A series of Service New Brunswick’s 2022 property tax assessments involving industrial facilities in Saint John that went up and then down after homeowners ’objections add to concerns about how the agency values property in the city.
“I’ve seen it for the last five, six, seven, eight years. I definitely don’t think we’re having a fair shake-up,” Saint John counselor Gerry Lowe said.
“We are totally surrounded by heavy industry and we pay the highest taxes in this province and that is what is happening.”
Updated real estate appraisals for Saint John in late May show adjustments made by Service New Brunswick since the 2022 notices were first sent to homeowners last October. These include about $ 2 million in reductions on a number of industry-linked properties that the agency had originally assigned higher taxable values.
Coun. Gerry Lowe is located on a hill overlooking Irving Oil Ltd.’s sea and rail terminal. on the east side. Lowe believes Service New Brunswick undervalues industrial properties in Saint John, costing the city tax revenue. (Robert Jones / CBC)
At Irving Oil Ltd’s maritime and rail terminal in Courtney Bay, east of Saint John, valuations were initially issued for 2022 totaling $ 6.27 million to three adjacent properties covering 11 , 8 acres, including the railroad yard used to unload crude oil from trains.
The amount was an increase of $ 417,900 (seven percent) over the 2021 valuations, but records show that it has since dropped by $ 389,100.
Service New Brunswick also reduced the taxable value of several Irving Oil pipelines in Saint John by $ 140,000 and reduced a $ 94,700 increase in the valuation of a property the company owns behind the Dedication Street refinery to at an increase of $ 5,000.
Every $ 100,000 in appraised value of an industrial property in Saint John is worth $ 2,565 in tax revenue for the city.
Service New Brunswick and Irving Oil Ltd. they did not respond to requests for information on the amounts of the 2022 assessment and how they were reduced.
But Lowe is convinced he is part of a pattern of friendly treatment of the city’s industrial properties that keeps his tax bills low, forcing other homeowners to pay more than they should pay.
“We get smoke and gas and tractor-trailers and trains whistling all night and people move to the suburbs for that,” Lowe said.
“Taxes are based on appraisal and rates are low.”
An Irving Oil pipeline that feeds the Coleson Cove power plant passes by Highway 1. (Robert Jones / CBC)
Industrial property rates and taxes are often a sensitive issue in Saint John. But this year is accentuated by the cancellation in May of a long-promised revision of the New Brunswick Service valuation of the Irving Oil refinery.
In 2022, the refinery’s main ownership is estimated to be worth $ 104.4 million, an increase of $ 7.6 million (eight percent) from 10 years ago.
That’s less than a third of the inflation rate over the same period, although Irving Oil has spent more than $ 500 million on repairs and facility improvements since 2014 at maintenance events called Operation Falcon , Operation Red Fox, Operation Sandpiper and Operation. Wolf.
In canceling the review of the refinery’s valuation, which Prime Minister Blaine Higgs had personally committed to three years ago, New Brunswick Service Minister Mary Wilson told the Legislature that the agency did not think the company would reveal any hidden taxable value.
“Following ongoing discussions with Service New Brunswick’s property appraisal services team and a review of current information, the government has ensured that the current appraisal of the Irving Oil refinery is it is within the acceptable value range and a revision is not recommended at this time, “Wilson said
New Brunswick Minister of Service Mary Wilson told the Legislature in May that the province was abandoning a promised valuation review of the Irving Oil refinery. (Jacques Poitras / CBC News)
Lowe called this a disappointment and is further frustrated by news that Service New Brunswick has backtracked on some of its other industry valuations.
At Saint John’s Chesley Drive, Ocean Steel had a $ 257,000 increase in its 2022 valuation reduced by 60 percent. At the Coleson Cove generating plant, NB Power earned a $ 371,800 reduction on a seabed property it uses as a coolant source for the plant.
Service New Brunswick increased the appraised value of the six-square-mile submarine plot in 2021 by $ 410,000 after a “re-inspection” of its value, but this year most of it was withdrawn following a complaint from NB Power.
“We discussed our concerns with SNB (Service New Brunswick) about the substantial increase in the 2021 assessment for this water lot,” NB Power spokesman Marc Belliveau wrote in an email.
Service New Brunswick increased the appraised value of a submarine lot used to access seawater by NB Power’s Coleson Cove generating plant by $ 410,500 in 2021 based on its own analysis of its value. It then reduced the valuation to $ 371,800 in 2022 following the company’s objections. (Shane Fowler / CBC News)
“After a series of meetings on its methodology on how the value of the land was arrived at, and after explaining our own analysis of the value of the property, SNB lowered the appraisal value for 2022.”
JD Irving Ltd had also increased the valuations of some of its reduced properties after the first issuance of the 2022 valuations.
Three properties on the west side of Saint John, near the company’s Dever Road railroad yard, were initially issued appraisals for 2022 for a total of $ 6.57 million, $ 530,800 more than in 2021. From then this increase has been halved.
Service New Brunswick also increased the appraised value of the former Telegraph-Journal building on Crown Street in October by $ 116,200 to $ 1.25 million just to accept a reduction of $ 331,800. The building is now valued and taxed at $ 920,000.
Ocean Steel on Saint John’s Chesley Drive has had a valuation increase of $ 257,000 by 2022 reduced by more than half. The property is now estimated to be worth $ 4.1 million, up 3.4% in 10 years. (Robert Jones / CBC)
Anne McInerney, vice president of communications for JD Irving Ltd, said in an email that the company was challenging ratings it considers too high “like any taxpayer.”
He said that this year most of the company’s objections were unsuccessful and, in “the small number of cases” where reductions were earned in Saint John, “Service New Brunswick determined that the original ratings were too high. and modified them accordingly “.
McInerney also noted that an increased valuation at the company’s Reversing Falls pasta factory, which increased by $ 9.64 million in 2022 as part of a $ 450 million multi-year modernization, “he compensate more than “the reductions in ratings he earned elsewhere.