A few tweaks are coming with respect to the City of North Battleford鈥檚 incentive policies and land pricing for 2021.
The only real changes suggested at a meeting of council members sitting as Planning Committee on Monday are for a few adjustments to land sales. Meanwhile, the city鈥檚 Downtown Incentive, Residential Incentive and Key Corridor Incentive are all recommended to be renewed in 2021, with no changes.
The incentives in place in 2020 were well used for the most part. For the Residential Incentive Policy, three applications were received and awarded in 2020. One application was received and awarded in 2020 for the Downtown Incentive Policy, but none were received for the Key Corridor Incentive Policy.
Administration recommended renewing the incentives and said they foresee even more development happening in 2021. Administration states they also researched the possibility of a Heritage Tax Incentive Policy but determined it was not a good fit at this time; instead they recommended dealing with it on a case by case basis. There was interest expressed from council on seeing some sort of consistent policy for more of those heritage or older properties; that could come back to council later.
As for land sales, 2020 was a good year for the city. Administration reports five residential lots were purchased last year, with an additional nine lots optioned for 2021.
With market conditions for land looking positive, some tweaks are coming for 2021 which mainly impact sales of lots in Fairview and Killdeer Park.
The city had been selling that residential land at 15 per cent off, but administration is recommending removing that sale on the lots in Fairview and Killdeer, as the market has improved considerably.
Instead, they are looking to re-price the Killdeer lots at $12.13 per square foot from the current $14.28 per square foot. This is in line with the current 鈥渟ale鈥� price offered in 2019-20.
Administration is also proposing to allow for re-pricing of corner lots in the Fairview Heights neighbourhood, on the basis these lots are tougher to sell.
The indication from City Manager Randy Patrick is that they will now bring the recommendations back to council for approval.
听
