ASK Salt Spring: Answered - Ep 18 Gary Holman Ask Salt Spring Answered

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

We talk to CRD director Gary Holman about taxes, regional transit and absentee homeowner taxes.

This is episode 18 of Ask Salt Spring Answered with me, Damian Inwood, talking to CRD Director Gary Holman about taxes, regional transit and absentee homeowners. All right, I'm sitting here with Gary Holman, who's the CRD director and also a member of the LCC, the Local Community Commission. And we've just been in the Ask Salt Spring session with Gail Baker and a number of issues came up, including Gary brought up the CRD Transportation Committee discussing regional borrowing of $50 million for their regional parks. And the fact that they declined to put $4 million into a fund for electoral districts, which would include Salt Spring Island. And, yeah, Gary, you had some fairly heated things to say about that. Could you explain where you're coming from on that, please?

Yeah. Thanks, Damien. Yeah, so the borrowing was proposed by the Searty Transportation Committee, one of the number of Searty committees, that makes a recommendation to the board, and the recommendation was to borrow $50 million to enhance the regional trail in Greater Victoria, to repair three major trestles over significant waterways, which just in itself is a major capital investment, plus widen the trail, enhance the lighting,

basically increase the capacity of the trail, because it's interestingly enough, like some of our highways, the regional trail is becoming quite congested. Cyclists and folks on various other rolling equipment are using the trail quite heavily, and so it needs to be upgraded. Apparently, there's about almost 4,000 users per day on this section of the trail. So it is an important investment. I support the investment. My problem with it is that there's virtually no direct benefit. Well, there is no direct benefit for Salt Spring at all. And so what I proposed to the board when it came up to the CRD board yesterday, and the board has approved the recommendation to move ahead with the borrowing. What I proposed to the board was to actually increase the borrowing incrementally. I suggested $4 million, but that $4 million to be earmarked for regional trail and active transportation investments in the electoral areas,

so that it would slightly increase the amount board and therefore slightly increase the carrying costs on that, which are estimated by staff at about $28 per household per month. It would increase, my proposal would have increased that by about a dollar per month, or sorry, per year, $28 per year. My proposal would have increased that about a dollar per year, but that funding would have earmarked, been earmarked for active transportation

and electoral areas. So we would, if you're going to voters with a large borrowing request like that, my proposal was to piggyback on that a small portion of the borrowing that could be earmarked for active transportation investments in electoral areas. Which would have benefited Salt Stream. Yes. And the moment we get diddly squat out of the rest of it unless we take our bicycles over

to the galloping goose trail diddly squat is a very strong word and i i can't possibly condone swearing on on the radio but uh in in effect you are correct diddly squat it is uh i didn't think that was swearing but anyway yeah now um so yeah your yeah, your suggestion would have cost $1.12, I think. Yes, $1.12 spread among, of course, and the advantage of regional borrowing is you're spreading it over several hundred thousand households. And so there would have been a slight incremental cost of about a little more than a dollar per household, which was about, it's about nine or 10 cents per household per month.

But it would have created a $4 million fund that could have benefited us directly. So the benefit of that proposal to electoral areas would have been disproportionately large by just slightly increasing the borrowing and therefore the borrowing costs but the dollars would have been earmarked for electoral areas. I think you liken this to making us into a cash cow for Greater Victoria. Again very strong language which I believe I did use at the board. We are a cash cow I believe in some respects certainly we are with use at the board. We are a cash cow, I believe, in some respects. Certainly we are with respect to this service. There are other services, you know, I should point out that we're the beneficiary of regional services as well. So, for example, our

recycling depot has been subsidized four years by the CRD. Without that CRD subsidy, that depot would not exist. So we benefited greatly from that. We benefited from the regional housing programs of the CRD, the most recent example being Croftonbrook, for which we received about three and a half, well actually all told about four million for the Croftonbrook proposal. Our emergency room, the regional, the CRD health facilities function, which is another regional service, contributed $3.74 million to the new ER facility at Lady Minto.

