From Niagara This Week:

Councillors in wards with a high concentration of students have asked that the provincial body determining assessment rates treat single family homes converted into student housing differently.

In a question and answer session following a presentation to council by local Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) representative Penny Christie, St. Andrew’s ward councillors Andrew Gill and Joe Kushner asked whether those homes would be assessed at a higher rate than single-family residences.

After being frozen for two years, the assessment for properties across Ontario are being updated based on what they could have sold for on Jan. 1, 2008.

The city uses the assessment to determine the amount of property tax charged against each home. To prevent homeowners from potential sudden jumps, the increases will be phased in over a four-year period, though decreases will take effect immediately.

Christie said all values are calculated by analyzing property sales.

“We do not create the market,” she told councillors. “We only evaluate the sales — and only valid sales.”

Christie said the only way for student housing to be assessed at a higher rate than similar properties occupied by single families is if the sales reflect that these student homes are commending a higher price on the market.

“It’s whatever the sales show,” she said.

As an example, she said there was a similar question in Niagara Falls regarding bed and breakfast operations. Previously, those properties were not selling higher than residential homes. It was only in the last assessment, she said, that these bed and breakfasts were found to be selling for more.

Christie also said it’s difficult to identify which homes are student housing if the municipality does not keep a list.

Gill said he is in possession of an exhaustive list created by the citizen’s group, St. Catharines Association of Concerned Citizens.

“The list is quite staggering,” he said.

Christie said the list could be forwarded to the manager responsible for evaluations, but warned analyzing the market to determine if student housing is being sold higher would not be “an overnight job.”

Interviewed Tuesday, Kushner said he hopes a re-assessment might dissuade more student housing from being created.

“If homes that are selling for student housing are selling at a higher price, then that means they would end up paying more taxes and that would discourage people from converting their homes into student housing,” he said.

He said the oversupply of such homes is already causing some properties to be converted back.

“Some people are converting, but other people are doing the opposite,” he said. “So it’s going both ways.”

Homeowners in Niagara will begin receiving their 2008 assessment notices from MPAC on Nov. 3.