(rdnewsNOW file photo)

By Alessia Proietti

Precedence or positive?

Red Deer property owner without insurance gets $15,800 tax break after fire turns building derelict

Dec 19, 2023 | 12:36 PM

A Red Deer property owner who did not have proper insurance is getting a tax break after a fire turned their building derelict.

At their meeting on Monday, city council approved the cancellation of $15,784.85 in taxes for a damaged property. The total is equal to the amount of the municipal tax portion from the time the damage occurred on April 1, 2022, to the end of the year. Tax relief for the property will not be provided beyond 2022 and details of the property were not shared for confidentiality.

Council applied conditions to the resolution as an incentive for the taxpayer to begin remediation:

• The property must be compliant with Community Standards Bylaws.
• The property owner must provide an independent structural engineer report, prepared by an engineer licenced to practice in Alberta by end of day February 16, 2024.
• Repairs or demolition must commence by May 31, 2024, with applicable building permits in place.

The owner, who operated a business in the building, applied under the Tax Cancellation Policy which provides options for extenuating circumstances that result in a building being destroyed or unusable.

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Properties are assessed each year based on the conditions of the property on December 31 of the prior year. In this case, the property was assessed on December 31, 2021, for the 2022 tax year.

The owner did not have fire insurance which, the City says, would have covered the taxes. The City confirms the owner paid the 2022 taxes in full.

The owner also says they paid an invoice to the City for the cost of Emergency Services responding to the fire.

The city confirmed there is structural damage to the property, no utility services are being provided to the property and no permits have been pulled in the 20 months since the fire.

According to an estimate by Camdon Construction, the total repairs to the property would cost up to $293,000.

Some councillors like Vesna Higham expressed the tax cancellation should not be granted as it would set a precedence.

“I have to land on the side of fairness and equity to all taxpayers because I can just see if we support this, they’ll be lining up at the door. I know of two other fires in the downtown, they will be lining up at the door, all of [the] Railyards [neighbourhood] will be lining up at the door. There will be so many more of these requests if council opens this door,” she said.

Councillor Cindy Jefferies, however, said this could be an opportunity to have the owner bring the property back to its original state which can bring in more tax dollars in the future and positively impact the neighbourhood.

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