Cold Lake city council is offering some more benefits to businesses that spruce their place up a bit. An additional rebate is now being offered to those who make improvements to their buildings.
“It’s important to continue providing retention and attraction incentives for our commercial businesses,” says Mayor Craig Copeland. “Our original policy is able to help if the property value increased, but we wanted to give businesses a bit more of a hand.”
In 2010, council passed a policy that would grant a business owner their entire increase in municipal taxes back from any increase in their property’s assessed value. This is an increase from the original 50 per cent, and is paid out over three years.
Though this rebate requires an increase in the business’s property value to qualify, council has decided to add an additional incentive for businesses to make improvements or upgrade.
For businesses making enhancements to existing buildings, a one-time tax rebate of 10 per cent of the municipal tax assessment would be returned to the business, even if the property value of the establishment did not increase.
“This means that a business doing a complete renovation inside their building can benefit from the policy,” said Copeland. “Property assessments don’t usually increase with improvements on the inside of the building, so this gives people renovating a chance to get a rebate on their taxes.”
The motion was passed at the January 10th council meeting, and comes into effect immediately. For more information, go to www.coldlake.com under Bylaws and Policies, or contact the Planning and Development Department at 780-594-4494.