NORTH BATTLEFORD — At their council meeting Monday, North Battleford city council granted a tax abatement to Harwood Manor.
Council voted in favour of classifying Harwood Manor as commercial and authorizing a three-year tax abatement, to phase in the impact prior to the next re-evaluation. This would reduce the abatement by a third each year to phase in the abatement over time.
That would mean Harwood Manor would be taxed at the full commercial rate at the end of the third year, but that may not happen in the end. Instead, council is looking at creating a new subclass that would see Harwood Manor and other personal care homes taxed at less than the full commercial rate.
Council passed a second resolution to direct administration to bring forward a draft bylaw for consideration implementing a personal care home subclass under the commercial taxation classification for the tax year 2023.
This discussion erupted after a number of properties had been moved in recent years from residential class to commercial class, following a 2019 review of care homes by the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency to determine the proper classification. The change impacted a small number of properties that would have seen a significant tax hike, according to a city memo.
In Harwood Manor’s case, council has voted to alleviate those impacts. In 2021, council granted Harwood Manor an abatement for $67,906.19 or 49 per cent for 2020. Then in March 2022 council agreed to another abatement of $61,942.02 or 44 per cent for 2021.
At council Monday, Director of Finance Brent Nadon noted the city supported Harwood Manor being classified commercial by SAMA.
“As Harwood Manor is a business providing a service, we strongly support it being classified for tax purposes as a commercial property,” he said at council.
“There’s no uniformity, however, on a provincial basis of how care homes are treated for taxation purposes.”
He explained care homes may be treated as multi-residential in one city, or commercial in another.
It was suggested that if Harwood Manor was to be taxed at a less than full commercial rate, council could create a new subclassification for care homes. City Manager Randy Patrick indicated that if council did want to make a change from the commercial classification, they had time to put together a bylaw to that effect.
The general feeling from council was agreement Harwood Manor should be classed as commercial, but concern was expressed about the implications if they went to a full commercial rate.
Councillor Bill Ironstand voiced concern that if Harwood Manor was taxed at the full commercial rate, that it would pass on the higher rates to its customers.
Councillor Kent Lindgren agreed with that sentiment and also raised the concern that if they did create the subclass, that it would risk other subclasses being created across the board. “If we are willing to create a subclass here, is there multiple subclasses that could be brought forward,” Lindgren said.
Patrick responded the concern about different rates was “valid” and pledged to bring more information back to council with the reasons for and against doing that. Mayor David Gillan made clear he also wanted to see information brought back about “why they were giving any kind of concessionary tax rate to start with,” noting it was a fairness issue.
“We need to have more of those arguments because it plays into fairness for everyone, equity for everybody,” he said. “We need to be sure we are doing what’s fair for everybody, and we are giving some sort of concession on commercial taxation for a reason.”
