Housing construction set to boom in West Kelowna despite the speculation tax

WEST KELOWNA – Doug Findlater fought long and hard against the province’s speculation tax before stepping down last fall as West Kelowna’s mayor.

He said it would stop developers from starting projects in the city, and potentially curtail growth.

Earlier this week, sitting as a city councillor, he helped approve 300 new housing units in three projects. He argued that doesn’t mean that the tax had no impact.

“We will see long term effects show up in our budget over time,” he told iNFOnews.ca today, June 28.

He pointed to the Goats Peak proposal for 1,000 homes that was cancelled last fall because developers had concerns about the tax.

“I’m aware of others that have backed off and one that’s in place that is having a great bit of difficulty selling their units,” he said “They’re facing some financial hardship.”

One of the newly approved projects is Highstreet, with a 186-unit apartment complex near Westbank Centre

“Others, like Highstreet, that are building to a different point in the market, don’t feel their sales are being affected,” he said.

Many of the people and customers involved in the Goats Peak project were from Alberta. Findlater described them as middle-income people who may only spend four months in their West Kelowna homes.

In order to be exempt from the tax, the home has to be occupied for six months and short-term rentals don’t count.

The tax is 0.5 per cent of the property’s assessed value.

The new projects, therefore, seem targeted at people who will live in them full-time.


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics

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