B.C. Assessment out with Kelowna home values next week

KELOWNA – Thousands of local homeowners will find out tomorrow, Jan. 4, just how much the B.C. Assessment Authority thinks their house is worth.

That’s when the authority’s 2016 assessment rolls are made public and official assessments begin landing in some two million mailboxes across the province, spokesman Tim Morrison says.

Assessments are used by municipalities to determine individual property tax bills, more than $7 billion in property taxes across the province this year, and have been generally rising in Kelowna the last few years.

Kelowna saw an average increase of 5.56 per cent in 2015 and is likely to see something similar for 2016. The city drew $114.5 million from local taxpayers this year and hopes to draw $120 million in 2016.

B.C. Assessment Authority is a provincial crown corporation mandated to provide official property value estimates based on market and other information as of July 1 each year.

To contact a reporter for this story, email John McDonald at jmcdonald@infonews.ca or call 250-808-0143. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

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John McDonald

John McDonald

John began life as a journalist through the Other Press, the independent student newspaper for Douglas College in New Westminster. The fluid nature of student journalism meant he was soon running the place, learning on the fly how to publish a newspaper.

It wasn’t until he moved to Kelowna he broke into the mainstream media, working for Okanagan Sunday, then the Kelowna Daily Courier and Okanagan Saturday doing news graphics and page layout. He carried on with the Kelowna Capital News, covering health and education while also working on special projects, including the design and launch of a mass market daily newspaper. After 12 years there, John rejoined the Kelowna Daily Courier as editor of the Westside Weekly, directing news coverage as the Westside became West Kelowna.

But digital media beckoned and John joined Kelowna.com as assistant editor and reporter, riding the start-up as it at first soared then went down in flames. Now John is turning dirt as city hall reporter for iNFOnews.ca where he brings his long experience to bear on the civic issues of the day.

If you have a story you think people should know about, email John at jmcdonald@infonews.ca