It would be great if our system operated like everything else as "user pay" and then we might not have such horrendous tax increases. But no..... We sanction free use of our water and sewer systems by not charging DCCs to properties when we give them a temporary use permit. And as the temporary use morphs into a permanent use there are no taxes assessed on the excesses of the temporary use....i.e. The 30 travel trailers instead of 10. I could go on. Aside from the loss of DCC's which cover off Long term repairs and maintenance of the systems the property owner who benefits from renting all of these lodging units, trailers, campers, motorhomes, and huts at $750 -$900 per site gets off Scot free laughing all the way to the bank. It's about time that the citizens of this community who are paying higher taxes demand that the illegal and temporary use permit properties pay DCC's and appropriate taxes and then maybe the rest of us won't have to pay so much more in taxes. Pretty simple.
The many “temporary “ campgrounds, ghettos etc. pay no dccs and have minimal structures subject to assessment. The other taxpayers of Tofino have to make up the difference. When the district allows places like Poole’s to exist it discourages legal developments .
Walter Guppy’s house temporarily transformed from residential to Tofino Bus use as a temporary use and then changed again into the development which is currently there. Temporary uses are a way to get around all sorts of rules and expense of initial rezonings. The temporary use may or may not have been allowed if they’d gone through the official rezoning. It certainly pushed us along to “ribbon development” along Campbell St., something most urban planners would despise but evidently not in Tofino.
I just saw the next meeting pop up on district website.
It's the public meeting of district financial audit committee.
No notice. Popped up 24 hours prior to event time.
Not sure if that's allowed, but even if it is, it's not respectful of the electorate.
People need to see it in person, but I'm away and I can't go.
Please, if anyone has time, go and see what is presented and said.
If there is an opportunity, it is also important to ask who are the district and other members of the audit committee and make sure it is all within agreed upon norms, rules, ethics, etc.
If you read the documents the tax increases are already happening. Budgeted 2018 $4,279,825 Actual 2018 $4,261,354 Actual 2017 $3,742,705 Actual tax Increase between 2017 and 2018 was $518,649 Is my math correct at around 14% for the increase this last year??
I see on Facebook's Tofino Bulletin Board that Tofino Parks and Recreation is advertising for registration for this years Little League, and Tofino Parks and Recreation are also advertising that they're hiring a summer recreation programmer. Perhaps you may see these as worthwhile projects, especially if you have kids. I certainly don't have any issues with organized activities for our youth. My concern, however, lies with the question of "Who's going to pay for this?" I see that local businesses, thank you, have stepped forward to sponsor the ball teams, and local parents, again thank you, have volunteered to act as coaches and provide supervision. I'm not sure of the function of a "recreation programmer". Is that anything like a "festival co-ordinator"? Do we need this? Could volunteers do the job just as well (or better)? How much does this add to Tofino's tax burden? Has anyone even considered that? Could these funds be better spent elsewhere? Have alternate methods of funding these projects been investigated? Seems to me like there's a constant deluge of requests that people "volunteer" in their community, and when they do, then the things they could volunteer to do are already being done by paid staff of the District. I've seen District staff, on a Sunday,(that's overtime!) weeding the gardens at Centennial Park. Back in the day, this type of work was reserved to our high school students, to provide them a summer job, at a much reduced cost to the taxpayer. And the kids were delighted to take on the tasks! There's a plan to spend $37,000.00 "planning" Monk's Park. The gardens in the village green were designed, created, and planted by volunteers (in memory of Betty Farmer)..... at zero cost to the taxpayers. Are the managers of the District staff so egotistical that they believe no one else in the community is capable of looking after these types of projects and activities? Or do they simply like the idea of the fat paycheques? Don't forget that for every District employee you see out there actually working, there's another sitting at a desk in the District office, creating paperwork and manufacturing billable hours for themselves.
I can speak to one thing brought up in these mostly faceless comments, in line 6 of the response at 7:37pm. A recreation programmer -drum roll- facilitates programs! Here's a link to the actual job description to clarify further: http://www.tofino.ca/files/JD-SummerRecreationProgrammer2019.pdf
They engage children for the duration of the day for Pro-D day camps and summer camps, often from 9am or 10am to 3pm. We have had some wonderful staff over the years to lead these activities. Recreation programming positions are MUCH needed and there is clear demand for more programming in Tofino, especially in summer when school's out. This should give you an idea of the situation over the past few years: I and other parents in town have lined up several times at the District office door by 7am to secure camp spots for when registration opens at 8:30am (and I've never been the first to arrive, so let that sink in.) Registration is now online and we'll be sitting at our computers on the morning of May 13th, hoping the power doesn't go out and focused on securing these limited summer camp spots for our children. A Pro-D camp for this May opened for online registration last week and filled up in ten minutes! Having staff rather than a volunteer run programs provides accountability, reliability and likely satisfies legal requirement, too. Don't get me wrong, it's all a pleasure for me and I'm excited for the fun things the kids here get to do - if they get in. I hope this answers one of the questions asked here about the role a recreation programmer plays in our community.
On behalf of 7:37's comments, those concerns about who is paying for this still stand. This summer position is an example of the 'employment growth' within the district office. How many of these sorts of positions have morphed in the past into permanent positions when the short term contracts end, as those in the district office attempt to delegate their work load to new hires? We've seen those efforts before.
Thank you 10:23PM, that's all very good information. Doesn't sound like a very fair system, but that's just my opinion. A few kids get to go, so it's nice for them, but it sounds like quite a few don't. So what is there for them? But that's actually beside the point. My concern remains on the question of "Who pays for this?" How much does this program cost the taxpayers of Tofino? How many kids are involved? What is the cost per child? Is there any cheaper way to do this? Is it fair for a senior on a fixed income to be expected to cover the tax burden for this type of program that only benefits specific younger families? Could volunteers assist in the day to day operation of the program, thereby reducing costs? What about a "user pay" system? This sounds like a great deal for those successful in getting on the list, but what about those that apply a minute too late and don't make it, and are then left to ante up the tax dollars to pay the costs of those that did? Let's suppose that a user pay system was initiated, would you then be willing to shell out the cash to pay the costs for your child? Let's guess it's $1,000.00. Would there then be such an enthusiastic line up to secure the spots? Again, I'll repeat, I'm not against organized activities for the children. It sounds like these programs are a great thing for the parents, being taxpayer funded, and are also wonderful activities that the kids benefit from and enjoy very much. The problem is paying for it all. This topic arises from the discussion of a 53% property tax hike. We need to get spending in the District office under control. We cannot continue to spend and spend and spend without thinking of the consequences. If this dollars and cents issue is not dealt with, there could come a point where there is NO MONEY for ANY PROGRAMS. But that might not matter, because young families with children won't be able to afford to live in this town (many families have already been forced out), so no programs will be needed. I pray that we never get to that extreme, but as you know, if you overspend your money every day, especially money you don't even have, eventually it catches up to you.
All "recreational programming" in Tofino used to be done by volunteers. At that time the town was a wonderful place. People wanted to come here and move here. Kids were as happy as they are now, actually I think happier. Anyway, they grew up to take their place in adult society. Then the council created a half time position as Rec Coordinator. Now we have a department. How many people involved? What is the budget? It is still a wonderful place don,t get me wrong.
Samatha I respect the honesty of your response and your grit for posting here, but it entirely avoids the issue. Every thing needs to be rationalized by cost and benefit and who pays and how much There are many wonderful things Tofino can do. Unfortunately we cannot do everything and choices have to be made. How do you rationalize the costs to taxpayers. We are being asked to pay enormous increases. How do those costs affect you. Is any amount of spending just "good".
I will remain anonymous, I have witnessed and experienced the "selective inforcement" of laws and abuse of power by local government as a form of persecution. I will remain anonymous but not silent.
Samantha, it was District Employees who got the volunteers, the group of seniors kicked out. The seniors who designed initiated and maintained the Betty Farmer Garden on the Village Green. At no cost to the Tax Payer. They used to enjoy the work, the opportunity to do something constructive for their community and celebrate the life of their friend, and great contributor to Tofino, who the community chose to recognize with the naming of that garden and the support of that programme. I've harboured resentment for District employees ever since. They have been a selfish lot at times. Do you not enjoy the wonderful plantings on the Village Green. Headline "Voluteers get the boot in Turf War.
There was a volunteer group who were formed to help with Munks Park. They too, were unceremoniously cut out of the future. Now we need consultants at considerable expense to do what the community could have done at no expense. Just saying
It is ever so encouraging to see an open, frank, evidence based discussion about a topic, this one, the rec programs for kids.
With this in mind, enough individuals have now expressed an interest, so I know we can form a group which can promote dialogue in all various community subjects.
Which include, but are not limited to:
1. How is our tax money spent? 2. Does actual spending reflect the wishes of our community? 3. Why has it been necessary to increase taxes 9% year after year for almost a decade? 4. After those back to back raises, why do we now have shortfall in infrastructure maintenance money? 5. Why do we not already have a pool for the seniors and others to exercise in, and extensive gym programs for all the kids, given that we have collectively contributed well in excess of $10,000,000 more in community municipal taxes than any other similar size community in BC.
(The above statement is based on the fact that the median annual municipal tax per person collected in similar size communities in BC has been of the order of $1000 less per person, than what has been collected in Tofino. Even highly taxed Ucluelet has collected $5,000,000+ less than us in the past 7 years and they do have a nice community center.)
