With files from Betsy Kline
Rossland property owners will be getting off lighter than many of their Kootenay and provincial neighbours once the 2017 tax assessments arrive in the mail.
While some property assessments show an increase as high as 50 per cent in some urban areas of B.C., Rossland will see a general rate increase of around one to two per cent said Ramaish Shah, deputy assessor for the Kootenay Columbia region.
Shah said Rossland has a “very stable market and minimal assesment value changes in terms of residential properties.”
The Kootenay region won’t be seeing any increases as drastic as those in some urban areas, Shah explained. “In general it’ll be about five to 10 per cent in the Kootenays,” he said. Shah said rates are based on reviews of home sales around the region.
Preliminary data showed increases of 30 to 50 per cent for houses and condos in Metro Vancouver, 10 to 40 per cent for Greater Victoria and five to 30 per cent in the Central Okanagan.
According to a press release for the Kootenay Columbia 2017 property assessment roll, a Rossland home valued at $255,000 in 2016 is now valued at $257,000.
While the City of Trail saw a similar increase to Rossland, other parts of the greater Trail area actually saw a general reduction.
In Warfield a property valued at $193,000 in 2016 dropped to $191,000. In Fruitvale, a home valued at $216,000 dropped to $215,000. In Montrose, property valued at $233,000 went down to $231,000.
Others parts of the local region saw modest increases. In Castlegar, a home valued at $264,000 is up to $270,000. In Salmo, a residence valued at $170,000 went up to $172,000.
Some regional areas will see higher increases, notably Nelson, up 10 per cent, and Revelstoke, up eight per cent.
The biggest West Kootenay drop in assessment was in Silverton where property assessed at $232,000 in 2016 is now assessed at $216,000. At the other end of the scale, Nelson saw a home valued at $333,000 rise up to $363,000.
Property assessment notices are being mailed out and values posted at the B.C. Assessment website (bcassessment.ca) this week, based on the agency’s mid-2016 real estate market surveys.