CBRM council voted on a 5%, across-the-board — residential and commercial — property tax cut this week. I think this chart, from the province’s Open Data portal, helps provide some perspective on this. It shows average Nova Scotia municipal residential property tax rates from 2009/10 to 2020/21. (It’s interactive, youRead More

Welcome to Part II of what has turned into a two-part series based on the first half of a two-hour CBRM council budget workshop. Just me, working my magic, folks. Those rising Nova Scotia house prices described in Part I led to a 10.8% overall increase in residential assessments acrossRead More

Finally we are seeing common sense being applied in the Council Chambers of City Hall. Darren Bruckschwaiger, Earlene MacMullin, Cyril MacDonald and Gordon MacDonald are using the God-given common sense that the CBRM taxpayers cannot afford higher taxes whether in the form of raising taxes or lifting the CAP. NowRead More

I wrote about Nova Scotia’s Capped Assessment Program (CAP) for municipal property taxes at some length back in 2017, drawing heavily on a report on the subject commissioned by the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities (NSFM) which would dearly love to throw the CAP high in the air, like MaryRead More

District 6 is located almost entirely within the former city of Sydney — including the neighborhoods of Ashby and the Southend —  but also encompasses a section of Grand Lake Road. It’s shaped sort of like a single-cup coffee filter. (I’ve just realized that I’m probably telling you more aboutRead More

I needed three electronic devices and one notebook to follow last night’s CBRM council proceedings from home. I tuned into the livestream on my phone and cast it to my television, but the image was flickering so badly I was afraid it might trigger a light-induced seizure, so I openedRead More

Nova Scotia’s Capped Assessment Program (CAP) is a hot mess. The motivation behind it is laudable: no one should lose their house because its assessed value has skyrocketed and they can no longer afford the taxes. If you own a modest home along the Mira River, for example, and Ritchie McRitchfaceRead More