The City of Yorkton will put forward a resolution at the upcoming Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) Convention.
The decision to but forward the resolution was a unanimous one for Yorkton Council at its regular meeting Monday.
The resolution came about in response to an issue identified locally.
Each Year during the SUMA Convention “urban municipalities have an opportunity to present an issue to the membership requesting their endorsement for SUMA to address the issue with either provincial or federal governments or another agency, in order for action to be taken to remedy the concern being raised,” Kathy Ritchie, Director of Legislation and Procedures (City Clerk), told Council.
“It was recently brought to Administration’s attention that Information Services Corporation (ISC) charges a fee of 0.1 per cent of the property value to produce a title for the consolidation of lots. Initially it was thought that the fee was based on the land value.
“For the particular case in point, a property had applied for a building permit for a large addition to their existing building. In order to meet the National Building Code requirements and the City’s Zoning Bylaw – parking requirements, the City permitted the addition and requested that the property owner consolidate the six parcels of land adjoined to the main property, in order to satisfy the code and bylaw requirements. It was estimated the fee would be approximately $4,000.00 as the six parcels of land that would be consolidated were valued at approximately four million dollars.
“However, ISC’s fee quote came back at $10,000, as the six million dollar value of the building on the land, is to be included in the fee calculation. This fee would be paid by the property owner and while they were willing to pay the $4,000, they refuse to pay the additional $6,000. There is an alternate option for the property owner to instead have all six pieces of property tied to each other, so as to eliminate the ability of the owner to sell any one of those lots, as they would need to be held together in order to meet the above code requirements. This option is not Administration’s desired option. The preference is to consolidate the property into one legal parcel as that would consolidate tax records, minimize legal land descriptions, synchronize legal boundaries with ownership and land use and neaten maps by reducing excess line work. Administration therefore requested that council submit to the 2016 SUMA Convention the resolution.”
The resolution being put forward reads; “Be it resolved that the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association advocate with the Provincial Government and the Information Services Corporation to reduce fees by having separate line items which identify parcel value (land only), creating a flat fee or a ‘fee per lot’ service, and apply a separate rate structure for transactions where the owner remains the same.”
