The City of Prince George received some heat from churches and not for profit organizations after finding out they were going to review the permissive tax exemptions for places of public worship.
This was discussed during Monday’s City Council meeting, and Director of Finance Kris Dalio explained the situation.
“So for a little bit of background we have about $2 million of permissive tax exemptions, of which $270,000 or so is for our places of public worship.”
“Public worship is a bit of a different category from the other permissive tax exemptions. The building itself is statutorily exempt by the province, so we don’t play a role in that. That exemption is out of our hands, but we have the ability to do as a municipality is to permissively exempt the land surrounding the building,” added Dalio.
He explained that if the building meets the criteria of their procedures and policy, 100% of the surrounding land is immediately exempt, and noted that in a October 2021 council meeting it was suggested that maybe that shouldn’t always be the case.
Councillors Brian Skakun and Kyle Sampson said they received calls from churches and not for profit organizations concerned about the City’s approach to this, and were worried that they might have these tax exemptions taken away from them.
Sampson said he was the one who brought forward the idea to review those tax exemptions.
“This report doesn’t entirely capture my intent. My intent is to ensure that the property is truly being used for community programming, places of worship, gathering opportunities, social programs, like I said, and not real estate investment.”
“The second highest exemption for a place of worship that the City of Prince George provides is $11,428. And the first largest exemption, the highest one, is $119,805, which is much more than $100,000 over the other one.”
He said he was concerned that the entire land wasn’t being used for community use or worship, and noted that there are very little restrictions on the bylaw.
“In 99.9% of cases it’s absolutely well deserved. And the $270,000 is a very minor amount for us to help support those organizations and those places of worship.”
Sampson said there maybe wasn’t enough information, but further investigations should continue.
Regardless of the three options brought forward by City staff, none were acted upon.
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