6. What is happening with the $150,000 collected annually in short term rental business license fees? Is it really necessary? If so, why? 7. Why does the summer shuttle bus cost $170,000 to operate for only a 100 days? 8. Why was it necessary to audit the financial statements one day after the special council meeting where they were discussed, at which there was no public input allowed. 9. Many, many more questions.
I will soon send out a notice to set up a meeting at which we will begin and form the Tofino ratepayers association. When that happens, please join and help out. This is your home and community too.
So much to do. So many things to look at. So much money gone up in smoke, it seems. Where to begin? Here's an idea. How about a hiring freeze in the District office? No more municipal employees added to the payroll. None. Those there now will be expected to do the work that needs to be done. No additions to the staff, anyone that retires or quits doesn't get replaced, that position gets filled by re-assigning responsibilities to already employed staff, or their job title is simply eliminated. It's a start. At least it might prevent the situation from getting any worse.
Want to thank Jarmo for posting the web address of that BC Gov page on Taxes it has been a revelation. I turned to it after reading the Westerly article, wherein the Author sites an internal report that would suggest Tofitians and Ucluetians pay very similar levels of tax. I have combed the official reports for some time and can find nothing that substantiates it. I wouldn't want to suggest the Westerly figures are intentionally false or inaccurate. However, when these are referred to as average figures, one has to ask, average of what. And there are no clear answers.
Here are some of the things I did find on the Gov't website.
Total Property Taxes and Charges/Year This includes all Municipal, Regional District, and Provincial taxes against property. Plus all charges or user fee payments such as water and sewer etc
Tofino collects $9,132,143 Ucluelet collects 6,255,579 That is a 46% difference
The gov't site provides information of Total Taxes and Charges on a "Representative House" The value of such a house is sited as $776,142 for Tofino and $347,198 for Ucluelet. Total taxes and charges paid in Tofino for such a house $5,234, For Ucluelet, $3250. That is a 60% difference.
If you are curious as to why. I can offer three fundamental reason 1) Tofino clearly spends a lot more money to provide basically a similar set of services and functions.
2)Tofino pays double to the Province for school, for hospital etc and to the regional district. That is because our assessment is higher and the rate is a regional rate not tuned to Tofino. No equality there.
3) Perhaps the most interesting. Tofino charges at a lower rate for those properties that are in the commercial business category than many communities. Actually lower than Ucleluet charges it commercial businesses. This a completely discretionary thing. Each community descides. Tofino charges commercial at 3.05 times the Residential Rate, Ucluelet charges at 3.26 the residential rate, which gives greater help to the residential sector than Tofino. All that talk about affordability. Really.
Most communities also have light industrial,and some heavy industrial. Categories which can pay 5 to 10 times the residential rate. Tofino has nothing in these categories. Why? Why not fish plants, or beer manufactures. Why are they getting a deal relative to the Provincial averages. It would seem we are generous indeed. Or is it ignorance or laziness or just easier to whack the homeowner, like we always do.
Communities that have major industry such as pulp mills or sawmills or manufacturing or refining facilities, really reduce the levels of tax for the homeowners.
Communities that are struggling for commercial enterprise often have low rates of tax for business commercial property. They are no doubt hoping to support , or entice something to happen or remain in there towns.
Our Main industry is tourism. It puts tremendous strain on the provision of services in water sewer parking etc. There is a good argument the business tax rate should be higher in Tofino...let me repeat.
THERE Is GOOD ARGUEMENT THE bUSINESS TAX RATE SHOULD BE HIGHER IN TOFINO....
And of course the kicker is that our business environment is very strong. Tofino is not struggling to attract business in fact it would be truer to say we are turning it away through difficult development processes and because of a lack lack of infrastructure.
For example the business to residential ratio in some communities is 4 times the residential. Whistler who we are desperate to disparage but seem to be imitating more and more, charges 4.63 times for commercial business. Even places like Comox charges 4,11 times the residential rate, and A place like Ashcroft charges 3.72. Take that.
None of this however is a substitute for being more economical with the moneys we spend. As my dear old mom used to say,"Money too easily gotten, is too easily spent".
10:44 PM. Wow! That's fantastic information. Thank you for your efforts to uncover all of this. I sure hope that you'll be a part of the ratepayers association, when it gets going. It's people like you that we need to get involved.
some of us are getting bogged down into small details about the tax situation when one of the real culprits Involves bigger details over a long period of time. Various aspects of income to the district Have been ignored not collected pushed aside or simply neglected. for example: Normally a developer or property owner who rezones all or a portion of their property for subdivision or commercial use pays DCC(development cost charge which takes into account the future cost of that development or use upon our infra structure) a dcc upon a single lot is $18,000..... Commercial use is determined by a square footage cost. It has been determined that a DCC that should be payable for a camp site is one half of the DCC or $9000. And once the property has been rezoned the new tax assessment takes into account that the rezoned property which now makes money (if it's commercial) is paying commercial taxes. where the district is missing the boat is where a temporary use permit is granted for an expanded use of either a a commercial activity on a residential property or and expanded use of a commercial property. maybe we have a spontaneous use of a residential or commercially zoned property into a temporary campground for 40 Tents trailers motorhomes campers etc. Since it would take a long time to rezone the property to accommodate this use properly a temporary commercial permit Is sometimes issued which is good for two years. maybe another 2 year extension After which the expanded use should be included as a rezoned portion of the parent property at which point dccs would be paid, and the new use would be assessed appropriately on the next tax bill. Also the lift tax but that's another story. but these things become staff housing or affordable housing. the Proper payment for DCC's of $9,000 per campsite would have a lump sum payment of $360,000. But not if it's a temporary commercial permit. The owner will rent each campsite for say $800 a month from then on. Nor will there be any taxes paid on those sites until theyre Taken into account as part of the commercial component. The way things go here the temporary use seems to carry on and on without rezoning, the requisite moneys being paid to the district, the property owner makes oodles of money at the taxpayers expense, and nothing will get done because it's affordable housing and the district doesn't have to worry about it. Well it's not affordable because the taxpayer is robbed. This fits well with the kleptocracy form of government that is quite popular in North America these days. Other land uses simply violate zoning or commercial activity and refuse to be held accountable or the district refuses to hold them accountable. Hundreds of thousands dollars that should be in the districts coffers aren't. Other abuses of the system has seen a clerical mistake on the water bills give some of the major resorts roughly $1 million in free water that you and I paid for. Or nonprofit status on a property use that was clearly profitable also shortchanging the district a million or so dollars. These things add up until here we are today where the taxpayer is tasked with making up for this tremendous shortfall in district revenue. The sad thing is that much of this shortfall revenue has gone straight into someone else's pocket and Nobody seems to have noticed or cared until now. The party is over.
Excellent post 7:40. More examples of the Districts failures. I wonder if there is grounds for a legal action on behalf of the taxpayers....Does anybody know anybody who might shed light on that?
I believe the water bills were incorrect because the District did not accurately read the meter. The Public works thought the meters must be wrong and spent additional thousands on new commercial meters, very expensive, only to find out the old meters were fine if you knew how to properly place the decimal point. ie reads the meter correctly. As you said, that cost Tofino about a million. the CAO decided it was not worth trying to collect from the Resorts who had gotten free water for years...Pretty bad. They never even tried.. That's what I heard from very reliable sources......
Worse than that 1:31am there was a person working at one of the resorts who went to the district offices and told the staff the water metering was all wrong but was told to not worry their silly little heads about it as all was good and everything was correct. Nice to know we have competent staff at the district offices we are paying our tax dollars to.
From personal experience, gained back when I was not quite as old as I am now.
The legal system can be useful, if applied correctly, with enough money, with the correct strategy, in the correct cause, at the correct time.
The challenge in applying legal recourse in our culture is that, (comments based on my experience and the experience of others I've become aware of),
the lawyers will never tell you how much it costs and what is the correct time and legal strategy or technique.
They will always tell you, costs unknown and incontrovertibly make a plan which maximizes their profit.
Case in point,
The Chesterman Beach Condos:
The case: The district decided to take out 10% of the short term rental business from Tofino, which business had represented a very large portion online booking business economic activity for the past couple of decades and had no doubt carried many local jobs through the 2008 recession. (sorry, personal political comment. The jury is instructed to ignore the previous comment).
The strategy proposed by the lawyer: Ask the Supreme Court of BC if within our local government system, districts have the right to regulate land use.
This strategy was a guaranteed failure, made tons of money for lawyers and rigged the game for the future so that they are guaranteed to get another chance to charge tons more money from future condo owners.
There are many choices for strategy on this which all are better from the owners point of view.
Personally, I subscribe to one which can best be summed up as:
"Do the majority of Tofino's residents want, or not want short term rentals at the Chesterman Beach Condo's"
If the answer to that question is known, that answer trumps not only the Supreme Court of British Columbia, but also the Supreme Court of Canada and the World Court in the Hague.
We can control our destiny. Please join the ratepayers club when the opportunity arises.
10:17 can anybody explain why the eco-lodge advertises and rents out rooms by the night and is not zoned commercial. Doesn't pay commercial taxes.? This is one of the reasons why our taxes are going up. Nobody seems to want to do anything about anything unless it's tackle South Chestermans. Easier solution and of economic benefit to the community would be to have re-zoned to commercial. The district could do that without south chesterhumans permission. Would have gotten some DCC's, the lift tax, and commercial taxes incoming. The solution was simply to punish the owners and take their units out of the over all rental inventory. A questionable solution since most of the council operates nightly rentals.
