Illegal suites more a neighbourhood problem than taxpayer burden in Kamloops

KAMLOOPS – A secondary suite can create some new revenue for a homeowner, but the same can’t be said for the City of Kamloops. 

As the city starts to look at how to bring illegal suites into the fold, city financial director, Kathy Humphrey, says the issue is more a social one than a financial one.

“There aren’t a lot of revenues associated with secondary suites,” she says. “From the city’s perspective we’re mostly concerned with non-financial issues.”

The biggest loss of revenue for the city is likely sewer fees. Most utilities bills are based on consumption, but if a house contains a secondary suite an additional fee is charged to the house.

Humphrey estimates that to be $120 per a year, so if Kamloops had 500 secondary suites without permits it’d equal a loss of about $60,000 in revenue, not a significant portion of the city’s budget. Additionally, that would go into the sewer budget which is used for sewer repairs, not general revenue which is used to fund most of the city’s activities and projects.

Secondary suites may affect property taxes but B.C. Assessment controls that, she says. While BC. Assessment will take into account a secondary suite, according to the agency’s website, it must be reported before being included into the assessment.

Additionally, the increased assessment may not increase a home’s value by much, Humphrey says, as location and size determine the assessed value more than anything. The city taxes percentage of the overall value of the home, so an illegal suite would be akin to any renovations that happen at a house.

While there is a cost associated with rezoning a house to allow for a secondary suite, Humphrey says that fee mostly goes towards administrative costs caused by bringing the rezoning application forward, and doesn’t affect the city’s bottom line.

A bigger issue she expects is the social impact on the neighbourhood with a high number of suites, like parking and noise.

The true cost for the city can’t be estimated currently as the city adminstration isn’t sure how many illegal suites exist. To go out and investigate houses wouldn’t be cost effective, city planning supervisor Jason Locke has said, because staff would have to go visit each house in the city and determine if there’s an active secondary suite. Instead the current system is to investigate complaints.

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