Downtown Kelowna group receives budget approval

Association’s spending plan calls for 30% boost to property tax that provides its funding

The budget for the Downtown Kelowna Association, once an allvolunteer group, will top the $1million mark for the first time in 2020.

City council on Monday approved the group’s five-year spending plan, which calls for a 30 per cent increase to a special property tax that helps fund the DKA.

“Our downtown area is getting larger and we’re doing lots of changes. And with that comes more expenses,” said Coun. Maxine DeHart, council’s representative on the DKA board of directors.

Top DKA priorities for the coming years will be focusing resources on the cleanliness and safety of downtown, and somewhat less on business promotion and marketing, association president Yarden Gershony told council.

“We are shuffling more money toward our on-street services,” he said.

Issues around homelessness and drug use present a challenge to the DKA, operations manager Layla Miller told council.

“There’s been a very visible increase in street-based concerns. You can’t deny that, but we will do our best to address those,” Miller said.

The DKA has an expanding program called Downtown On Call, which provides red-shirted staff to help businesses deal with aggressive panhandlers, unwanted individuals on private property, drug needle pickup, security alerts and escorted walks to cars.

It also has a cleaning team, whose members wear blue shirts, that helps private property owners clean up graffiti, fix property damage and remove garbage.

“We’ll help our members if they have a ‘gift’ at their back door,” Miller said.

The Downtown Kelowna Association was formed as a volunteer group in the 1980s. It was incorporated as a society in 1989, and must have its tax-funded budget approved by city council every five years.

A special DKA tax on top of regular property taxes is applied to owners of properties in 42 square blocks of downtown Kelowna.