Given the accuracy of recent media reports, it has to be asserted that the business license fees in Vernon are being hiked unreasonably for the less fortunate in our community — day cares and affordable housing.
While the recent editorial suggests that the fee increases will be passed on to the client base, this is not true for affordable housing where rent levels are controlled to allow only a 2.2 per cent maximum increase for 2014 as set, on an annual basis, by the B.C. Rental Tenancy Branch.
To use your editorial example, the business license for three rooms to rent would go from $40 to $115, an almost 300 per cent increase.
Notwithstanding this unreasonable attack on affordable housing, as to the proposed business license increases, they are in addition to the ongoing increases this industry is facing with respect to electricity, city utilities and taxes.
Simply, the proposed increases are out of step with all of the efforts and policies of the city, re. affordable housing.
As such, it is assumed the city’s affordable housing committee, like-minded agencies and the community in general, are challenging the wisdom of the proposed increases which require immediate cancellation.
Jed Astin
Coldstream
