TransLink votes to cut its share of property tax

Originally published in the Vancouver Courier

By Robert Mangelsdorf-Contributing writer

TransLink is giving Vancouver property owners a tax break at the same time it claims to need an additional $200 million annually from the federal government to help pay for transit.

TransLink board members voted Monday to scale back its portion of the residential property tax by 21.4 per cent and business property taxes by 11.6 per cent. The move reduces its potential revenue in 2007 by $50 million and reduces property tax the average Vancouver homeowner would have had to pay by $50.

"Property owners have been paying a fair share of the transportation projects in the region," said TransLink spokesperson Ken Hardie. "There is a limit to what they are prepared to pay."

Hardie said the tax rate was established to fund a revenue increase of three per cent, but thanks to Vancouver's booming real estate market, property assessments upon which the tax is based, rose higher than anticipated. Reducing the tax draw puts revenues at the original budgeted estimate.

NPA Coun. Peter Ladner, a TransLink board member who voted in favour of the tax reduction, called the decision a matter of fairness to Vancouver property taxpayers.

"We committed that we would raise a certain percentage, and the assessments put us way over that percentage," Ladner said. "We are not going to gouge taxpayers because of an incorrect tax rate calculation."

However, TransLink contends it needs an additional $200 million annually to fund service expansions and upgrades like the downtown streetcar project, transit right-of-ways and to replace Vancouver's aging trolley fleet.

On Monday, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities called on the federal government to create a national transit strategy and secure long term funding for transit across the country. According to the FCM, Canada's transit systems need an extra $2 billion per year and it wants the federal government to come up with the money.

Ladner supports the FCM's efforts and wants the tax burden for transit upgrades shifted away from the municipalities and to the provincial and federal governments.

"We can't do it alone," Ladner said. "We have a tremendous number of spending demands facing us if we are going to reduce congestion and give people more choices about how they move around."

While the Expo, Millennium and Canada Lines were funded largely by the provincial and federal governments, the stalled $953 million Evergreen Line connecting Coquitlam and Burnaby has received no federal funding, and has received a promise from the provincial government of only $170 million.