Well it is now official, taxes are for sure going up by 1.2% (that is on top of whatever percentage your BC assessment went up as well). Council voted 4-3 for the increase, resulting in it getting passed. Councillors Carlick-Pearson, Thorkeldson, Cunningham and Garon voted to raise taxes while Kinney, Ashley and the mayor voted to no increase.
They might want to think about giving the people who’s homes have been adversely affected by the pellet plant a tax break. We can no longer use our decks or yards or open the windows. We can not sleep before midnight without ear plugs when the place is running. A lot of days you can smell the pellets (if you can smell it you are breathing it). We now get no sunshine in the evenings, not to mention no more sunsets and 30 to 50 thousand dollars lost on all our property values, Yeah for progress!
If you go back 30+ years ago there was a grain elevator operating in that same area. Do the residents at the other end of Graham get a break in taxes because of the noise from the container Terminal. No they don’t. I feel for the fact that property values dropped and previous owners took advantage of the fact that they could sell their property at an inflated price knowing there could be development somewhere in the future. But to be fair most of the property a long the waterfront has always been industrial, its why the community was developed. Considering all the complaints you have, why haven’t there been more complaining on here and letters written in the paper or posts on the Northern View’s Facebook page.
Sad to hear, but, you knowingly bought your house adjacent to land zoned for commercial development.
Are you open to an offer on your deck furniture?
I feel very sorry for the home owners in that area and no, I don’t live down there but when I visit the area and see those silos and how changed their landscape is, it is very sad. I doubt when the home owners bought their homes, they were projecting years into the future and thinking maybe the chance of buying a home with that gorgeous view may be a risk. Probably not many of us on here live there and living with the affects of that every day so very easy to sit back and condemn those that are. Progress? Maybe, but what benefit has our town seen so far? Not much, IMO. We’re still waiting for the “boom”! Yep !!
Not condemning him, just pointing out the obvious. It is sad that the area is being developed, but, home owners knew the risk when they bought there. I feel for Hissyfit. Perhaps he can sell and move on?
You know back in the 80’s I had some spandex bike shorts that I chose. I am pretty sure I want compensation for being allowed to make my bad purchasing decision as well. Where do I sign up?
This thread has been hijacked by the Grain Silo issue. Having had that said, here is my comment…
- Almost all of the area along the waterfront is owned by the Port and CN Rail.
- City Zoning does not apply to the area owned by the Port - which means that the Port can put pretty much anything there is wants to - well maybe not a nuclear reactor ( damn, I probably should not have mentioned it).
- People buy houses.
- Houses are really expensive and for most people they are the single largest purchase that they make in their lives.
- People should do their homework.
- People often don’t do enough homework.
- Sadly, sometimes they don’t even know that that they should be doing homework.
- They then make unfortunate decisions because they don’t have all the information to make a rational decision.
So, all smart comments about deck furniture aside, I think it is really unfortunate that many of these people unknowingly purchased homes in areas that were contiguous with industrial land. I would not wish this problem on anyone. For a lot of people, their house is part of their retirement financial plan and what has happened has probably destroyed more than one plan and caused incredible grief.
So, a couple of comments for anyone thinking about buying property…
Do your homework and personally go to City Hall. The people at City Hall will be very helpful. Go personally, so that you can ask follow-up questions and thus a complete understanding of the following items:
a)What is the area and adjacent areas currently zoned for?
b) What do these zoning classifications really mean?. You might be surprised to know what could go next door and still be within the zoning classification.
c) What does the Community Plan propose for the area(s)?
d) What is the City Planner aware of for the area?
e) What is the possibility that the areas around your proposed place could be rezoned or re-purposed (shopping malls, sewer treatment plants, grain silos)
f) Where are the easements for utilities and roads located (half of the existing front lawn might actually be a public land for a road!)?
g) What are the chances that the easement could be increased or more utilized (i.e. “Hey guess what honey, we just got a letter from Kinder Morgan”; or, "Hey guess what honey, a big shopping mall is going in down the road"or, “Guess what honey, the City is building a sewerage plant and a trunk sewer line is being planned to go through our backyard”) ?
So, that is a list of stuff you need to find out before you buy the land. I am sure there are other considerations that I have missed.
If you have a building (i.e. HOUSE) on the property, there is a whole lot more you should find out. If you are really diligent, you might wind up discovering that the least of your concerns should be how close the house is to the “right school”.
[quote=“Pantagruel”]This thread has been hijacked by the Grain Silo issue. Having had that said, here is my comment…
- Almost all of the area along the waterfront is owned by the Port and CN Rail.
- City Zoning does not apply to the area owned by the Port - which means that the Port can put pretty much anything there is wants to - well maybe not a nuclear reactor ( damn, I probably should not have mentioned it).
- People buy houses.
- Houses are really expensive and for most people they are the single largest purchase that they make in their lives.
- People should do their homework.
- People often don’t do enough homework.
- Sadly, sometimes they don’t even know that that they should be doing homework.
They then make unfortunate decisions because they don’t have all the information to make a rational decision.
So, all smart comments about deck furniture aside, I think it is really unfortunate that many of these people unknowingly purchased homes in areas that were contiguous with industrial land. I would not wish this problem on anyone. For a lot of people, their house is part of their retirement financial plan and what has happened has probably destroyed more than one plan and caused incredible grief.
So, a couple of comments for anyone thinking about buying property…
Do your homework and personally go to City Hall. The people at City Hall will be very helpful. Go personally, so that you can ask follow-up questions and thus a complete understanding of the following items:
a)What is the area and adjacent areas currently zoned for?
b) What do these zoning classifications really mean?. You might be surprised to know what could go next door and still be within the zoning classification.
c) What does the Community Plan propose for the area(s)?
d) What is the City Planner aware of for the area?
e) What is the possibility that the areas around your proposed place could be rezoned or re-purposed (shopping malls, sewer treatment plants, grain silos)
f) Where are the easements for utilities and roads located (half of the existing front lawn might actually be a public land for a road!)?
g) What are the chances that the easement could be increased or more utilized (i.e. “Hey guess what honey, we just got a letter from Kinder Morgan”; or, "Hey guess what honey, a big shopping mall is going in down the road"or, “Guess what honey, the City is building a sewerage plant and a trunk sewer line is being planned to go through our backyard”) ?
So, that is a list of stuff you need to find out before you buy the land. I am sure there are other considerations that I have missed.
If you have a building (i.e. HOUSE) on the property, there is a whole lot more you should find out. If you are really diligent, you might wind up discovering that the least of your concerns should be how close the house is to the “right school”.[/quote]
This is truly some of the best of advice i have seen on HTMF…new owners should do ALL this and more before you commit to buying or building a house on ANY piece of land (PR or not). The people on this section of Graham Avenue would have done ALL of the above (and who knows many some of them did and took the gamble anyways), they might have made a different decision about where they decided to build or purchase a home in this city.
I feel very bad for them, because, despite their ignorance or not, these people are impacted severely by this and will likely see financial hardship when trying to sell these homes. The only positive for them is they will get a break in the form a tax reduction with the reduced property assessment, but I am sure that does not make up for the loss of quality of life and money from potential reduced selling (if they can sell at all).