Concerns over the proposed speculation tax continue growing and have now resulted in a town hall meeting organized in West Kelowna, one of the municipalities where the tax will be implemented.
“What we most need to do is educate the community, educate people that this is really a problem for us,” president of the Urban Development Institute Kevin Edgecombe, said. “I was on an airplane yesterday with an Ontario resident, who has recently bought in One Water, who had no idea the speculation tax was an annual tax. They thought it was a one-time, one-per cent hit they were going to take. They were shocked they were actually going to encounter this tax annually.”
The town hall meeting is organized by the Greater Westside Board of Trade.
Edgecombe, who speaks on behalf of the development community, will be one of the panelists at the town hall meeting.
He has been very vocal against the tax, which imposes a levy of 0.5 per cent on B.C. owners with secondary properties, one per cent on out-of-province Canadians and two-per cent on foreign buyers.
Edgecombe said the tax will affect every sector of the economy, not just development and construction.
“It will affect the people at the restaurants, the people at the hair cutting salons, and the wine shops and golf courses,” he told Global News, saying the tax will fend off people like those from Alberta, many of whom own vacation homes in the Okanagan.
In West Kelowna, the impact of the incoming speculation tax is already being felt.
The Goat’s Peak development south of Gellatly Road, which was supposed to see the construction of about 1,000 new housing units, has been put on hold indefinitely.
“It’s a great loss to lose that development in West Kelowna,” West Kelowna mayor Doug Findlater said. “We lose a very significant tax base for 1000 homes that would be built over 10 years. We lose the DCCs, the development cost charges, in the millions of dollars.”
The developer, Steve Henderson of Staburn Group, blamed the incoming speculation tax.
“We were about to submit a rezoning and subdivision application for the first phase of over a hundred lots, with roads and service costs exceeding $8 million,” the developer said in a letter to Kelowna-West MLA Ben Stewart.
“We have now stopped all engineering, planning, design work, and put the whole thing on the shelf until a change of government.”
The town hall meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, June 13 at the Holiday Inn in West Kelowna. It starts at 6:30 p.m.
It’s open to everyone and is a free event.
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