On Tuesday, May 10, the Town of Niverville announced a new tax incentive policy, Policy F4-16, to encourage the development of local business. Perhaps counterintuitively, the measure has sparked some frustration and confusion from the business community.
“This is more than just a business development policy,” Mayor Myron Dyck said at the May 10 press conference. “It encompasses socioeconomic development as well. In every community, there are growing needs. This policy addresses three important needs here in Niverville.”
The three needs addressed by these tax incentives are: (1) the development of private business on Main Street, (2) life lease housing to address the rising baby boomer population, and (3) the encouragement of additional daycare spaces to meet the present shortfall.
“This policy is the result of hours of consulting with other mayors and reeves from other communities,” Dyck said. “This policy being announced here today is not the first step that council is making in regards to economic development, nor will it be the last. It is merely another step in moving forward on the business and rec platform that we were elected on some two years ago.”
According to documents provided by the town, the tax refunds will be spaced out over a maximum of four years per business and pertain to the percentage of the annual municipal portion of levied taxes. The percentage of the refunds will be dependent on the number of jobs created and the value of the infrastructure built in the community, and decrease by 25 percent per year until the end of the four-year period.
The Chamber of Commerce, however, has some key concerns. In the days following the town’s announcement, the Chamber drafted a letter to council.
“We are particularly perturbed at the speed of the rollout of this policy,” the Chamber wrote, “and the fact that the Niverville Chamber of Commerce was not consulted during the process of developing this policy. We speak for business in the Town of Niverville, yet we had no idea that this policy was being developed… Why was no time expended in consulting with the business of this community before a policy was implemented that directly affects them?”
(For further details of the questions posed by the Chamber’s letter, view the sidebar to the right of this page.)
“What we’ve been advocating for a long time is to be this liaison between business and council,” says Mel Buhler, President of the Chamber of Commerce. “Unfortunately, once again we thought we’ve been making progress with some communication that had been going well, and all of a sudden out comes this new policy… [I feel] just genuine disappointment that once again neither the Chamber nor the business community was really asked for input on something that is huge for the community.”
Doug Dyck, Vice President of the Chamber, agrees with this assessment. “I think the tax incentive policy is great for bringing in new business, and it’s what we’ve been talking about for a long, long time. Everybody, council included. They’ve been talking about this for years,” he says. “But had we had talks earlier, roundtable discussions, bringing us to the table, I think this would look different.”
In particular, Dyck says there are so many unanswered questions that the Chamber can’t effectively advise members of the business community. “The awkwardness would be for anybody who would come to town, or not from this area, they would call someone from the Chamber [about the policy] and we would not know how to direct them.”
According to the Chamber, a key source of difficulty is the speed with which the policy has been rolled out. Policy F4-16 was enacted the morning of Friday, May 6, at a special meeting of council which members of the community were not informed about, and it was made public the following Tuesday. At that announcement, Mayor Dyck said that the policy was modelled after one in place in Morris.
“[We] checked with the Economic Development Officer in Morris and [were] informed that the Morris policy was forwarded by email to Mayor Dyck on April 29, 2016,” the Chamber writes in their letter. “That was just five business days before Policy F4-16 was enacted… Why was this policy not enacted during a regular bimonthly council meeting, the timing of which members of the community are aware?”
Not everyone in the community is displeased with the policy. Gord Daman, board member of Niverville Heritage Holdings Inc. (NHHI), which oversees the Heritage Centre, including its current life lease project, made several positive remarks at the May 10 press conference.
“We want to acknowledge and thank council for their efforts in expanding and going beyond the simple business definition and looking more toward social enterprise,” Daman said.
According to Mayor Dyck, the Heritage Centre’s life lease project, set to open next year, has been grandfathered into the policy and could receive in the range of $300,000 in tax refunds.
Daman expressed his appreciation. “I think that while the life lease is under construction, and we’re certainly committed to working to that, the funds that would be available here will help to normalize and assist over the first three to five years of operations of the life lease, and particularly… the medical centre that we’re including with the project on behalf of the community.”
Daman points to changing demographics and the need for greater senior housing options in the near future. “This may actually be the tipping point to assist with that, which will ensure that we will have that housing requirement in place for seniors as all communities in the provinces and across the country age.”
NHHI is a not-for-profit organization established by the Town of Niverville in 2005 as an arm’s length entity to own, develop, and manage assets in the town.
