Taking issue with spec tax

As thousands of homes across the Interior are evacuated due to flooding and Okanagan creeks continue to rise, Kelowna West MLA Ben Stewart and West Kelowna Mayor Doug Findlater held a press conference Friday morning to once again express their concerns with the government's proposed speculation tax.

Stewart and Findlater met on the side of Gellatly Road South near the proposed Goat's Peak development to explain how the developer, Steve Henderson of the Staburn Group, has told Stewart the proposed tax has halted the development. Henderson told Stewart about the tax's effect on his development on March 17, almost two months ago.

“What I'm really trying to point out here is that even as of yesterday, some of the building community is starting to tell me that they're now being inundated with calls from drywallers and framers and electricians, and these are the people that are impacted by this,” Stewart said Friday.

While the proposed speculation tax would only impact homes that are empty for more than six months of the year, Stewart and Findlater said the uncertainty around the tax has impacted financing for developments.

“The money further up doesn't know what the rules are and they're concerned about investing in British Columbia,” Findlater said. “They lack confidence in this government and they lack confidence that the situation is stable.”

Findlater said most of the houses in the Goat's Peak development are expected to be “affordable,” in the $500,000 to $600,000 range.

Stewart says while the tax was intended to not impact projects like the Goat's Peak development, it has.

In his two-month-old letter to Stewart, Henderson says they were about to submit a rezoning and subdivision application for the first phase of the project, which has been 10 years in the making, but they have now stopped all engineering, planning and design work.

Stewart said a BC Liberal government wouldn't implement the proposed speculation tax and that “housing prices rise and fall depending on the economy.”

Instead, Stewart said the government should “streamline” the development process to help with housing affordability.

“Maybe there's things that the province is making communities do that we could reduce costs to municipalities,” Stewart said. “I think that that's where we need to look deeper and try to find ways to streamline the process of making certain that we get projects developed in a timely manner.”

Findlater is hoping to meet face-to-face with Premier John Horgan to discuss the speculation tax.