So, you know, I don't want to suggest that the diddly squat applies to certain services, but not to all. We do absolutely, and I do believe in regional services, but I also believe that it's a two-way street. If we're part of a regional service, part of a social contract, which I strongly believe in, well, I also believe that electoral areas should be getting reasonable benefits from those regional services as well. Right. So it's a sort of a swings and roundabout situation, I suppose. Now, we did discuss or it came up the possibility of a regional transit authority. And I think you said that that sent a shiver down your spine. You didn't think that we would get an increased service that would justify the taxes that we would end up paying for?

Yeah, so, you know, already given the experience with the borrowing for the regional trail, and it would be for a regional transportation service, which could theoretically include transit, which now is overseen by a board appointed by the province. And there's funding from the province. And there's also funding from property taxpayers. So yes, CRD is contemplating expanding their role in the transportation sector. So right now, that's primarily around the regional trail, which, as I say, has been

so successful that it's actually getting congestion the which raises the need to upgrade it we're also promoting and securing funding that hopefully again salt spring will benefit from for chargers for ev vehicles you know providing that infrastructure to help support conversion to electrified transport. That's all good, but CRD is considering expanding that role even further, could include public transit. At one end of the continuum, and it's still not clear entirely where the board wants to go, at one end of the continuum, you have a TransLink, which does oversee not just pathways, trails, that sort of thing, but in fact, they do oversee transit.

And I think even the road system there. So at one end of the continuum, a CRD transportation service could look like that. But the shiver down my spine is because of the experience we're already having with respect to the CRD Transportation Regional Trail Service, where we're contributing something in the order of $550,000 a year. That also goes for park facilities as well. There are facilities in regional parks like dams, for example, that have to be upgraded. So we contribute to that. And fair enough. That's all fair enough.

But again, our experiences, we're getting, as you put it, diddly squat from that. So that's my concern. By expanding that service purview and increasing taxes even more to support that, my question is how is Salt Spring going to benefit? And I'm not clear at all that we would benefit. So for example, when we established transit back in 2007, 2008, and I was the director that moved that forward, we had a choice then of joining the Greater Victoria Transit Service. We could have joined that transit service and had it provided by that regional body. I decided instead to pursue a standalone service where basically it would still be run by BC Transit and the funding would be roughly 50-50. So local taxpayers still

contribute as with the regional transit service, local taxpayers would still help fund. But if we had joined the regional service, we would have paid the same mill rate. So the per household cost would have been the same, which is currently in the order of $130, $140 per household per year. We're paying on Salt Spring about $35 per household per year, which is commensurate with the service level that we'll get. Whereas if we joined the regional service, we would be paying $140 a year, but probably with maybe somewhat higher, but we wouldn't get the same level of service

anywhere near as they do in Greater Victoria. So that's why I chose to go standalone for the transit system. And the other thing about transit is if we had joined the regional transit system, we would have also attracted the gas tax surcharge on fuel. So right now that stands at five and a half cents per litre. I think that's probably going up in the future. But there's a gas tax earmarked that helps fund the Greater Victoria system. If we had joined that system, we'd be paying another

five and a half cents per liter at the pump. So for those reasons, I decided to go standalone. And again, it's part of the same thinking and rationale that I'm considering now about whether we want to join an expanded regional transportation service. Are the benefits we get going to be commensurate with the costs imposed on us? I don't think at this point they would be. And will we have any choice about it if they did establish a regional transportation service? Well there's the question. So if theoretically we would because voters would have to approve the establishment of a new service that's how regional districts work voters had to approve our local transit and transportation service but of course it would be regional approval. And whether or not

