Lake Country taxes to jump by at least 10% this year

Growth and inflation have triggered the need to increase property taxes substantially in the District of Lake County.

The municipality has proposed a tax hike far higher than what other cities in the region are facing.

“The 2023 property tax increase will range somewhere between 9.95% to 19.02% depending on how Council chooses to move forward,” reads a Lake Country news release issued Jan. 13.

The district said each 1% increase in taxes will add $20 to the bill for the average Lake Country home, assessed at $1.087 million, which works out to tax increases on that average home ranging roughly between $200 at 9.95% and $380 at 19.02%.

By contrast, the City of Kelowna is looking at a property tax increase of about 4%, Kamloops is considering an increase close to 6% and Vernon around 5%. Penticton and West Kelowna have yet to release details on their projected property tax increases.

Part of the impact for Lake Country is due to higher policing costs. The district's population is now greater than 15,000 so its share of RCMP costs goes to from 70% to 90%, along with other additional policing costs.

READ MORE: Growth costing some Okanagan communities millions more for policing

Inflation, plus the need to maintain and upgrade aging infrastructure, are also responsible for the increase.

Council will review the budget on Jan. 26, then hold a live and virtual Town Hall meeting on Jan. 31.

The final budget won’t be adopted until March.

For more information and to make comments, go here.


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics