Coaldale town council officially approved its 2023 property tax bylaw, which will result in an increase of 1.53 per cent for residential taxes.
The increase is less than the 1.84 per cent increase approved last fall. Council was presented with two options for the bylaw — the first would have allocated $33,938 in unanticipated revenues from property assessment growth towards a project of council’s choosing and the second, which council approved, allocated the extra funds towards residential and non-residential tax rates directly.
Non-residential taxes are now set to go up 2.67 per cent, rather than the previously approved 3.22 per cent.
“We are committed to keeping property taxes as low as possible so we can continue to attract new residents and expand our commercial and industrial sectors,” said Mayor Jack Van Rijn. “In a perfect world, we would lower them but as everyone knows, the price of goods and services has gone up everywhere and in a lot of cases municipalities have had no choice but to either significantly increase property taxes or cut services to balance their budgets.”
He said the town is lucky to have additional revenue to offset some of the money that would otherwise come from increased taxes, without having to cut services.