Can anybody explain why the condos at South Chestermans and the strata units at Cox Bay have been bought up here, in the middle of a discussion concerning the 53% proposed tax hike and what we're going to do about it. Those topics, although possibly of value elsewhere, have little or nothing to do with the waste and overspending and outrageous taxation coming out of the district office, and only serve to distract focus from the real problems we face. The South Chesterman fiasco, in the first place, was only a smoke and mirrors project of Josie's, designed to hide her governments failure to deal with the lack of housing in the community and make it all the "fault" of a few condo owners. She spent a fortune of our taxes on a stupid legal battle, which she "won", and provided ZERO in housing for anyone in doing so. Today, those condos sit vacant and empty, paying only residential tax rates, and will NEVER be available to the long term housing market. Just another example of of the waste and mismanagement of the people's tax dollars.
@11:07 because my tax money was spent on a legal battle that was won but now it is not being enforced. The condos are NOT sitting empty and vacant. Many are full right now with nightly rentals. The condos are still being advertised on sites like VRBO and are showing full for the summer. A few vacation rental companies are not advertising the condos but just move enquiries from a legal rental over to the illegal rentals and book it without advertising. Yes, more smoke and mirrors.
2:09 PM: It's quite obvious that you're a victim here. You should file an official complaint with Bylaw Enforcement. I'm curious. Could you explain to us exactly how it is that you are being harmed?
The original point is that the district ignores various revenue streams that could be available. But in the case of the renegade tiny home/trailer parks if they are going to solve the problem of affordable housing then why is the district budgeting more money to waste on stupid consultants, Studies etc.? Common sense would dictate putting off anymore expense for affordable housing is the right thing to do. Private enterprise is solving the problem with all sorts of turning a blind eye stuff from the district. It's just one thing that does not need to be funded.
Ralph, Here's the corrected version. Please delete the previous posts. Thanks.
Here are the links: Please copy/paste this information and forward it to all of your friends and neighbors. Get everyone informed! Tofino News Blog: http://tofinonews.blogspot.com/2019/04/tofino-taxes-to-rise-by-50.html District of Tofino proposed 2019 Budget: http://www.tofino.ca/blog/view/2019-budget-feedback-wanted Canadian Taxpayer Federation municipal ratepayers guide: https://www.taxpayer.com/media/MunicipalRatepayerGuide.pdf Tofino Ratepayers Association website (under construction); https://thepublicpurse.ca
Not everyone is aware of the districts fairly new lift tax. It's an example of a planning device which stops any future development that would provide housing, taxes, economic benefit to the community or anything else. The lift tax works like this: if you apply to rezone a property let's say for a subdivision or a commercial use, you are required to have it appraised or declare what you paid for it at the time of application. You are then required to have it appraised "as if" it were the new use or subdivision. The difference between what you paid for the property and the as if value is the lift. Before your application moves forward you need to give the district Half of the value of the lift. So far in some cases there was no value of the lift but in others prospective developers simply walked away. For example you might pay $1 million for a property that can be subdivided into 4 lots. The four lot subdivision Is then given a value of maybe $400,000 per lot equals $$1,600,000. Constituting a lift of $600,000. One half or $300,000. Should be given to the district before the subdivision proceeds. a new value of the lots is now $1,900,000. Or roughly $500,000. Per lot. Add application fees, engineering, geotech, DCCs, etc. etc. Resulting in the conclusion the development is not worth doing. If the current supply of lots is around $300,000 why would you create lots that that you need to be sold for $600,000 to more or less break even? This may work in Vancouver or big places where the lift tax doesn't have any noticeable effect on development. However in tofino it simply kills it instead of creating another source of income.v Affordable housing can't possibly be a high-priority item for the current council with new bylaws like this one. Adding this to the long list of grievances that we already have about why we have to pay a huge tax increase only serves to point out the district has been doing things like this that work at cross purposes to what we would assume is the greater benefit to the People of this town. It seems like there's no logic at work to look at the overview of where this community is going.
Benjamin Franklin said the truism: ...death and taxes...
I am a senior with no company pension, just my CPP (you all know how much that is). So, I give 3 months worth to the bank. Then a couple months to Tofino to help with overpaid overstaffed system. Then Superior, Telus, and Hydro take their cut. Then I need to eat, so a couple months goes to the Co-op. And on and on. At the end of the year, my CPP is gone and my modest savings shrink.
IF the City Hall braintrust increases my taxes, I hope they can get CPP to give me 11% more a year.
As for the SC condos, blame that on the council of the 90's who approved it thinking it would solve local housing problems. I understand only 4 or 5 locals bought in for their own house. Repeatedly the developer realizing that people were not buying to live in so he went to the council of the day and got approvals (more than once) to shrink the size of the units as they were more suitable as STRs. Today it is turning into a ghost town when it could solve some housing problems for vacationers and have money to into the big pot.
Yet, trailers pop up on lots and with Temp Use Permits Tofino looses a revenue stream.
We got who we voted for. Unfortunately political promises are just that...promises.
10:44 has it all wrong. If it was not for the tourism industry Tofino would be another Port Hardy or Alice, in other words a ghost town. Tofino was fortunate, with the beautiful beaches to be able to attract tourist. After the loggers were kicked out and the fishing tackled off, nothing was left. Today tourist industryis the biggest employer, offering hundreds of good jobs. It is the this industry that pay the lions share of the taxes. Business, both small and large, do not have endless amounts of money. Perhaps 10:44 should open a business to understand the plight of business owners, taking hug financial risks and working long hours to try to make a go of things.
Tofino proposed tax increases of 50% over the next four years, is absolute insanity. They have to be kidding, the only explanation can be gross mismanagement. If you look at every other municipality on the island, Tofino proposed tax increases average 10 times the increases of any other island district. Council needs to give their heads a shake. Forget a new rec centre and municipally built housing units, we cannot afford them. Zone land to increase the tax base, let private developers supply housing affordable.
Let's tell council that their proposed tax increases are totally beyond the ability of all. taxpayers.
Mr. Hackett, 10:44 here. Respectfully, I would expect you to try and protect your interests and do not blame you for doing so. Anyone would do the same. I don't believe I disparaged the tourism industry, as you seem to feel. I agree the town has benifitted in many ways from it's success. However, you don't address the question. Tofino is a very expensive place, partly, because of the success of the tourist industry. I read one comment a few months ago, I believe by Candidate(now re-elected councillor) Baert. Who posted something like " We cannot expect a town of 2200 residents to cover the costs and infrastructure for 10000-15000 tourists on a daily basis." I tend to agree with this perspective I agree with your suggestion of mismanagment I agree that the council needs to get off the municipally built housing units. I agree the current tax proposals are outrageous. I agree council should zone land to let private developers supply housing. However the tax base has been increasing for twenty plus years with only ever increasing tax burdens for the taxpayer as a result. Some of us have been saying this for years and I am glad you have come to the table.
My suggestion of raising the rate on tourist commercial property is only one thing I feel it necessary to do, but we have to look at every thing. It is not true that commercial property pays the "Lions share" unless your idea of a lion is actually midlin size pussy cat. According to the B.C. Gov't website on Municipal taxes Tofino Residential, $2,318,688.00 Tofino Business/Other, 1,930,170.00. I don't understand, given the strength of the Tofino economy, Tofino business should pay at a rate less than Ucluelet Business relative to there Residential sectors.
Now, about your comments about me personally. I have been in business in Tofino for thirty, that is 30 years. I have met a payroll every month. I have invested many of my own dollars and worked long and hard. My business is perhaps not as large as yours, I don't know, but I suspect it isn't, but I don't believe you are entitled to more authority on this or any subject.
In any event, what I believe, is that this should not be about you or me. These taxes will affect everyone, and will affect different people differently depending on their circumstances. Every one has a right to their own views....What I fear most is what I see being realized everyday. That Tofino will soon be a town primarily of and for the rich, and the seasonal workers. And few others will live here, as permanent residents. And their children will find no future for themselves in this place...That may sound extreme. Lets' work together to make it wrong.
Speaking of taxes, I find it sad that the 3% MRDT tax that is on all accommodation providers to fund Tourism Tofino can only be voted and determined by the large fixed roof resorts. This tax has a huge impact on promoting our town and most of the people who get to vote for it live out of town. The residents of tofino, who are in the short term rental pool, are forced to collect the tax but can't vote on it. If the residents were allowed to vote, do you think we would keep the tax to continue the promotion of our little town or would we put the brakes on so we don't ruin the goose that is laying the golden eggs. Maybe the residents would say enough is enough and cut it to 2% or nothing at all. Why are the wealthy out of town resort owners controlling Tofino's destiny. Do you think they really care about our little town more than their pockets? If you are going to force all accommodation providers to collect a tax then let everyone vote on it not just the super rich out of town resort owners. Its called democracy
10:37 Not only that they should have a vote but the whole community should have a vote on where that money Tourism Tofino gets is going. There are many many people who feel the town is hitting the wall here on sustainability and live ability never mind the damnable tax burden. When you have tour buses parking, engine running, near Tonquin Beach like they were this weekend, the wall most definitely has been hit. We don't need more continual advertising of the town. We've all become part of tourism machine and are supposed to be accepting of all the abuses the tourists and temporary workers put on the area.
