Tag: property taxes

Let’s Talk Property Taxes!

New Westminster’s 2025 Property Tax Notices are out, so let’s talk property taxes!

There will undoubtedly be millions of pixels devoted to complaining about 28% or 35% or 81% property tax increases over the last three years by certain anti-tax blowhards, so I figured I’d help put property taxes in context using numbers.

Specifically, the numbers I’ll be using are the exact property taxes we’ve paid for our townhouse in New Westminster over the past nine years.

In 2016, the first year we paid property taxes in New Westminster, we paid $1,264.73. In 2025, nine years later, our property tax bill is $2,415.42, nearly double! This works out to a yearly increase of 7.53%. One year our property tax went up 15.5%, another year it actually went down 1.07%, this year they went up 2.71%, but on average our property tax increased 7.53% each year.

Over those nine years we have paid a grand total of $17,983.23 to the City of New Westminster in property taxes.

But hang on a second. Property values have changed quite a bit over those nine years as well. In 2016, our property was assessed at $370,000. This year our assessed value is $858,000, much more than double! One year it went up 33%, another year it went down 0.61%, but if you average it all out, our property’s value has increased 9.6% each year. Compare that to our yearly property tax increase of 7.53%, would you?

And let’s talk about absolute dollars too. Remember that we’ve paid nearly $18,000 in property taxes in nine years. In the first year we owned our house, its assessed value went from $370,000 to $494,000. In one single year our net worth increased by $124,000 without us having to do anything. In nine years it’s increased by $488,000 and we’ve only had to pay $18,000 in property taxes. Don’t forget, that $488,000 is pure profit because we live in the house, if we sell it we don’t pay any taxes on it.

In other words, in one year we made nearly seven times as much money on our house than we’ve paid in property taxes over nine years we’ve lived here.

So next time someone complains that property taxes are rising too fast, remember the bigger picture: tax bills have grown, but property values and untaxed wealth have grown even faster.

What’s Coming to New West Council on May 3, 2021

New Westminster City Council is having a Regular Meeting on May 3, 2021, and here’s what they’ll be looking at.

Submission to the Provincial Special Committee on the Reform of the Police Act

The Province is reforming the Police Act. The City of New Westminster set up a working group to do research into what sort of reforms the City would like to see. The working group has prepared a report and video that will be submitted to the Province.

There are obviously a lot of details into what the working group would like to see changed, and I would encourage everybody to read the report.

2021 Tax Rates Bylaw No. 8259, 2021

Taxes are going up!

823 – 841 Sixth Street: Affordable Housing Project – Official Community Plan Amendment Bylaw and Zoning Amendment Bylaw for First and Second Readings

The Aboriginal Land Trust Society wants to build 96 homes for members of the Indigenous and Swahili communities in New Westminster. These homes would be in a six-storey building, be permanent rental, and be affordable.

If you want to read some truly terrible statements from members of our community who put greater value on their back yards potentially getting a sliver of shadow thrown on it once or twice a year than providing stable housing for people, you can find them in this week’s Council package. Here’s one especially terrible one:

This development cannot be allowed to go ahead. It should be built in an area which would benefit from the development, such as where there are already used car lots, abandoned houses, or other blights in New West. Please don’t put a slum in the only moderately affordable single family house neighbourhood in New West, where young professionals with kids have a chance to own a house.

This development would be the Strathcona tent city permanently dropped 2 blocks from my house. How can I continue to live here if this is allowed to be built. It invalidates all the hardwork and sweat equity I put into living here and will put my family in danger.

Council will approve First and Second Readings and this project will soon be moving to a Public Hearing.

1319 Third Avenue (Steel and Oak): Zoning Bylaw Text Amendment and Manufacturing Facility Structural Change Applications – Bylaw for First and Second Readings

This one came to Council on March 28, and now it’s time to make it slightly more official. Council will approve First and Second Readings and this project will soon be moving to a Public Hearing.

Grant Application: Local Government Development Approvals

City Staff will be applying for a grant for $480,000 to transition the City’s development application and review process to be substantially online.

208 Fifth Avenue: Heritage Revitalization Agreement Application Process Update – For Information

208 Fifth Avenue wants to subdivide into two lots, move the existing heritage house onto one of those lots, and then build a new house on the second lot.