Salt Spring voted for or against, like in our case, it probably would be an alternative approval process, or maybe even just electoral area director approval. But all three electoral areas could oppose the establishment of the service. You'd still have 13 out of the 16 local governments supporting it so it ultimately do we have a choice not really if the board decides to proceed with a regional approval process and the same with this borrowing bylaw by the way for the regional trail salt spring could oppose it but it wouldn't be enough to carry the day because they just need you know two-thirds of participants to agree so that would be say 11 out of 16 local governments so 11 out of the 13 municipalities in this year D could say yes five municipalities and electoral

areas could say no and it would still pass. Right. So do we have any idea what the timeline is on this decision or this suggestion? I believe, and I need to confirm this, but I believe that the proposal the board approved would involve going for municipal consent voter approval later in the fall. So my thinking was, if you're going to go out for a major borrowing like this, include a portion that would directly benefit electoral areas.

It makes no sense to me, and I'm not sure it would even succeed, to do a regional borrowing for the regional trail in Greater Victoria and then do a separate regional borrowing for just investments in electoral areas. That I don't think would have a very good chance of succeeding. If you're going to go to voters, go to them once. So that's for the borrowing, but as far as the transportation service, the regional transportation service, the regional transportation service, there's no timeline on that yet. There is, but it's definitely further down the line. There's got to be a whole lot of consult, even just to clarify exactly where on that continuum. Is it just TransLink or do we just stick with the regional trail that we

have now and everything in between? So there's got to be a lot of work around public consultation. And in fact, the LCC and myself have been interviewed and surveyed by the CRD to get our views about that service. I'm very clear on my views. I'm not sure how the rest of the LCC feels about it, but we're going through that sort of consultation process now. And so first you have to define what it is that you'd like to do. And then once you've done that, then you can go to voters with a concrete proposal. And in the meantime the CRD has said they're not in the least bit interested in funding our Salish Sea Trail between

Fulford and Vesuvius. That's not quite true, so they have already committed 250,000 to be spent next year on and there is a regional trail on the map for Salt Spring extending from Vesuvius through Ganges to Fulford so that the trail is there on paper what's lacking is the funding so but 250 000 next year 2024 to look at plans and design for the CRD has decided and and that's still open for debate and input from myself and the LCC,

they've identified the Vesuvius to Ganges kind of portion of the regional trail as their priority. So the $250,000 would be allocated to planning and design for that portion of the trail. And actually, since we've done a separated trail through our own Transportation Commission from central, the central intersection, down connecting basically with the North Ganges plan, there's a trail network that connects all the way down to Ganges from central. We funded that through our local transportation commission. So the portion that the CRD would hone in on would be Vesuvius to Central.

So there is some support there. It's just not sufficient. And that $250,000 is out of the existing requisition of about $550,000. But then you add on to that now this borrowing for regional trail improvements in Greater Victoria. But nothing between Ganges and Fulford though, right? Well, CRD have said we're open to looking at other parts of the trail if the community feels that that's appropriate. But for Fulford to Ganges, MOT has identified that as their priority. And the first leg of that is the repaving of Ganges Hill, from the bottom of the hill now up to Cranbury.

So the repaving with wider shoulder lanes of at least 1.2 meters is probably, in my view at least, probably the most viable way of getting the trail done on Salt Spring, which is to repave roads that have to be paved anyway. And when you repave them, you put in wider shoulder lanes for cyclists. That's probably the most cost-effective way of getting that achieved on Salisbury. So since MOT has identified that section of the trail as their priority, there may be ways in which CRD can help with that as well. At this point, CRD is the one major stakeholder that's identified Vesuvius to Central.

Just to go off on a tangent here, the cyclists are actually encouraged to go down Beddison, go through the back way through Stewart and Beaver Point Road to get to Fulford, aren't they, at this point? I've seen the signage. That's probably true, and that will continue, get you off the the main road um and and cyclists can do that now uh but the idea the regional trail is to actually have you know there's no there's no shoulders at all there's on on on that route but it's it's less traveled cars are traveling more slowly so it it for uh for cyclists, it can be a more comfortable

and probably safer route to take. But ultimately, if MOT follows through on what it has said is its priority, Fulford to Ganges, we can get reasonable shoulder lanes marked, shoulder lanes for cyclists for the actual main route between Fulford and Ganges. That would cost a heck of a lot of money.