Mr. Hackett you could start at your own business and make it mandatory for everyone of your employees to take the ambassador program. I am not singling you out but when I question workers about having taken the program it has been my experience that 95% of the workers know nothing about it and have not taken it despite the resort where they work having been supposedly one of the tourism operations having their staff attend.
10:56 the whole town has taxation without representation with those tourism tofino advertising campaigns. It is not right that they are allowed to inflict as much damage as they do on the town without any consequences or say of the citizens.
Tourism Tofino is the cause of our taxation woes and our council does nothing to reduce their impact on our taxation structure. Council gets a few dollars from Tourism Tofino, effectively an economic bribe to allow the circus to continue but it only adds to our taxation loading. Every bit of generosity from Tourism Tofino turns out to be a Trojan Horse in respect that we the local taxpayers are expected to pay to maintain through general taxation what gets created.
I believe The only large resort that is locally owned would be the Wick. The rest are taking the profits right out of this town along with the charm of this place that I call home. Maybe if they don’t live here, they shouldn’t be allowed to vote on tax issues like the MRDT which has a huge impact on Tofino. I agree with @5:10 that everybody in town should be able to vote on the accommodation tax which continues to be used to bring more people here. Let’s not turn Tofino into a little Barcelona with all their tourism issues. I just hope it’s not too late.
For anyone who wants to help stop the huge municipal tax increases.
I'm not sure of the exact number, but if a good number of Tofino's tax payers, (maybe 10 - 30%), sign a petition along the lines of,
"We do not agree to a tax increase of any more than 3%",
then once that is on file, in front of district council, they cannot approve an increase of any more than 3%.
Again, I'm not sure how many percent of the taxpaying community would have to have their name on it, but there is a number, and even if only 10% sign it, it's still a powerful message which cannot be completely ignored.
"How can a town of 2200 pay for the infrastructure for 15,000". Great campaign slogan. What is she going to do about it?. What is our council going to do about it? There are lots of ideas and insights posted here. What are they going to do about it?
What do the tourists do that costs local taxpayers money? How much is the extra cost to the taxpayer per tourist?
All we can do is speculate, because at this point, I don't think we know.
We know they come here, sleep in some room, eat at some restaurant, shop at the Co-op, sit at some beach, take a tour, get married, walk somewhere, etc., but what's the cost?
Yes, they need bathrooms and parking. They need water and sewer service and electricity.
But what is the real cost?
Thanks to the evidence based, logical, excellent work done by Tourism Tofino, we have good sense of how many tourists come here and how much money they leave behind. But we don't know what it costs us to host them.
We should take some of those MRDT dollars and figure out what is costs to us taxpayers, so that we can have evidence based, informed discussions about our future and how to get there from here.
I can't comment on most of the points above, as I am not knowledgeable enough to form an educated opinion, BUT...
Some of you need to get your facts straight. Every Chamber member automatically gets a Tourism Tofino Membership. You can also get a membership other ways, but by far the most common is to have a Chamber membership. With that membership, you get to vote.
It was members that voted to split from the Chamber and become 2 separate entities. It was the members that voted to increase to 3% to fund the new Visitor Centre.
Tourism Tofino members are able to attend all board meetings. Tourism Tofino Members are able to put their name in the hat to sit on the board as well. Here is a list of the current Tourism Tofino Board members, from their newsletter.
Chair: Shane Richards, new campground on Cox Bay Vice-Chair: Samantha Hackett, Long Beach Lodge Resort Secretary-Treasurer: Chelsea Bauer, Tofino Consumers Co-op Past-Chair: J.J. Belanger Jason Bertin, Atleo River Air Services Dena Bruno, Ocean Village Resort Sabrina Donovan, Pacific Sands Beach Resort Maureen Fraser, Commonloaf Bake Shop Rebecca Hurwitz, The West Coast Nest – operated by CBT Charles McDiarmid, Wickaninnish Inn Josie Osborne, District of Tofino Dave Tovell, Pacific Rim National Park Reserve Jason Watts, Stay Tofino
Not all those names are from big resorts, and not all are from out of town.
Only the large fixed roof operators with four or more rentals get to vote on the continuation of the MRDT tax and not the members. The individual who owns a vacation rental is not allowed to vote to discontinue the tax. The destiny of the town is being controlled by the large resort owners who do not live here.
The "4 or more rentals" thing went away last fall with the new tax rules. All fixed roof accommodations now need to collect and remit that tax, along with PST (and GST if applicable).
Not sure how that affects your ability to vote or not, but if you are collecting the tax you should have a voice.
No vote for the little guy who lives in Tofino and rents out a VR. Yes, all accom providers must collect the tax but the small properties (under four rooms) are prohibited from voting for or against it. This seems a bit backwards to me. The large resorts, whose owners mostly live out of town, get to control the promotion of our town and take the profit right out of here. To be fair, everybody should have a voice and a vote.
Don't worry about the MRDT tax, all tourist accommodation providers, including AirBandBs, profit from this tax. What everyone should be concerned about is the 50% property tax increase over the next 4 years.
Changes to the MRDT program mean that all accommodation providers who charge the tax have a say in determining how it is spent. It's no longer restricted to marketing - it can be used for infrastructure. The accommodation providers just have to ask for it and vote for it.
@11:15 Changes to the program say that if the decision making properties vote for it MRDT can be used for affordable housing. See this link: http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/93_2013.
Here's one} the budgeted amount for the twinning of the Maltby lynn Road sewer line is about $2 million. This needs to be done because the effluent from the existing resorts and new Pacific rim campground it Keeps the effluent from the esowista System from entering the pipes going towards the outfall. It sort of backs up I've heard... But the dot agreed to put the bypass line in Long ago. With the new campground coming online it only makes the problem worse but here's the good news. It has been determined by the DOT that the 200 sites budgeted for the new campground we'll need to pay one half of an $18,000 DCC for each site. So the DCC's coming into the district should be $1,800,000. There's no need for the taxpayer to pony up this money. Unless of course there's been some special negotiations with the campground operators. There shouldn't be because along time ago it was determined that DCC's were payable.
Furthermore the people of this community paying for a sewage treatment plant is fairly ludicrous. Consider this: EPCOR which stands for Edmonton power Corporation is in the business of design build and operate sewage treatment plants for various municipalities in BC and Alberta. Soooke is one of these municipalities. EPCOR Will build and operate the plant for 20 years collecting utility rates as payment for their outlay of capital. At the end of 20 years it's given over to the municipality to operate. How could this be any simpler for a municipality this small in charge of treating all the sewage of thousands of tourists, estowista, & possibly opitasaht.... This could've been done Long ago when the cost of a sewage treatment plant what's $25 billion but no.... This idea was thrown in the trash by the wisdom of our then Mayor Alan Anderson who felt that the ratepayer could get gouged on the utility bill....tsk tsk That's pretty good recently considering the cost has doubled for the build of the sewage treatment plant the population of tofino hasn't nor have the populace increased their incomes buy an amount equal to the increase in cost of a sewage treatment plant. That option is still there but nobody seems to be doing anything about it besides writing a ridiculous budget.
Here is a novel concept Instead of treating the taxpayer like a herd of dumb cows and milking them some more........... a one year moratorium on all Studies plans acquisitions improvements and hiring in the district office. Number one priority get the sewage treatment plant happening one way or the other. It's an ecological and environmental disgrace to carry on the way it is. Number two scrutinize existing properties which are not zoned for the uses that occupy the property. Change noncompliant properties to their proper zoning's so they can be Assessed at what they should be and pay the proper taxes like everyone else. Enforce by-laws. Pools land it's a good example Of laissez-faire by law enforcement, zoning, building code etc. While the property owner Collects many thousands of dollars from the illegal use of the property and pays low taxes, the rest of the taxpayers make up for the missing contribution of the propertys taxes. The same principle applies to a number of other properties. It's time for the council to do its job and operate the municipality in a businesslike way. That means get serious about the judicious use of the tax payers monies instead of seeing how much they can spend.
For those interested, The Tofino Ratepayers Association is currently being formed. This takes a bit of time, we first need to get registered as a non-profit entity under the Society Act of B.C. You can register here to receive updates, or to become a founding member of the association: https://thepublicpurse.ca/ . The website is still under construction, please be patient as things are put together. NO ONE needs a 53% hike in their taxes! Join us, as we act with you and with your support, to try to put a stop to this insanity, and all the other waste of public funds going on at The District Office. Note: No taxpayer paid consultants were used in the creation of this notice, just ordinary citizens doing for themselves what our municipal government is failing to do for us.
57 comments:
I hope District staff get a raise to cover this tax increase.
It would be great if our system operated like everything else as "user pay" and then we might not have such horrendous tax increases.
But no..... We sanction free use of our water and sewer systems by not charging DCCs to properties when we give them a temporary use permit. And as the temporary use morphs into a permanent use there are no taxes assessed on the excesses of the temporary use....i.e. The 30 travel trailers instead of 10. I could go on.
Aside from the loss of DCC's which cover off Long term repairs and maintenance of the systems the property owner who benefits from renting all of these lodging units, trailers, campers, motorhomes, and huts at $750 -$900 per site gets off Scot free laughing all the way to the bank.
It's about time that the citizens of this community who are paying higher taxes demand that the illegal and temporary use permit properties pay DCC's and appropriate taxes and then maybe the rest of us won't have to pay so much more in taxes.
