It would be very interesting to know if this has been tried anywhere else and what kind of success they achieved?
EDMONTON — The town of Bruderheim hopes to spur development in an area hit by the recession by eliminating civic property taxes for three years on new home and business construction.
The town is about 40 kilometres northeast of Edmonton near the Industrial Heartland, where billions of dollars worth of proposed oil upgrader projects have been delayed or cancelled in the last two years.
Officials who once expected property assessments to grow by five to 10 per cent a year now feel values will go up by one per cent at most, chief administrative officer Tim Duhamel said Friday.
“There was a lot of optimism about growth in Bruderheim before the economy went south,” he said.
“A lot of the optimism that was around the town has gone down.”
Councillors approved the tax plan in June as a way to attract new residents and businesses, basing it on a similar scheme run by a town in Saskatchewan, Duhamel said.
“It’s wanting to separate us a little bit … to make us attractive as opposed to living in Fort Saskatchewan or Sherwood Park.”
The deal saves homeowners about $4,500 over three years in municipal taxes on the average house, although they still have to pay roughly the same amount in provincial education taxes, Duhamel said.
So far, he feels it has been a success, with three or four new houses underway, a stalled apartment building now scheduled to begin construction later this year and a company looking at setting up a plant in the town of 1,250.
“When you’re talking three, four, five, 10 new housing starts, that’s big for us.”
The program will be examined annually to decide whether it should continue, he said.
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