North Bay's industries could see tax rates reduced by 50 per cent.

• Author: SITTER, KEN
• Position: Brief Article

The long-awaited tax relief for North Bay industry will come this year, says Mayor Jack Burrows, and that could amount to a 50 per cent slash in the industrial tax rate.

The city's industrial tax rate has been the focal point of debate for several years, drawing criticism from businesses, the economic development corporation (EDC), the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and others.

The slash would fulfill a request for a 50 per cent cut by the city's EDC chairman Peter Minogue, who told city council in January that the high rate discouraged new businesses from coming to North Bay.

"The longer you put it off, the fewer new industries that come to town, the less new assessment you have, the less taxes you collect, and the city will just get poorer and poorer," Minogue says.

Burrows agrees the rates are having an adverse effect on North Bay business and making it difficult to attract new industry.

The tax cut has become "a top priority with us," Burrows says.

What will make the cut possible, the mayor says, is Bill 140 currently before the provincial legislature. The bill will allow municipalities more flexibility to address imbalances in various tax rates, he adds.

In North Bay, the residential sector comprises about 74 per cent of total property value in the city, but only contributes about 56 per cent of the city's tax revenue, leaving the commercial and industrial sectors to pay a disproportionate share.

The city's residential tax rate compares...