The City of Yorkton has established its sub-classes of land and improvements for tax purposes and its 2019 Mill Rate.
Both decisions were made Monday at the regular meeting of Yorkton Councils.
The decisions included an increase to the City’s Base Tax.
The 2019 budget saw an increase in protective services costs. This required a 2.9 percent increase in the Base Tax from $770.00 to $795.00. Properties in the Residential class have the Fire and Police Base Tax applied on a per unit basis. All other properties contribute to the cost of providing Protective Services through their general tax levy, explained Ashley Stradeski, Director of Finance with the city.
There was also a reduction to the tax rate on multi-family high density vacant land.
“In 2018, Commercial vacant land rates were reduced to a rate of 1.5 times that of commercial property. The reduction was an acknowledgement of the fact that commercial vacant land differs from vacant residential land. Vacant commercial lots are larger parcels, require longer construction periods and have limited end user market bases.
“Administration is of the opinion that we should reduce the High Density Multi-Unit vacant land rate to match the Commercial vacant land rates, as these are often owned by developers with commercial intent, that is, they intend to develop, build and sell the units. This differs substantially from the vacant residential land, as our goal was to deter “speculators” who buy the land to resell at higher values,” detailed material circulated to Council.
The change was said to have a nominal effect on the tax revenue collected, as there are only a handful of properties that fit into this category.
The policy approved also applies the 2.9 percent Tax Rate Increase to all Property Classifications and Sub-Classification.
Analysis of the distribution of tax revenue collected between various sub-classes determined that implementing a 2.9 percent increase across all classifications would be the appropriate solution,” said Stradeski.
Actual increases will vary by property. However the average properties in the example below depicts the average increase for a property with an assessed value of $250,000.00.
Commercial - $145.00/year or $12.08 per month
Residential - $62.50/year or $5.21 per month
Multi-family High Density - $55.00/year or $4.58 per month.