Expect Queens Park residents to lose their minds because the owners here are asking for a little more house than they’re permitted to have.

Consumption of Liquor in Public Spaces – Designated Park Zones

New West Parks and Recreation has set up maps showing where liquor may be lawfully consumed after the bylaw allowing it has passed. Not yet, but soon!

How property taxes work (in New Westminster)

There’s been a lot of talk recently about property taxes, now that the property value assessments are out. Property taxes are based, kind of, on property value, so when people see their property assessment go up by 40%, they flip out because they think that their property taxes are going up 40%. They won’t, but people are confused because they don’t fully understand the link between property values and property taxes. Hopefully this blog post will help make things simple to understand.

Keep in mind that this is only for New Westminster. I’m pretty sure other jurisdictions around work the same way (especially those in BC) but I’m not 100% certain, so keep that in mind. And it only looks at residential property taxes; commercial and industrial taxes might work differently, but given people are confused about their residential property taxes, that’s what I’m focusing on.

Suppose you have a city. In one year, that city requires $1,000,000 to keep running — potholes need filling, roads need to be cleared of snow, police officers need to be paid, that sort of thing. Now suppose there is only one person living in that city and the entire city is made up of one plot of land. That landowner needs to give the city $1,000,000 in taxes. Easy.

Now suppose there are two properties in the city. Each property is the same size, and each is worth the same amount of money. Each landowner owes half of the city income, or $500,000 each. (This is an expensive city to live in, but what do you expect when you own half a city?)

Now suppose that there are still two properties in the city, but one is mostly swamp and the other isn’t. Both properties are the same size, but the swamp property is worth 10% of the other one (let’s say the swamp is worth $100,000 and the other one is worth $1,000,000). There are two ways we can split up the amount owed to the city: by property size or by property value. In this case one could argue either way, but maybe the swamp property receives fewer city services (maybe swamps don’t need much policing or sidewalks, for example), so if we split the amount owed by property value, one property owes $90,909.09 and the other owes $909,090.91. The total property value across the city is $1,100,000, so the swamp property owes $100,000/$1,100,000 = 9.1% and the “good” property owes the rest.

Now suppose there are still two properties in the city. One swamp, one not swamp. It’s been discovered that swamps actually contain gold, so the property value of the swamp property has skyrocketed from $100,000 up to $2,000,000. That’s an increase of 1,900%! The other property’s value goes up as well, but not that much — only by 100% to $2,000,000. The total property value across the city is now $4,000,000, and the city still needs $1,000,000 to operate, and because each property is worth the same amount of money, each property owner owes $500,000.

This is where the disconnect between property value and property tax comes in. The swamp property’s value went up 1,900%, but their tax bill “only” went up 450%. The “good” property’s value went up 100%, but their property tax actually went down by 45%!

There’s obviously a wrinkle in this in that the city doesn’t need a fixed amount of money each year. The amount they need typically goes up, because of inflation, rising salaries, and extra projects that the city wants (or needs) to take on. That’s why every year you see a news story stating that “property taxes are going up by 2.73%“. Well, they’re not. Well, they are. On average property taxes are going up, but not everybody’s taxes go up. What the 2.73% refers to is the amount of money the city needs to take in from property taxes is going up.

Let’s take our example again. The city needs $1,000,000 one year and $1,100,000 the next. 10% property tax increase for everybody, right? Wrong. The swamp property paid $90,909.10 in year one, and will pay $550,000 the next, for an increase of 505%. The “good” property paid $909,090.90 the first year and will pay $550,000 the next, for a decrease of 39.5%.

What matters is the difference between a specific property’s value and the total value of all of the property in the city. And that’s why you can’t look at a news report about property taxes going up and think “oh great my property taxes are going up”, and it’s also why you can’t look at a news report about property values going up and think “oh great my property taxes are going up”, because the “property taxes” (the amount of money the city needs to take in via taxation) can go up AND your property value can go up BUT the actual taxes you pay can go down.

In New Westminster, “property taxes” are going up 2.73% (or maybe 2.98%, I don’t know exactly). The average change in property value for 2016 is 28.5%, so if your property’s value has gone up by 28.5% then your property tax bill will go up by about 2.73% (or 2.98%). If your property value “only” went up 20%, the amount you pay in property taxes will go down.

And that’s how residential property taxes work.