ATHABASCA – Property owners in the Town of Athabasca will see a slight increase in their tax bill come the end of May if the municipality goes ahead with its planned tax rate bylaw.
During their April 2 regular council meeting, councillors voted 5-0 — councillors Sara Graling and Ida Edwards were absent — to pass the first reading of the 2024 mill rate bylaw.
“Because of the pressures of inflation and wanting to provide the same level of service with the downloading from the (provincial) government, we didn’t have much choice,” said Mayor Rob Balay. “We kept the increase as low as we could — the business tax increase is lower than the residential tax hit, so we tried to think about the business sector, and this was the happy medium we came up with.”
Per a table laid out in the bylaw, Athabasca is expecting to receive $2.4 million from residential taxes, with a mill rate of 9.2, and $2 million from non-residential properties, with a mill rate of 17.96. Despite the increases, the town is expecting to see less tax revenue than it did in 2023, when it planned to receive slightly over $5 million.
“We needed to balance the books and built into there is the increase going forward to meet the one rate from the water commission,” said Balay. “Luckily, we had a year and a half to bridge that, and this was the final bridging.”
With the three per cent increase, property owners will see an extra $30 on their tax bill per $100,000 of assessment value on their property. Property owners of derelict and deserted properties, however, will see a much sharper increase should the bylaw pass.
Councillors also voted 5-0 to pass the first reading of the property sub-class assessment bylaw, which allows the town to levy a higher tax on properties that are “unoccupied and derelict.”
The sub-class assessment was first passed in 2023, when councillors went looking for ways to help brighten up Athabasca. Councillors initially opted to double taxes on applicable properties, but now that a year has passed, council intends to increase the rate to four times the residential rate – a mill rate of 36.85, which is the maximum allowed by the province of Alberta.
“We first tried doing it at the level of two times (the rate) to see what kind of response we would get, and two of them have applied for permits to demolish the structures,” said Balay. “Once that is done, the class will be removed. It won’t stay on them forever —it’s created an incentive to get rid of a dilapidated building that is falling down, is derelict, and is uninhabited.”
Both bylaws will be back before council for second and third readings at the April 16 meeting to allow the town’s tax notices to go out at the beginning of May.