Pretty simple.
The many “temporary “ campgrounds, ghettos etc. pay no dccs and have minimal structures subject to assessment. The other taxpayers of Tofino have to make up the difference. When the district allows places like Poole’s to exist it discourages legal developments .
Walter Guppy’s house temporarily transformed from residential to Tofino Bus use as a temporary use and then changed again into the development which is currently there. Temporary uses are a way to get around all sorts of rules and expense of initial rezonings.
The temporary use may or may not have been allowed if they’d gone through the official rezoning. It certainly pushed us along to “ribbon development” along Campbell St., something most urban planners would despise but evidently not in Tofino.
Hi:
I just saw the next meeting pop up on district website.
It's the public meeting of district financial audit committee.
No notice. Popped up 24 hours prior to event time.
Not sure if that's allowed, but even if it is, it's not respectful of the electorate.
People need to see it in person, but I'm away and I can't go.
Please, if anyone has time, go and see what is presented and said.
If there is an opportunity, it is also important to ask who are the district and other members of the audit committee and make sure it is all within agreed upon norms, rules, ethics, etc.
Please go see what happens if you can,
https://tofino.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/93115?preview=93116
Jarmo Venalainen
If you read the documents the tax increases are already happening.
Budgeted 2018 $4,279,825
Actual 2018 $4,261,354
Actual 2017 $3,742,705
Actual tax Increase between 2017 and 2018 was $518,649
Is my math correct at around 14% for the increase this last year??
And the district wants more money for extras?
I see on Facebook's Tofino Bulletin Board that Tofino Parks and Recreation is advertising for registration for this years Little League, and Tofino Parks and Recreation are also advertising that they're hiring a summer recreation programmer. Perhaps you may see these as worthwhile projects, especially if you have kids. I certainly don't have any issues with organized activities for our youth. My concern, however, lies with the question of "Who's going to pay for this?" I see that local businesses, thank you, have stepped forward to sponsor the ball teams, and local parents, again thank you, have volunteered to act as coaches and provide supervision. I'm not sure of the function of a "recreation programmer". Is that anything like a "festival co-ordinator"? Do we need this? Could volunteers do the job just as well (or better)? How much does this add to Tofino's tax burden? Has anyone even considered that? Could these funds be better spent elsewhere? Have alternate methods of funding these projects been investigated? Seems to me like there's a constant deluge of requests that people "volunteer" in their community, and when they do, then the things they could volunteer to do are already being done by paid staff of the District. I've seen District staff, on a Sunday,(that's overtime!) weeding the gardens at Centennial Park. Back in the day, this type of work was reserved to our high school students, to provide them a summer job, at a much reduced cost to the taxpayer. And the kids were delighted to take on the tasks! There's a plan to spend $37,000.00 "planning" Monk's Park. The gardens in the village green were designed, created, and planted by volunteers (in memory of Betty Farmer)..... at zero cost to the taxpayers. Are the managers of the District staff so egotistical that they believe no one else in the community is capable of looking after these types of projects and activities? Or do they simply like the idea of the fat paycheques? Don't forget that for every District employee you see out there actually working, there's another sitting at a desk in the District office, creating paperwork and manufacturing billable hours for themselves.
First post on Ralph's blog, woo hoo!
I can speak to one thing brought up in these mostly faceless comments, in line 6 of the response at 7:37pm.
A recreation programmer -drum roll- facilitates programs! Here's a link to the actual job description to clarify further: http://www.tofino.ca/files/JD-SummerRecreationProgrammer2019.pdf
They engage children for the duration of the day for Pro-D day camps and summer camps, often from 9am or 10am to 3pm. We have had some wonderful staff over the years to lead these activities. Recreation programming positions are MUCH needed and there is clear demand for more programming in Tofino, especially in summer when school's out. This should give you an idea of the situation over the past few years: I and other parents in town have lined up several times at the District office door by 7am to secure camp spots for when registration opens at 8:30am (and I've never been the first to arrive, so let that sink in.) Registration is now online and we'll be sitting at our computers on the morning of May 13th, hoping the power doesn't go out and focused on securing these limited summer camp spots for our children. A Pro-D camp for this May opened for online registration last week and filled up in ten minutes! Having staff rather than a volunteer run programs provides accountability, reliability and likely satisfies legal requirement, too. Don't get me wrong, it's all a pleasure for me and I'm excited for the fun things the kids here get to do - if they get in. I hope this answers one of the questions asked here about the role a recreation programmer plays in our community.
On behalf of 7:37's comments, those concerns about who is paying for this still stand.
This summer position is an example of the 'employment growth' within the district office. How many of these sorts of positions have morphed in the past into permanent positions when the short term contracts end, as those in the district office attempt to delegate their work load to new hires? We've seen those efforts before.
Thank you 10:23PM, that's all very good information. Doesn't sound like a very fair system, but that's just my opinion. A few kids get to go, so it's nice for them, but it sounds like quite a few don't. So what is there for them? But that's actually beside the point. My concern remains on the question of "Who pays for this?" How much does this program cost the taxpayers of Tofino? How many kids are involved? What is the cost per child? Is there any cheaper way to do this? Is it fair for a senior on a fixed income to be expected to cover the tax burden for this type of program that only benefits specific younger families? Could volunteers assist in the day to day operation of the program, thereby reducing costs? What about a "user pay" system? This sounds like a great deal for those successful in getting on the list, but what about those that apply a minute too late and don't make it, and are then left to ante up the tax dollars to pay the costs of those that did? Let's suppose that a user pay system was initiated, would you then be willing to shell out the cash to pay the costs for your child? Let's guess it's $1,000.00. Would there then be such an enthusiastic line up to secure the spots? Again, I'll repeat, I'm not against organized activities for the children. It sounds like these programs are a great thing for the parents, being taxpayer funded, and are also wonderful activities that the kids benefit from and enjoy very much. The problem is paying for it all. This topic arises from the discussion of a 53% property tax hike. We need to get spending in the District office under control. We cannot continue to spend and spend and spend without thinking of the consequences. If this dollars and cents issue is not dealt with, there could come a point where there is NO MONEY for ANY PROGRAMS. But that might not matter, because young families with children won't be able to afford to live in this town (many families have already been forced out), so no programs will be needed. I pray that we never get to that extreme, but as you know, if you overspend your money every day, especially money you don't even have, eventually it catches up to you.
All "recreational programming" in Tofino used to be done by volunteers. At that time the town was a wonderful place. People wanted to come here and move here. Kids were as happy as they are now, actually I think happier. Anyway, they grew up to take their place in adult society. Then the council created a half time position as Rec Coordinator. Now we have a department. How many people involved? What is the budget? It is still a wonderful place don,t get me wrong.
Samatha I respect the honesty of your response and your grit for posting here, but it entirely avoids the issue. Every thing needs to be rationalized by cost and benefit and who pays and how much There are many wonderful things Tofino can do. Unfortunately we cannot do everything and choices have to be made. How do you rationalize the costs to taxpayers. We are being asked to pay enormous increases. How do those costs affect you. Is any amount of spending just "good".
I will remain anonymous, I have witnessed and experienced the "selective inforcement" of laws and abuse of power by local government as a form of persecution. I will remain anonymous but not silent.
Samantha, it was District Employees who got the volunteers, the group of seniors kicked out. The seniors who designed initiated and maintained the Betty Farmer Garden on the Village Green. At no cost to the Tax Payer. They used to enjoy the work, the opportunity to do something constructive for their community and celebrate the life of their friend, and great contributor to Tofino, who the community chose to recognize with the naming of that garden and the support of that programme. I've harboured resentment for District employees ever since. They have been a selfish lot at times. Do you not enjoy the wonderful plantings on the Village Green. Headline "Voluteers get the boot in Turf War.
There was a volunteer group who were formed to help with Munks Park. They too, were unceremoniously cut out of the future. Now we need consultants at considerable expense to do what the community could have done at no expense. Just saying
It is ever so encouraging to see an open, frank, evidence based discussion about a topic, this one, the rec programs for kids.
With this in mind, enough individuals have now expressed an interest, so I know we can form a group which can promote dialogue in all various community subjects.
Which include, but are not limited to:
1. How is our tax money spent?
2. Does actual spending reflect the wishes of our community?
3. Why has it been necessary to increase taxes 9% year after year for almost a decade?
4. After those back to back raises, why do we now have shortfall in infrastructure maintenance money?
5. Why do we not already have a pool for the seniors and others to exercise in, and extensive gym programs for all the kids, given that we have collectively contributed well in excess of $10,000,000 more in community municipal taxes than any other similar size community in BC.
(The above statement is based on the fact that the median annual municipal tax per person collected in similar size communities in BC has been of the order of $1000 less per person, than what has been collected in Tofino. Even highly taxed Ucluelet has collected $5,000,000+ less than us in the past 7 years and they do have a nice community center.)
6. What is happening with the $150,000 collected annually in short term rental business license fees? Is it really necessary? If so, why?
7. Why does the summer shuttle bus cost $170,000 to operate for only a 100 days?
8. Why was it necessary to audit the financial statements one day after the special council meeting where they were discussed, at which there was no public input allowed.
9. Many, many more questions.
I will soon send out a notice to set up a meeting at which we will begin and form the Tofino ratepayers association. When that happens, please join and help out. This is your home and community too.
