Christina Montgomery
Province
The new community garden at the corner of Burrard and Davie streets in Vancouver’s West End yesterday. Photograph by: Jon Murray, Province
A couple of shrubs and a few park benches thrown up on vacant land owned by developers means they can dodge hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax bills.
These miniparks or vegetable gardens have sprouted on some half-a- dozen sites in Vancouver and are saving the developers $1.3 million this year. And that has the city worried that more requests will arise as the economy tanks and developers seek cheap ways to carry property as they ride out the storm.
Council voted Tuesday to put together a detailed argument to the province asking that the loophole be closed.
Classification of property for tax purposes is done by the B.C. Assessment Authority and would require the province’s involvement.
To reclassify, developers create parks or garden space and apply for rezoning from Class 6 (business or commercial) to Class 8 (recreational or nonprofit). That move cuts taxes by about 70 per cent.
Among the proper- ties that have been re- classified in Vancouver recently:- Omni Group’s popular gardens at Pacific and Seymour. The seven parcels are worth an assessed $24 million. All are now Class 8, saving Omni $357,000 this year alone.
– Prima Properties’ community garden at Burrard and Davie. The $24-million site was headed for retail and condos. As Class 8, it saves Prima about $345,000 a year.
– Sunco Enterprises’ gardens at Oak and 16th. On land worth just over $3 million, Sunco saves $47,000 for the scraggly site.
– Cressy Developments’ two community parks, one at West 1st and Columbia and one at Drake and Howe alongside the Granville Street Bridge.
The first, directly bordering Olympic village construction, is worth $14.9 million and earns a tax break of $222,000. At the moment it features two benches, a line of young trees and a stretch of gravel. The other, the site of a former Travelodge hotel, is worth more than $20 million. Its two benches, handful of saplings and gravel earns it a $308,000 annual tax break.
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