District of North Vancouver council has passed its 2019 budget, just about eight months ahead of schedule.
Council convened for a rare Tuesday night meeting this week to pass next year’s financial plan, bringing with it a roughly three per cent increase in property taxes.
The three per cent increase sticks to the same template the district has used in recent years – a two per cent hike to cover inflation in operating costs and an extra one per cent to be put away for the replacement of aging infrastructure.
The district estimates it will make the 2019 property tax bill for the typical single-family homeowner about $67 higher than their 2018 one.
Major items in the $71.2-million capital budget include money for affordable housing and child-care spaces, new community centres in Lions Gate and Lynn Creek, parks upgrades, active transportation improvements that include money for the new Main Street-Marine Drive B-Line bus service, construction costs for the Lower Lynn Interchange upgrades on Highway 1, and a new Maplewood fire hall.
Under provincial law, financial plans must be finished and submitted to the province by May. The district has been gradually pushing its process earlier and earlier, but the current council opted to have a “provisional” budget in place for when the new council members are sworn in, in November.
Three of the current members of council are leaving municipal politics, among them Mayor Richard Walton.
“I would like to thank our financial staff. We are at a point right now where we have a plan in place. I certainly look forward to the new council being elected, which may or may not include my colleagues sitting around the table,” Walton said. “Hopefully we’re giving them a really good lead as a learning document and as a document which will provide a good basis for the detailed work and input moving towards the finalization of the 2019 budget in May.”