Jarmo Venalainen
Resident of Tofino
So much to do. So many things to look at. So much money gone up in smoke, it seems. Where to begin? Here's an idea. How about a hiring freeze in the District office? No more municipal employees added to the payroll. None. Those there now will be expected to do the work that needs to be done. No additions to the staff, anyone that retires or quits doesn't get replaced, that position gets filled by re-assigning responsibilities to already employed staff, or their job title is simply eliminated. It's a start. At least it might prevent the situation from getting any worse.
Want to thank Jarmo for posting the web address of that BC Gov page on Taxes it has been a revelation. I turned to it after reading the Westerly article, wherein the Author sites an internal report that would suggest Tofitians and Ucluetians pay very similar levels of tax. I have combed the official reports for some time and can find nothing that substantiates it. I wouldn't want to suggest the Westerly figures are intentionally false or inaccurate. However, when these are referred to as average figures, one has to ask, average of what. And there are no clear answers.
Here are some of the things I did find on the Gov't website.
Total Property Taxes and Charges/Year This includes all Municipal, Regional District, and Provincial taxes against property. Plus all charges or user fee payments such as water and sewer etc
Tofino collects $9,132,143 Ucluelet collects 6,255,579
That is a 46% difference
The gov't site provides information of Total Taxes and Charges on a "Representative House" The value of such a house is sited as $776,142 for Tofino and $347,198 for Ucluelet. Total taxes and charges paid in Tofino for such a house $5,234, For Ucluelet, $3250. That is a 60% difference.
If you are curious as to why. I can offer three fundamental reason
1) Tofino clearly spends a lot more money to provide basically a similar set of services and functions.
2)Tofino pays double to the Province for school, for hospital etc and to the regional district. That is because our assessment is higher and the rate is a regional rate not tuned to Tofino. No equality there.
3) Perhaps the most interesting. Tofino charges at a lower rate for those properties that are in the commercial business category than many communities. Actually lower than Ucleluet charges it commercial businesses. This a completely discretionary thing. Each community descides. Tofino charges commercial at 3.05 times the Residential Rate, Ucluelet charges at 3.26 the residential rate, which gives greater help to the residential sector than Tofino. All that talk about affordability. Really.
Most communities also have light industrial,and some heavy industrial. Categories which can pay 5 to 10 times the residential rate. Tofino has nothing in these categories. Why? Why not fish plants, or beer manufactures. Why are they getting a deal relative to the Provincial averages. It would seem we are generous indeed. Or is it ignorance or laziness or just easier to whack the homeowner, like we always do.
Communities that have major industry such as pulp mills or sawmills or manufacturing or refining facilities, really reduce the levels of tax for the homeowners.
Communities that are struggling for commercial enterprise often have low rates of tax for business commercial property. They are no doubt hoping to support , or entice something to happen or remain in there towns.
Our Main industry is tourism. It puts tremendous strain on the provision of services in water sewer parking etc. There is a good argument the business tax rate should be higher in Tofino...let me repeat.
THERE Is GOOD ARGUEMENT THE bUSINESS TAX RATE SHOULD BE HIGHER IN TOFINO....
And of course the kicker is that our business environment is very strong. Tofino is not struggling to attract business in fact it would be truer to say we are turning it away through difficult development processes and because of a lack lack of infrastructure.
For example the business to residential ratio in some communities is 4 times the residential. Whistler who we are desperate to disparage but seem to be imitating more and more, charges 4.63 times for commercial business. Even places like Comox charges 4,11 times the residential rate, and A place like Ashcroft charges 3.72. Take that.
None of this however is a substitute for being more economical with the moneys we spend. As my dear old mom used to say,"Money too easily gotten, is too easily spent".
10:44 PM. Wow! That's fantastic information. Thank you for your efforts to uncover all of this. I sure hope that you'll be a part of the ratepayers association, when it gets going. It's people like you that we need to get involved.
10:44PM The majority of Council are business owners. I doubt they will support an increase in the business tax rate!
some of us are getting bogged down into small details about the tax situation when one of the real culprits Involves bigger details over a long period of time.
Various aspects of income to the district Have been ignored not collected pushed aside or simply neglected.
for example:
Normally a developer or property owner who rezones all or a portion of their property for subdivision or commercial use pays DCC(development cost charge which takes into account the future cost of that development or use upon our infra structure)
a dcc upon a single lot is $18,000..... Commercial use is determined by a square footage cost.
It has been determined that a DCC that should be payable for a camp site is one half of the DCC or $9000.
And once the property has been rezoned the new tax assessment takes into account that the rezoned property which now makes money (if it's commercial) is paying commercial taxes.
where the district is missing the boat is where a temporary use permit is granted for an expanded use of either a a commercial activity on a residential property or and expanded use of a commercial property.
maybe we have a spontaneous use of a residential or commercially zoned property into a temporary campground for 40 Tents trailers motorhomes campers etc.
Since it would take a long time to rezone the property to accommodate this use properly a temporary commercial permit Is sometimes issued which is good for two years. maybe another 2 year extension After which the expanded use should be included as a rezoned portion of the parent property at which point dccs would be paid, and the new use would be assessed appropriately on the next tax bill. Also the lift tax but that's another story.
but these things become staff housing or affordable housing.
the Proper payment for DCC's of $9,000 per campsite would have a lump sum payment of $360,000.
But not if it's a temporary commercial permit. The owner will rent each campsite for say $800 a month from then on.
Nor will there be any taxes paid on those sites until theyre Taken into account as part of the commercial component.
The way things go here the temporary use seems to carry on and on without rezoning, the requisite moneys being paid to the district, the property owner makes oodles of money at the taxpayers expense, and nothing will get done because it's affordable housing and the district doesn't have to worry about it.
Well it's not affordable because the taxpayer is robbed.
This fits well with the kleptocracy form of government that is quite popular in North America these days.
Other land uses simply violate zoning or commercial activity and refuse to be held accountable or the district refuses to hold them accountable.
Hundreds of thousands dollars that should be in the districts coffers aren't.
Other abuses of the system has seen a clerical mistake on the water bills give some of the major resorts roughly $1 million in free water that you and I paid for.
Or nonprofit status on a property use that was clearly profitable also shortchanging the district a million or so dollars.
These things add up until here we are today where the taxpayer is tasked with making up for this tremendous shortfall in district revenue.
The sad thing is that much of this shortfall revenue has gone straight into someone else's pocket and Nobody seems to have noticed or cared until now. The party is over.
Excellent post 7:40. More examples of the Districts failures. I wonder if there is grounds for a legal action on behalf of the taxpayers....Does anybody know anybody who might shed light on that?
I believe the water bills were incorrect because the District did not accurately read the meter. The Public works thought the meters must be wrong and spent additional thousands on new commercial meters, very expensive, only to find out the old meters were fine if you knew how to properly place the decimal point. ie reads the meter correctly. As you said, that cost Tofino about a million. the CAO decided it was not worth trying to collect from the Resorts who had gotten free water for years...Pretty bad. They never even tried.. That's what I heard from very reliable sources......
Worse than that 1:31am there was a person working at one of the resorts who went to the district offices and told the staff the water metering was all wrong but was told to not worry their silly little heads about it as all was good and everything was correct.
Nice to know we have competent staff at the district offices we are paying our tax dollars to.
From personal experience, gained back when I was not quite as old as I am now.
The legal system can be useful, if applied correctly, with enough money, with the correct strategy, in the correct cause, at the correct time.
The challenge in applying legal recourse in our culture is that, (comments based on my experience and the experience of others I've become aware of),
the lawyers will never tell you how much it costs and what is the correct time and legal strategy or technique.
They will always tell you, costs unknown and incontrovertibly make a plan which maximizes their profit.
Case in point,
The Chesterman Beach Condos:
The case: The district decided to take out 10% of the short term rental business from Tofino, which business had represented a very large portion online booking business economic activity for the past couple of decades and had no doubt carried many local jobs through the 2008 recession. (sorry, personal political comment. The jury is instructed to ignore the previous comment).
The strategy proposed by the lawyer: Ask the Supreme Court of BC if within our local government system, districts have the right to regulate land use.
This strategy was a guaranteed failure, made tons of money for lawyers and rigged the game for the future so that they are guaranteed to get another chance to charge tons more money from future condo owners.
There are many choices for strategy on this which all are better from the owners point of view.
Personally, I subscribe to one which can best be summed up as:
"Do the majority of Tofino's residents want, or not want short term rentals at the Chesterman Beach Condo's"
If the answer to that question is known, that answer trumps not only the Supreme Court of British Columbia, but also the Supreme Court of Canada and the World Court in the Hague.
We can control our destiny. Please join the ratepayers club when the opportunity arises.
Jarmo Venalainen
Can anybody explain why the condos at South Chesterman are still being advertised and rented out on a nightly basis?
I wonder if the strata titled units at Cox Bay pay residential or commercial tax?
Anyone know about that.
Cox bay Beach resort units pay commercial tax. They are zoned commercial.
10:17 can anybody explain why the eco-lodge advertises and rents out rooms by the night and is not zoned commercial.
Doesn't pay commercial taxes.?
This is one of the reasons why our taxes are going up.
Nobody seems to want to do anything about anything unless it's tackle South Chestermans. Easier solution and of economic benefit to the community would be to have re-zoned to commercial.
The district could do that without south chesterhumans permission.
Would have gotten some DCC's, the lift tax, and commercial taxes incoming.
