By Lara Fominoff @LaraFominoff on Twitter

Lethbridge City Council votes to change the way road maintenance taxes are collected

Apr 30, 2018 | 5:23 PM

LETHBRIDGE – About 20 per cent of property owners in Lethbridge will notice something different on their property tax notices this year: they will be charged for road maintenance.

At Monday’s meeting, councillors voted 8-1 to begin collecting taxes for road maintenance based on property assessment values for ALL properties regardless of age, and based on assessed home value.

Councillor Jeff Carlson says the way it was done before meant a special tax for road maintenance was charged to properties more than 10 years old, which created the potential for many modest, older homes on bigger lots to be charged more than for more expensive homes on smaller lots, regardless of age.

Property taxes will now be adjusted he says, to make up the difference.

“This is just a more fair way of collecting it. We’re not increasing the taxes we’re collecting, we’re not increasing the budget by any means. We’re just redistributing a collection of taxes more fairly throughout the community. Community roads are community roads. We all use them. We all benefit from them. So, we should all be paying for their upkeep.”

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Before the change, he says 80 per cent of the households were paying the former frontage levy, while about 20 per cent were exempted because of the age of their property.

It now means that some people will have slightly higher property tax bills this year, and some will pay a bit less.

“Yes, some people who were exempted for a year, or two years, or up to 10 years will no longer be exempted. If you live in Lethbridge, you are paying for the road maintenance in Lethbridge.”

The 2018 operating budget includes $3.798 million for road, sidewalk, boulevard, tree and storm sewer maintenance.

Changes will take effect this year and will be reflected on this year’s property tax notices which will be mailed out beginning May 1.

During the meeting, it was noted that the change will make Lethbridge consistent with most other municipalities.