Regina condo owners could be looking at fee hike

John McCormick doesn’t get his garbage picked up by the city, even though he now pays for it. The city used to give a rebate because it doesn’t collect waste from condominiums, but that was dumped in the latest budget.

“We’ve got a double whammy. Garbage rebate taken away, and taxes climbing,” McCormick, Preston Place Condominium Board’s president, said.

The City of Regina is saving $250,000 by killing the rebate, but that leaves condo boards across the city scrambling to cover those funds while still paying privately for waste collection.

“Compared to what the average household is paying, we’re paying a lot of taxes. If I make a fair comparison with a house just a little bit bigger than our condo, we’re paying $600 more for that,” McCormick said. “Question is why? We don’t get the services.”

McCormick is upset there wasn’t more consultation or warning about the loss of the rebate. Although the city budget was passed two months ago, he only received a letter on June 9 about the change.

He’s now writing a letter to the mayor in response.

“Just to get our water mains flushed here, we have to pay for that. Everybody else gets that done through their taxes. There’s some unbalance in the tax system,” he said. “The question we have to start asking city council, is what are we paying taxes for as condos? Is this a cash cow?”

McCormick’s condo board now has to increase fees to cover the $2,400 dollar shortfall for the year.

Approximately 200 condo associations will also be affected by the loss of rebate, affecting thousands of condo owners across the city. The rebate for each unit used to be approximately $36 for the year.

“With the 2017 budget, there were a lot of choices and hard decisions that council made in order to help us balance the budget based on the realities that we were facing in this year, and this was one of the choices that we put forward,” June Schultz, City of Regina’s finance director, said.

“I understand that it was a tough budget, and a lot of tough calls had to be made. It’s just always important that these changes be made fairly and a number of condo owners and condo boards want to know why,” lawyer Marc Kelly said.

City council is also considering a solid waste utility charge, which would separate property taxes and garbage collection fees, similar to how recycling shows up on your bill. That would mean only those that receive city waste collection would pay for it. Revenue from property taxes would no longer be used to pay for any waste services.