WEEKLY UPDATES - FEB 22

Welcome to the (belated) weekly wrapup! I hope you had a wonderful Family Day long weekend.

Last week was busy at Executive Committee with talk of an issue near and dear to my heart - phasing out the Other Residential tax subclass. This policy leads to higher property taxes for rental buildings compared to condo buildings, and something that I think needs to change. Tax policy is one of the strongest levers we have for encouraging what gets built in our city. Higher taxes on multi-unit buildings works against our City Plan goals for more vibrant communities and greater housing options.

There are trade-offs though: phasing out Other Residential would result in $46 extra dollars in property tax this year for the average homeowner. Although that's not a huge amount, I've heard from many Edmontonians that are already struggling with expenses. Instead, I'm proposing a phased transition over several years. This would result in a roughly $4 increase for every $100k of property value for residential owners. While the cost isn't zero, there is huge value to all of us in removing a barrier to realising our City Plan goals.

Phasing out Other Residential is a great opportunity for us to update the tax code to better reflect the city we want to build and to support more housing choices and availability in the areas that we want it most. We'll be talking more about it at Council today - update to come!

At Police Commission, we saw how Downtown Beats teams will support new areas of the core with the Healthy Streets Operations Center. We also heard from EPS' Research & Innovation and Impact & Evaluation teams highlighting their community collaborations and data analysis work

That’s all, see you again next week!