CORNWALL, Ontario – Owners of some multi-residential buildings in Cornwall pay more than double the tax rate that a typical residential property in Cornwall grapples with.
Cornwall finance manager Maureen Adams told city councillors Wednesday morning there can be a significant pressure on owners of multi-residential properties with more than seven units because provincial legislation mandates a much higher rate of taxation.
For example the Cotton Mill Lofts in Cornwall are taxed as residential properties and per unit taxes average about $2,504 a year. But over at the new Knox City Centre, which is taxed as a multi-residential property, the per unit tax bill skyrockets to an average of nearly $5,900.
“They’re probably somewhat comparable…in value,” said Adams, who added many property owners are making the decision to convert their buildings to condos, to avoid the multi-residential tax class. “This is one of the biggest drivers for those decisions.
“If you take your multi-rez building and convert it to a condo, your assessment might go up a little bit. But overall the taxes that property will generate go down.”
Adams said complaints have been filed.
Mayor Leslie O’Shaughnessy suggested a new tax class could be created to mitigate some of these pressures, but such a move is not likely to happen overnight.
“It can’t be done in this budget,” he said, adding things could begin to change in time for the 2017 budget process.
City bean counters have gone as far as running the numbers for all 14,370 residential properties in Cornwall to determine what the average tax hike will be for their properties. Such an exercise suggests taxes are set to go up by 1.73 per cent, or $38, across the city.
Critics have attacked the city in the past for only using a randomized list of 500 properties to determine the average tax hike/decrease, which they felt did not give a true representation of the pressures faced by homeowners.
Of those 14,370, the vast majority are single-family detached homes (10,122) and 9,800 of those are assessed between $100,000 and $200,000.
