlater and Zaffino might have in arranging the meeting with Horgan, Coun. Duane Ophus advised them to: “Stand outside the premier’s door until you get a meeting. That’s how important this is.”

About 600 properties in West Kelowna could be affected by the speculation tax, with the out-ofprovince owners having to collectively pay $10 million annually, or an average of $17,000 apiece, in addition to regular property taxes.

“There’s just so many things wrong with this speculation tax, it’s difficult to know where to start,” said Coun. Duane Ophus. “It’s absolutely wrong to pick on somebody else just because they’re a resident of some other province.”

“It upsets me that we are creating a border between us and the rest of the country, especially Alberta,” said Coun. Carol Zanon. “The message is, ‘Stay away from here.’ As a Canadian, I resent that terribly.”

While some West Kelowna residents may welcome the speculation tax as an attempt by the NDP government to moderate real estate prices, and one that won’t affect them directly in any event, Zaffino and several councillors pointed out how important investment from outside the province is for West Kelowna.

For example, without the additional tax revenue from newly constructed homes in the past few years, West Kelowna likely would have had a municipal tax increase of five per cent compared to the actual three per cent, Zaffino said.

If a 300-plus home development like one planned for Lakeview Heights were to be cancelled because of investors’ and lenders’ fears of the speculation tax, that would result in the loss of 1,400 construction jobs and the loss of more than $105 million in economic activity, West Kelowna finance officials calculate.

“Our quality of life will drop,” said Coun. Rick de Jong, because existing residents will have to bear a larger percentage of the costs for essential services like policing if new investment in the city dries up.

Kevin Edgecombe, of the Central Okanagan chapter of the Urban Development Institute, told council developers of major Kelowna projects are already seeing some people who’ve put down a deposit on a new home trying to “wriggle out” of their contracts because they won’t be able to afford the speculation tax.

Of plans by Edmonton-based Westcorp for a 33-storey tower in downtown Kelowna, recently approved by city council, Edgecombe said: “They are extremely concerned about the potential of them being able to move forward with a project they’ve worked so hard on.”

An email to Westcorp requesting confirmation of the accuracy of this statement did not produce an immediate answer Tuesday.

Edgecombe said the speculation tax was causing some hard feelings among Albertans who own vacation homes, or homes they intend to use as a retirement residence, in Kelowna and West Kelowna.

“I wouldn’t want to drive through Alberta with B.C. licence plates right now,” Edgecombe said.

In one week, the City of West Kelowna has received 238 letters about the speculation tax. Nineteen are from people who support the tax, and the rest are from those who are opposed to it.