The solution was simply to punish the owners and take their units out of the over all rental inventory.
A questionable solution since most of the council operates nightly rentals.
Can anybody explain why the condos at South Chestermans and the strata units at Cox Bay have been bought up here, in the middle of a discussion concerning the 53% proposed tax hike and what we're going to do about it. Those topics, although possibly of value elsewhere, have little or nothing to do with the waste and overspending and outrageous taxation coming out of the district office, and only serve to distract focus from the real problems we face. The South Chesterman fiasco, in the first place, was only a smoke and mirrors project of Josie's, designed to hide her governments failure to deal with the lack of housing in the community and make it all the "fault" of a few condo owners. She spent a fortune of our taxes on a stupid legal battle, which she "won", and provided ZERO in housing for anyone in doing so. Today, those condos sit vacant and empty, paying only residential tax rates, and will NEVER be available to the long term housing market. Just another example of of the waste and mismanagement of the people's tax dollars.
@11:07 because my tax money was spent on a legal battle that was won but now it is not being enforced. The condos are NOT sitting empty and vacant. Many are full right now with nightly rentals. The condos are still being advertised on sites like VRBO and are showing full for the summer. A few vacation rental companies are not advertising the condos but just move enquiries from a legal rental over to the illegal rentals and book it without advertising. Yes, more smoke and mirrors.
2:09 PM: It's quite obvious that you're a victim here. You should file an official complaint with Bylaw Enforcement. I'm curious. Could you explain to us exactly how it is that you are being harmed?
The original point is that the district ignores various revenue streams that could be available.
But in the case of the renegade tiny home/trailer parks if they are going to solve the problem of affordable housing then why is the district budgeting more money to waste on stupid consultants, Studies etc.?
Common sense would dictate putting off anymore expense for affordable housing is the right thing to do.
Private enterprise is solving the problem with all sorts of turning a blind eye stuff from the district.
It's just one thing that does not need to be funded.
Ralph, Here's the corrected version. Please delete the previous posts. Thanks.
Here are the links: Please copy/paste this information and forward it to all of your friends and neighbors. Get everyone informed! Tofino News Blog: http://tofinonews.blogspot.com/2019/04/tofino-taxes-to-rise-by-50.html
District of Tofino proposed 2019 Budget: http://www.tofino.ca/blog/view/2019-budget-feedback-wanted
Canadian Taxpayer Federation municipal ratepayers guide: https://www.taxpayer.com/media/MunicipalRatepayerGuide.pdf
Tofino Ratepayers Association website (under construction); https://thepublicpurse.ca
Not everyone is aware of the districts fairly new lift tax. It's an example of a planning device which stops any future development that would provide housing, taxes, economic benefit to the community or anything else.
The lift tax works like this: if you apply to rezone a property let's say for a subdivision or a commercial use, you are required to have it appraised or declare what you paid for it at the time of application.
You are then required to have it appraised "as if" it were the new use or subdivision.
The difference between what you paid for the property and the as if value is the lift.
Before your application moves forward you need to give the district Half of the value of the lift.
So far in some cases there was no value of the lift but in others prospective developers simply walked away.
For example you might pay $1 million for a property that can be subdivided into 4 lots.
The four lot subdivision Is then given a value of maybe $400,000 per lot equals $$1,600,000. Constituting a lift of $600,000.
One half or $300,000. Should be given to the district before the subdivision proceeds.
a new value of the lots is now $1,900,000. Or roughly $500,000. Per lot.
Add application fees, engineering, geotech, DCCs, etc. etc. Resulting in the conclusion the development is not worth doing.
If the current supply of lots is around $300,000 why would you create lots that that you need to be sold for $600,000 to more or less break even?
This may work in Vancouver or big places where the lift tax doesn't have any noticeable effect on development.
However in tofino it simply kills it instead of creating another source of income.v
Affordable housing can't possibly be a high-priority item for the current council with new bylaws like this one.
Adding this to the long list of grievances that we already have about why we have to pay a huge tax increase only serves to point out the district has been doing things like this that work at cross purposes to what we would assume is the greater benefit to the People of this town.
It seems like there's no logic at work to look at the overview of where this community is going.
Remember when the Easter egg hunt was a community event in the village green and we weren't forced to take our kids to the botanical gardens
Benjamin Franklin said the truism: ...death and taxes...
I am a senior with no company pension, just my CPP (you all know how much that is).
So, I give 3 months worth to the bank.
Then a couple months to Tofino to help with overpaid overstaffed system.
Then Superior, Telus, and Hydro take their cut.
Then I need to eat, so a couple months goes to the Co-op.
And on and on.
At the end of the year, my CPP is gone and my modest savings shrink.
IF the City Hall braintrust increases my taxes, I hope they can get CPP to give me 11% more a year.
As for the SC condos, blame that on the council of the 90's who approved it thinking it would solve local housing problems. I understand only 4 or 5 locals bought in for their own house. Repeatedly the developer realizing that people were not buying to live in so he went to the council of the day and got approvals (more than once) to shrink the size of the units as they were more suitable as STRs. Today it is turning into a ghost town when it could solve some housing problems for vacationers and have money to into the big pot.
Yet, trailers pop up on lots and with Temp Use Permits Tofino looses a revenue stream.
We got who we voted for. Unfortunately political promises are just that...promises.
Death and taxes.....
10:44 has it all wrong. If it was not for the tourism industry Tofino would be another Port Hardy or Alice, in other words a ghost town. Tofino was fortunate, with the beautiful beaches to be able to attract tourist. After the loggers were kicked out and the fishing tackled off, nothing was left. Today tourist industryis the biggest employer, offering hundreds of good jobs. It is the this industry that pay the lions share of the taxes. Business, both small and large, do not have endless amounts of money. Perhaps 10:44 should open a business to understand the plight of business owners, taking hug financial risks and working long hours to try to make a go of things.
Tofino proposed tax increases of 50% over the next four years, is absolute insanity. They have to be kidding, the only explanation can be gross mismanagement. If you look at every other municipality on the island, Tofino proposed tax increases average 10 times the increases of any other island district. Council needs to give their heads a shake. Forget a new rec centre and municipally built housing units, we cannot afford them. Zone land to increase the tax base, let private developers supply housing affordable.
Let's tell council that their proposed tax increases are totally beyond the ability of all. taxpayers.
Mr. Hackett, 10:44 here. Respectfully, I would expect you to try and protect your interests and do not blame you for doing so. Anyone would do the same. I don't believe I disparaged the tourism industry, as you seem to feel. I agree the town has benifitted in many ways from it's success. However, you don't address the question. Tofino is a very expensive place, partly, because of the success of the tourist industry. I read one comment a few months ago, I believe by Candidate(now re-elected councillor) Baert. Who posted something like " We cannot expect a town of 2200 residents to cover the costs and infrastructure for 10000-15000 tourists on a daily basis." I tend to agree with this perspective
I agree with your suggestion of mismanagment
I agree that the council needs to get off the municipally built housing units. I agree the current tax proposals are outrageous.
I agree council should zone land to let private developers supply housing. However the tax base has been increasing for twenty plus years with only ever increasing tax burdens for the taxpayer as a result. Some of us have been saying this for years and I am glad you have come to the table.
My suggestion of raising the rate on tourist commercial property is only one thing I feel it necessary to do, but we have to look at every thing. It is not true that commercial property pays the "Lions share" unless your idea of a lion is actually midlin size pussy cat. According to the B.C. Gov't website on Municipal taxes Tofino Residential, $2,318,688.00
Tofino Business/Other, 1,930,170.00. I don't understand, given the strength of the Tofino economy, Tofino business should pay at a rate less than Ucluelet Business relative to there Residential sectors.
Now, about your comments about me personally. I have been in business in Tofino for thirty, that is 30 years. I have met a payroll every month. I have invested many of my own dollars and worked long and hard. My business is perhaps not as large as yours, I don't know, but I suspect it isn't, but I don't believe you are entitled to more authority on this or any subject.
In any event, what I believe, is that this should not be about you or me. These taxes will affect everyone, and will affect different people differently depending on their circumstances. Every one has a right to their own views....What I fear most is what I see being realized everyday. That Tofino will soon be a town primarily of and for the rich, and the seasonal workers. And few others will live here, as permanent residents. And their children will find no future for themselves in this place...That may sound extreme. Lets' work together to make it wrong.
I like Port Hardy.
Speaking of taxes, I find it sad that the 3% MRDT tax that is on all accommodation providers to fund Tourism Tofino can only be voted and determined by the large fixed roof resorts. This tax has a huge impact on promoting our town and most of the people who get to vote for it live out of town. The residents of tofino, who are in the short term rental pool, are forced to collect the tax but can't vote on it. If the residents were allowed to vote, do you think we would keep the tax to continue the promotion of our little town or would we put the brakes on so we don't ruin the goose that is laying the golden eggs. Maybe the residents would say enough is enough and cut it to 2% or nothing at all. Why are the wealthy out of town resort owners controlling Tofino's destiny. Do you think they really care about our little town more than their pockets? If you are going to force all accommodation providers to collect a tax then let everyone vote on it not just the super rich out of town resort owners. Its called democracy
Good point 10:37. "No Taxation without representation" started a famous revolution.
10:37 Not only that they should have a vote but the whole community should have a vote on where that money Tourism Tofino gets is going. There are many many people who feel the town is hitting the wall here on sustainability and live ability never mind the damnable tax burden.
