The City of New Westminster is optimistic it will sell Merchant Square, if this year’s budget is any indication.
Colleen Ponzini, the city’s manager of financial services, said the 2014 budget projects the sale of the Merchant Square officer tower that’s now under construction on Columbia Street. If the city doesn’t sell the office tower, she said the city would see a “significant increase” in bank charges related to the loan authorization bylaw.
“The plan is to have it sold, and we pay it back in this current year,” she told council at its Jan. 20 committee of the whole meeting.
According to Ponzini, the city will be incurring some new debt under the loan authorization bylaw. She said a good portion of the $570,000 debt would be for Anvil Centre and the office tower.
New Westminster city council received a staff report on the 2014 to 2018 financial plan, which includes the 2014 budget. The city is proposing a 1.28 per cent tax increase in 2014, which would rise to 2.59 per cent if a number of priority initiatives proposed by staff are included.
In addition to the base budget, the city is also considering specific funding requests from individual departments, including a planning analyst, an assistant plan reviewer, a building inspector, a part-time transportation demand management coordinator, a development project engineer, a part-time Freedom of Information clerk, a transportation engineer, as well as development and training of a hazardous materials response team. Some of these positions exist on a contract basis, but departments have requested they be converted to full-time jobs or extended.
According to Ponzini, a strata unit assessed at $299,700 would see an increase of $14 if the city approved a 1.28 per cent increase or $28 if a 2.59 per cent increase was approved. For a single family home assessed at $675,000, the property tax increase would be $32 (for a 1.28 per cent increase) or $65 (for a 2.59 per cent increase), figures that rise to $47 and $96 for homes assessed at $1 million.
In November, council approved increases to utility rates for 2014, which will see water rates rise by six per cent, sewer rates grow by 8.5 per cent and solid waste rates go up by one per cent. Electrical rates are expected to increase by seven per cent in 2014, but this number won’t be known until March.
Last year, New Westminster city council approved a 2.9 per cent tax increase. In an attempt to offset potential cost implications related to the opening of Anvil Centre this year, council approved $400,000 in last year’s budget for a "rate stabilization" fund.
“In 2013, we put away $400,000. We put it into reserves,” Ponzini explained. “We are drawing on it in 2014 to be able to mitigate in 2014 the impact on the taxation.”
Staff presented an overview of the general fund operations at the Jan. 20 council meeting and will provide details about the 2014 capital plan at its Jan. 27 meeting.
