They’ve been hoping for a meeting with B.C.’s Premier for some time to discuss the controversial speculation tax, and now Global Okanagan News has learned that the mayors of Kelowna and West Kelowna have finally secured a sit-down with John Horgan.
The premier’s office confirmed Friday morning that both Colin Basran and Doug Findlater will meet with Premier Horgan behind closed doors on Monday.
The premier will fly into Kelowna early next week to meet with the two mayors and conduct other business in the region.
The location of the private meeting is not being disclosed.
Both mayors have argued their communities should be exempt from the speculation tax, saying it will have a negative impact on the local economy.
The NDP imposed the speculation tax as way of creating more accessible rental units.
But there are growing concerns it might have the opposite effect in places like Kelowna, where the rental market is already tight.
With the vacancy rate below one per cent, Kelowna is in dire need of more rental housing.
The proposed speculation tax is supposed to help with that by taxing those with secondary homes that are not rented out long term.
But not everyone is convinced it’s the way to go.
“I am not sure this is working the way they intended it,” property manager with Remax Management Solutions Cal Warren said. “It’s actually having a negative effect.”
Warren said so far the speculation tax is proving it may have the opposite effect, as he recently witnessed the loss of four units from the local rental pool.
“I have had four of my properties, Alberta owners who heard about the news and then turned around and decided to sell their properties,” he said. “They really haven’t been sold to new landlords. They have been sold to owners who are buying and staying there. Four rental units disappeared from the surplus.”
While hopeful the tax will result in some more long term rentals, the head of LandlordBC said the outcome may not be as significant as it’s intended to be.
“It should increase some units into the rental pool,” LandlordBC CEO David Hutniak said. “I don’t know…if it will have a really broad-based impact that some people thought.”
Hutniak pointed to a similar tax in Vancouver as a reason why.
In its first year, the empty home tax generated $30 million in revenue, a possible indication that many are willing to pay the tax over renting out their secondary home.
Hutniak said the real long term solution to the long-term rental housing crunch is the construction of rental-only buildings.
While hundreds of new rental units will be coming onto the rental market in Kelowna in the next year and a half or so, many including Hutniak, said the government needs to provide even more incentives to keep the momentum going.
“In terms of the private sector and long-term purpose build rental housing, we are still having conversations with them to remove barriers and in the perfect world to provide incentives for us to build more of that.” he said.