{"id":4652,"date":"2021-10-28T10:30:45","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T13:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=4652"},"modified":"2021-11-02T10:06:56","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T13:06:56","slug":"queens-adds-new-fee-for-area-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2021\/10\/28\/queens-adds-new-fee-for-area-rate\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens discussing new fee for area rate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Road

Photo Ed Halverson<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Special interest groups looking to increase the tax burden on their neighbours may have to pony up first in the Region of Queens.<\/p>\n

Council discussed a new policy at their last meeting to levy a $250 fee for special interest groups looking for an area rate.<\/p>\n

Mayor Darlene Norman says the fee will only be charged if council decides to take the area rate request to a public meeting.<\/p>\n

Norman says anytime a public meeting is called it involves staff time, paperwork, and advertising and, just like any business, those costs need to be recovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be that, because the more we give away, then the more the taxpayer pays for things that may not be pertinent to them,\u201d said Norman.<\/p>\n

An area rate is a tax paid by property owners within a set district of the municipality.<\/p>\n

Community groups can ask the region for an additional percentage to be added to a property tax bill to be turned over to that group and used within the community.<\/p>\n

Council also talked about a change to the policy to allow homeowners who do not make Queens their permanent residence, 365 days a year, to also vote on proposed area rates.<\/p>\n

There was some discussion about how absentee owners would cast a vote but in the end Norman says the answer came down to doing what was practical.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would have to physically, be present, in order to vote at such area rate meetings,\u201d said Norman.<\/p>\n

Council will vote on the motion at an upcoming meeting.<\/p>\n

*A previous version of this article indicated council has already passed the motion. In fact it was discussed and will be voted on at an upcoming meeting.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

E-mail:\u00a0edhalversonnews@gmail.com<\/a><\/strong>
\nTwitter: @edwardhalverson<\/strong><\/p>\n

To listen to the broadcast of this story, press play below.<\/em><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Area-Rate-Oct-27-21_mixdown.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special interest groups looking to increase the tax burden on their neighbours may have to pony up first in the Region of Queens. Council discussed a new policy at their last meeting to levy a $250 fee for special interest groups looking for an area rate. Mayor Darlene Norman says the fee will only be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[230,79,24],"class_list":["post-4652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-area-rate","tag-darlene-norman","tag-region-of-queens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4652"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4663,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652\/revisions\/4663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}