Council grants curling clubs partial exemption

Regina – Regina’s curling clubs say they can’t afford rising city property taxes.

The Tartan Curling Club and the Highland Curling Club asked for a permanent tax exemption at council Monday night in order to stay out of debt and keep up with general maintenance of aging facilities. (The Caledonian Curling Club already has an agreement with the City because it’s on city property.)

The general manager of the Tartan, Alan Bratt, said the club’s taxes went from approximately $10,000 per year to over $30,000 per year in last decade. Both the Tartan and the Highland are taxed like a warehouse, and not a sports facility.

“Warehouse space has become vastly more expensive in the last 10 to 15 years and we’re being dragged along with that. We’re not gaining the benefit though,” said Bratt.

City administration recommended council deny the request for a tax exemption, but city councillors showed a real love for curling in the meeting. They debated the issue for over two hours trying to come up with a solution.

In the end, they settled on something of a compromise. Curling clubs in Regina will now have a partial tax exemption for the next two years. They will be exempt from the municipal tax portion, but will still have to pay the school and library portion. However, the exemption comes with a catch: all three clubs must present a joint business plan showing how they will make their business stronger in the future.

Council wanted them to have incentive to grow their clubs. But, Mayor Michael Fougere said there’s good reason the deliberations took so long, considering council also voted no to a tax exemption for the Regina Flying Club in the same meeting.

“This is the art of making decisions. It’s not easy to do that and there’s no over-arching policy on exemptions. But what you can tell as a theme there is that council doesn’t like giving exemptions. It’s very uncomfortable doing that, and that’s why it took so long to talk about the curling club,” he said.

Although it wasn’t the outcome the club staff were hoping for, they respected the decision.

“We appreciate the Councillors concerns,” said Derek Boe, Highland Curling Club president. “They have to be good stewards of the citizens capital. That’s their job to hold the line and to make budgetary decisions. That being said, we believe we’ve done a great job over the last hundred years of managing and running facilities in the province at a very low cost to them.”