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Hotel Douglas 10 year tax exemption not in public interest


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#21 Scaper

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Posted 30 December 2006 - 10:42 PM

Damn Left wingers!!! hahahaha

#22 Gregory Hartnell

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Posted 31 December 2006 - 11:29 AM

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I worked with both the Greater Victoria Concerned Citizens' Association and the Saint Ann's Rescue Community Coalition to help other citizens save Saint Ann's, so I am well aquainted with the history of what actually happened at that National Historic Site.

So-called "density transfer" did not save taxpayers money, as Scraper alleges, as the total cost to renovate the old convent building was in the order of $18,000,000. That was paid by our provincial government.

The Y-lot "density transfer" was simply a ruse by the NDP to hide the fact that after much planning and sensational publicity they realized that their grandiose plans to develop that property with office towers to house civil servants would be too rich.

Thus, a huge centrally located publicly-owned piece of property, the Y lot, was squandered for public relations. That property could well have served as the central downtown station for a new light rail station, complete with underground parking.

Now it has become a block of privately-owned towers which are out of scale to most of the buildings in downtown Victoria.

The $18,000,000 was public money well spent, however, as the national and provincial heritage designations protected St. Ann's from being demolished, and resolved a long-standing problem of vagrants camping inside the structure, and setting fires to keep warm. The building was in desperate need of renovation, and the 70 year lease proposed by the previous Social Credit government and the Provincial Capital Commission was a disgraceful example of the worst type on nightmare public-private partnership.

It would have turned the whole of Saint Ann's into a tacky tourist trap, with a pseudo-Dickensian street scape inside, serviced by escalators, and the biggest booze license in the province. The heritage garden would have been cut off from public access, becoming a mish-mash of Chinese, Italian, French and other garden styles...all this for a well-known friend of the Social Credit Party.

The building still needs to be made more accessible to the public, while at the same time stricter guidelines should be brought in to ensure that there is no reprise of the fiasco where the Cinevic group wanted to show a video of a dead American **rn star in the auditorium.

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#23 stdavid

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Posted 23 October 2008 - 01:05 PM

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An ad placed and signed (illegibly) by the City of Victoria Corporate Administrator in the December 29 number of the Times Colonist newspaper in the Legals & Tenders section of the Classifieds on page B10 tells the sad tale...

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[Logo of The City of Victoria]

NOTICE OF PROPOSED PERMISSIVE EXEMPTION

For the purpose of supporting the conservation, rehabilitation, and hotel use of heritage property, the Municipal Council of the City of Victoria proposes a bylaw that would exempt from municipal property taxes for 10 years the heritage building located at 1450 Douglas Street (Douglas Hotel) in the City of Victoria.

The exemption would apply if:

(a) the upgrading of the property is complete and [in] accordance with the B. C. Building Code,

(b) a covenant for the exemption is registered on title for the property, and

© the property is used for hotel and related retail purposes.

The estimated amount of municipal taxes that would be imposed for the first 3 years on the property, if it were not exempt, would be approximately $398,298.00

Any property who wishes to review a copy of the proposed Tax Exemption Bylaw may do so by contacting:

Corporate Administrator
City of Victoria
#1 Centennial Square
Victoria, BC V8W 1P6
Telephone (250) 361-0571

This notice is given in accordance with Section 227 of the Community Charter.

Dated this 15th day of December, 2006

[Illegible signature]
Corporate Administrator

City of Victoria

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The stupidity of the proposed bylaw is self-evident. While I am sure that all property owners would love to enjoy such largesse from the City, this proposed bylaw is the direct and logical consequence of the bad precedent set some years ago when the Moses Znaimer group of tv stations finessed a similar deal at the ex-Macdonald's Furniture store just down Pandora Avenue with the help of ex-Councillor Laura Acton.

If the intent of the bylaw is to stimulate economic and social activity in the depressed downtown area around City Hall, it would be much fairer to have a property tax reduction across the board for both residential and commercial property owners in the City of Victoria, and not to favour certain businesses over others. Such a tax reduction would stimulate all sectors of the local economy.

Spot zoning tax exemptions of this type put an extra unfair burden on all the rest of us Victoria property taxpayers who are not insiders and don't have the ear of the Mayor and Councillors.

When one considers that the hotel in question, directly across from City Hall, is one of the most notorious locales for the purchase and sale of deadly addictive drugs of all kinds, the proposed bylaw is even more odious.

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And if this tax exemption will help to rid this core of this notorious situation it is money well spent.

#24 Caramia

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Posted 23 October 2008 - 01:16 PM

I get something out of walking through Old Town and seeing these beautiful heritage buildings not only restored, but now full of people and life. I'm willing to pay for that.
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

#25 stdavid

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Posted 23 October 2008 - 02:00 PM

I get something out of walking through Old Town and seeing these beautiful heritage buildings not only restored, but now full of people and life. I'm willing to pay for that.

Its simply called money well spent.;) If it starts a trend great. I was in the new liquor store that just opened and if anyone doesn't think that is a far better environment that what is replaced..well..there is no hope.
I talked to the new owners. Very bright energetic guys, that stepped up and put their OWN money where their mouth is/are.

 



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