loading...
Kelowna home owners could soon get help going green.
By Adrian Nieoczym
If Kelowna city councillor Angela Reid, gets her way, home owners will soon be able to get financing from the city to help make their properties more environmentally friendly.
At Reid’s request, city council has asked its staff to look into the feasibility of having the city pay for energy efficiency upgrades and then collect the cost back through local improvement charges, which are tacked onto property tax bills.
The way Reid sees it, the city could put up the money for things like installing solar panels on an individual home and then recoup the cost over a five- to ten-year period.
“It’s based on an example other communities in the U.S. and Canada have used and that communities in B.C. are looking at,” said Reid.
LICs are normally applied to the tax bills of homes in a neighbourhood where an infrastructure improvement, such as a new sidewalk or sewer, has been installed for the benefit of the entire neighbourhood. Under Reid’s proposal, LICs could be assessed against individual homes.
“In this case it would cover the cost of an infrastructure investment that benefited a specific home or a specific piece of property,” she said. “The ability to pay for that on your property taxes and spread it out over five to 10 years is a huge incentive I think, plus the city has access to low interest rates. There’s a lot of advantages to doing it that way versus financing it [as an individual] through a bank, where it’s not attached to the property, it’s attached to the person.
City staff will now look into what is being done in other communities and what it would take for Kelowna to implement Reid’s proposal.
adrian@kelowna.com/(250)575-3517
Tags: environmental upgrades, Kelowna, local improvement charges, property tax, solar panels
