Estevan city council has amended its economic incentives package, increasing the number of opportunities for entrepreneurs to capitalize on to enhance Estevan’s business community.
Council approved the amended document at its meeting on April 22. Dwight “Fitz” Bramble, the economic development co-ordinator for the City of Estevan, said these incentives represent an extension of the ideas the city introduced last summer.
“We have updated it, and made some additions to it,” said Bramble.
The first incentive will involve substantial improvements to a building. If those upgrades are made, and if they increase the property’s assessment, then consideration would be given for a tax exemption for the property.
Also, if a new entity leases or rents an existing vacant building for the purpose of establishing and conducting commercial business within the city, then it would be entitled to a property tax levy exemption of up to $10,000 per year for three consecutive years.
“The business owner – the person who is renting or leasing – must enter into a net or triple net lease agreement with the property owner in order to qualify for this exemption,” said Bramble.
The city doesn’t want to be in a situation where it gives the property tax exemption to the property owner, and then the owner doesn’t pass it on to the person who is renting from them by lowering their rent.
The third exemption would be that if any new entity purchases an existing vacant building for the purpose of establishing and conducting a commercial business within Estevan, that company is entitled to a property tax exemption of a maximum of $10,000 per year for three consecutive years.
“In other words, before this incentive, the only incentive that we had was that if somebody was building a new building, they would get three years and a 100 per cent tax break.”
The city has quite a few vacant buildings that it wants to see occupied, so it is trying to encourage people to purchase buildings and start a business in them.
Also, in an extension of the storefront improvements, if a commercial property goes through storefront or façade improvements, including the paving of parking lots, it will be granted a commercial property exemption, equivalent to 75 per cent of the cost of the improvement, or $10,000, whichever is lower.
“The rationale behind it is to stimulate and to encourage particularly local businesses. A lot of small business are not building a new property. They’re not going to be in a position to do it. In order to encourage them to start up a business and make it reasonably affordable, we think that some of these incentives would help.”
Bramble said he has received a lot of inquiries and interest about the business incentives the city has. But people were saying it’s expensive to rent a place to start a business, so the city thought in an effort to accommodate those people, they should receive some tax relief.
“We’re confident that these additional incentives would really drive an increase in business activity,” said Bramble.
Mayor Roy Ludwig said after the April 22 council meeting that when they brought the incentives to the Estevan Chamber of Commerce, they had discussed bringing something like this forward.
“This is what the economic development board, in discussion with council, came up with,” said Ludwig.