It would, and that would have to happen over time. And what we've said to we, myself, and there is a task force convened under the auspices of MLA Olson's office that's developed a strategy around the so-called Salish Trail. The Salish Trail is also the same route as the regional trail, Vesuvius to Ganges to Fulford. And what that strategy recommended was for MOT to continue its repaving, which they say is their, over time, their priority,

continue their repaving with wider shoulder lanes. That's how we'll get the trail done. It will take time to do that, unless we can find, you know, grant opportunities, other funding opportunities. Okay, let's just shift gears for a moment. Right at the end of the discussion, I think you were talking about the speculation on vacancy tax, and I think you said that you'd been speaking to the Minister about it, about having it come to Salt Spring, where at the moment it doesn't apply to Salt Spring, right? Yeah, at the moment the SVT applies to all 13 municipalities within the CRD it doesn't apply to the electoral areas the province recently expanded the taxable area to smaller a number of smaller communities on Vancouver Island Lutchin, Lanceville, Ladysmith.

And I took the issue to the CRD board, and the CRD board agreed to request the province to include Salt Spring, just Salt Spring, not the other electoral areas they they're you know their their population levels and uh their their their kind of housing stock um situation is is different than salt spring so the board agreed to advocate on our behalf to ask the province to include us myself trustee patrick emily alson have met now with a couple of times with the finance minister. And there has been some turnover there. It was Selina Robinson, now Katrine Conroy.

And the CRD board, their letter to the minister requesting inclusion of Salt Spring, the minister has responded. And their answer at this point is, we'll consider it. Here's the factors we will consider. Here's the reasons. Here's the conditions. Like, for example, one of them is how fast have your property values been increasing over time? Well, on Salt Spring, spring just um in in recent years our our assessed values have jumped considerably um and any case that that's one of the criteria what's your population size we're one of the larger communities on vancouver island or in the vancouver island area where the svt doesn't apply uh so uh i'm now working with um Patrick and MLA Olson on a response that describes how Salt Spring fits their conditions and so ultimately

that would take the form of a letter probably from the CRD board, I'm not sure how the trust would weigh in, and Emily Olsen advocating on our behalf. But the CRD board now, they've gotten a response from the minister, and the CRD board will now reply to the minister explaining how Salt Spring fits their criteria. Do you have any idea how many properties would actually be affected by this? It would really be a small proportion. So 80%, right off the bat, 80% of our housing stock is occupied by owners or permanent residents, right? So they are exempt, like just right off the bat. If you rent out, say, a suite on your property or your property itself for even just six months of the year, you're exempt.

There are a lot of exemptions that apply, and the tax rate is higher for non-Canadian citizens. So if you're a Canadian citizen, I think the data indicates a very small proportion of properties would be captured by the tax. The revenue that would be generated is earmarked by legislation for affordable housing. Not only is it a disincentive to speculative investment, the revenue raised actually goes into a BC Housing pot to help fund affordable housing within the regions that apply the tax. So the revenues wouldn't be spent in an area that isn't taxed. They would be spent in the taxed areas. So would we get the direct money back, or would it go into a pot for the whole region? I'm not sure.

I think it might just apply to the regional district, but certainly we would know exactly what that revenue generated was and we would absolutely be advocating for applying that to Salt Spring. Okay so that could be a something to help with the affordable housing issue here on the island. Yeah so it would be a disincentive to speculative investment and it actually raises money for affordable housing and the province administers it entirely so there's no cost at least to you know taxpayers there's no cost of implementing it okay great well thanks

Gary for coming in and talking about those things and yeah you've been listening to cheer.fm and my name is Damian Inwood and we are the voice of