When you have tour buses parking, engine running, near Tonquin Beach like they were this weekend, the wall most definitely has been hit.
We don't need more continual advertising of the town.
We've all become part of tourism machine and are supposed to be accepting of all the abuses the tourists and temporary workers put on the area.
Mr. Hackett you could start at your own business and make it mandatory for everyone of your employees to take the ambassador program. I am not singling you out but when I question workers about having taken the program it has been my experience that 95% of the workers know nothing about it and have not taken it despite the resort where they work having been supposedly one of the tourism operations having their staff attend.
10:56 the whole town has taxation without representation with those tourism tofino advertising campaigns. It is not right that they are allowed to inflict as much damage as they do on the town without any consequences or say of the citizens.
Tourism Tofino is the cause of our taxation woes and our council does nothing to reduce their impact on our taxation structure. Council gets a few dollars from Tourism Tofino, effectively an economic bribe to allow the circus to continue but it only adds to our taxation loading. Every bit of generosity from Tourism Tofino turns out to be a Trojan Horse in respect that we the local taxpayers are expected to pay to maintain through general taxation what gets created.
I believe The only large resort that is locally owned would be the Wick. The rest are taking the profits right out of this town along with the charm of this place that I call home. Maybe if they don’t live here, they shouldn’t be allowed to vote on tax issues like the MRDT which has a huge impact on Tofino. I agree with @5:10 that everybody in town should be able to vote on the accommodation tax which continues to be used to bring more people here. Let’s not turn Tofino into a little Barcelona with all their tourism issues. I just hope it’s not too late.
For anyone who wants to help stop the huge municipal tax increases.
I'm not sure of the exact number, but if a good number of Tofino's tax payers, (maybe 10 - 30%), sign a petition along the lines of,
"We do not agree to a tax increase of any more than 3%",
then once that is on file, in front of district council, they cannot approve an increase of any more than 3%.
Again, I'm not sure how many percent of the taxpaying community would have to have their name on it, but there is a number, and even if only 10% sign it, it's still a powerful message which cannot be completely ignored.
10% of us is less than 200 names.
I for one would sign.
Jarmo Venalainen
resident of Tofino
"How can a town of 2200 pay for the infrastructure for 15,000". Great campaign slogan. What is she going to do about it?. What is our council going to do about it? There are lots of ideas and insights posted here. What are they going to do about it?
What do the tourists do that costs local taxpayers money? How much is the extra cost to the taxpayer per tourist?
All we can do is speculate, because at this point, I don't think we know.
We know they come here, sleep in some room, eat at some restaurant, shop at the Co-op, sit at some beach, take a tour, get married, walk somewhere, etc., but what's the cost?
Yes, they need bathrooms and parking. They need water and sewer service and electricity.
But what is the real cost?
Thanks to the evidence based, logical, excellent work done by Tourism Tofino, we have good sense of how many tourists come here and how much money they leave behind. But we don't know what it costs us to host them.
We should take some of those MRDT dollars and figure out what is costs to us taxpayers, so that we can have evidence based, informed discussions about our future and how to get there from here.
Jarmo Venalainen
Resident of Tofino
I can't comment on most of the points above, as I am not knowledgeable enough to form an educated opinion, BUT...
Some of you need to get your facts straight.
Every Chamber member automatically gets a Tourism Tofino Membership. You can also get a membership other ways, but by far the most common is to have a Chamber membership. With that membership, you get to vote.
It was members that voted to split from the Chamber and become 2 separate entities. It was the members that voted to increase to 3% to fund the new Visitor Centre.
Tourism Tofino members are able to attend all board meetings. Tourism Tofino Members are able to put their name in the hat to sit on the board as well. Here is a list of the current Tourism Tofino Board members, from their newsletter.
Chair: Shane Richards, new campground on Cox Bay
Vice-Chair: Samantha Hackett, Long Beach Lodge Resort
Secretary-Treasurer: Chelsea Bauer, Tofino Consumers Co-op
Past-Chair: J.J. Belanger
Jason Bertin, Atleo River Air Services
Dena Bruno, Ocean Village Resort
Sabrina Donovan, Pacific Sands Beach Resort
Maureen Fraser, Commonloaf Bake Shop
Rebecca Hurwitz, The West Coast Nest – operated by CBT
Charles McDiarmid, Wickaninnish Inn
Josie Osborne, District of Tofino
Dave Tovell, Pacific Rim National Park Reserve
Jason Watts, Stay Tofino
Not all those names are from big resorts, and not all are from out of town.
Only the large fixed roof operators with four or more rentals get to vote on the continuation of the MRDT tax and not the members. The individual who owns a vacation rental is not allowed to vote to discontinue the tax. The destiny of the town is being controlled by the large resort owners who do not live here.
The "4 or more rentals" thing went away last fall with the new tax rules. All fixed roof accommodations now need to collect and remit that tax, along with PST (and GST if applicable).
Not sure how that affects your ability to vote or not, but if you are collecting the tax you should have a voice.
No vote for the little guy who lives in Tofino and rents out a VR. Yes, all accom providers must collect the tax but the small properties (under four rooms) are prohibited from voting for or against it. This seems a bit backwards to me. The large resorts, whose owners mostly live out of town, get to control the promotion of our town and take the profit right out of here. To be fair, everybody should have a voice and a vote.
Don't worry about the MRDT tax, all tourist accommodation providers, including AirBandBs, profit from this tax. What everyone should be concerned about is the 50% property tax increase over the next 4 years.
Changes to the MRDT program mean that all accommodation providers who charge the tax have a say in determining how it is spent. It's no longer restricted to marketing - it can be used for infrastructure. The accommodation providers just have to ask for it and vote for it.
To 5:24 The MRDT is relevant. It must shift from being part of the problem to part of the solution.
@10:28
Don't confuse RMI money with MRDT money.
MRDT can not be used for infrastructure.
@11:15 Changes to the program say that if the decision making properties vote for it MRDT can be used for affordable housing. See this link: http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/93_2013.
Here's one} the budgeted amount for the twinning of the Maltby lynn Road sewer line is about $2 million.
This needs to be done because the effluent from the existing resorts and new Pacific rim campground it Keeps the effluent from the esowista System from entering the pipes going towards the outfall. It sort of backs up I've heard...
But the dot agreed to put the bypass line in Long ago.
With the new campground coming online it only makes the problem worse but here's the good news.
It has been determined by the DOT that the 200 sites budgeted for the new campground we'll need to pay one half of an $18,000 DCC for each site.
So the DCC's coming into the district should be $1,800,000.
There's no need for the taxpayer to pony up this money.
Unless of course there's been some special negotiations with the campground operators.
There shouldn't be because along time ago it was determined that DCC's were payable.
Furthermore the people of this community paying for a sewage treatment plant is fairly ludicrous.
Consider this: EPCOR which stands for Edmonton power Corporation is in the business of design build and operate sewage treatment plants for various municipalities in BC and Alberta.
Soooke is one of these municipalities.
EPCOR Will build and operate the plant for 20 years collecting utility rates as payment for their outlay of capital.
At the end of 20 years it's given over to the municipality to operate.
How could this be any simpler for a municipality this small in charge of treating all the sewage of thousands of tourists, estowista, & possibly opitasaht....
This could've been done Long ago when the cost of a sewage treatment plant what's $25 billion but no....
This idea was thrown in the trash by the wisdom of our then Mayor Alan Anderson who felt that the ratepayer could get gouged on the utility bill....tsk tsk
That's pretty good recently considering the cost has doubled for the build of the sewage treatment plant the population of tofino hasn't nor have the populace increased their incomes buy an amount equal to the increase in cost of a sewage treatment plant.
That option is still there but nobody seems to be doing anything about it besides writing a ridiculous budget.
To 11:58. You have identified the problem. It pumps the town full of tourists and leaves the residents to pick up the tab.
Here is a novel concept
Instead of treating the taxpayer like a herd of dumb cows and milking them some more...........
a one year moratorium on all Studies plans acquisitions improvements and hiring in the district office.
Number one priority get the sewage treatment plant happening one way or the other. It's an ecological and environmental disgrace to carry on the way it is.
Number two scrutinize existing properties which are not zoned for the uses that occupy the property. Change noncompliant properties to their proper zoning's so they can be Assessed at what they should be and pay the proper taxes like everyone else.
Enforce by-laws.
Pools land it's a good example Of laissez-faire by law enforcement, zoning, building code etc.
While the property owner Collects many thousands of dollars from the illegal use of the property and pays low taxes, the rest of the taxpayers make up for the missing contribution of the propertys taxes.
The same principle applies to a number of other properties.
It's time for the council to do its job and operate the municipality in a businesslike way. That means get serious about the judicious use of the tax payers monies instead of seeing how much they can spend.
For those interested, The Tofino Ratepayers Association is currently being formed. This takes a bit of time, we first need to get registered as a non-profit entity under the Society Act of B.C. You can register here to receive updates, or to become a founding member of the association: https://thepublicpurse.ca/ . The website is still under construction, please be patient as things are put together. NO ONE needs a 53% hike in their taxes! Join us, as we act with you and with your support, to try to put a stop to this insanity, and all the other waste of public funds going on at The District Office. Note: No taxpayer paid consultants were used in the creation of this notice, just ordinary citizens doing for themselves what our municipal government is failing to do for us.
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