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COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • DECEMBER 2017 Property assessments set for major shift after fires


BC Assessment pledges to work with property owners to determine values for the 2018 roll is the value they’re deemed to have had at July 1, 2017, the value is assigned to the condition of the properties on October 31. The wildfires that struck between those two dates mean the calculation isn’t straight-forward this year. “So if there was no buildings left on the property because of damage by October, we’re going to value that property as a vacant property and we’ll look at what the value would have been for a vacant property in July,” Bates explained. Bates encourages property


by PETER MITHAM VICTORIA – BC Assessment


Authority staff continue to comb through data and identify properties damaged by this summer’s wildfires in advance of issuing assessment notices at the end of December. “We’re continuing to identify new properties as we speak,” Duane Bates, acting vice-president of assessment with the authority told Country Life in BC last month. Northern BC, the assessment region that includes the hard-hit Cariboo, counted 246,000 properties assessed at more than $60 billion last year.


The new assessment roll could see that value dip, as assessors take into account the loss to an untold number of properties. Working with data from


local governments as well as local emergency services, news articles and homeowner reports, assessors have been able to identify most of the properties affected by the


wildfires. However, 140 properties were sent notices because the available data was inconclusive. “We only sent letters where


we had anticipation that we might have property damage and we weren’t able to verify that through any other source such as local government, regional districts [and] emergency services,” Bates explained. “Other properties, we’re still working with emergency services and local government.” Affected property owners


were contacted and asked to self-report, much as property owners around the province are asked to do from time to time as part of BC Assessment’s intermittent reviews of roll information. “No matter what we do, the


best information is always the property owner’s,” Bates said. “The property owner always knows what the property is like and what condition it’s in and what impact it’s had.” November was a critical


month for assessors. While the assessed value of properties


owners to stay in touch with the authority to ensure the assessment roll remains accurate. Should the assessments issued in January look out of whack with conditions on the ground, BC Assessment is open to making changes. “Give us a call right away.


We can make changes without putting them through the process of an appeal,” he said. “We’ll work with you – our goal is to get that assessment accurate.” Moreover, if property


owners want to know the impact reconstruction will


have on future assessments, authority staff can provide guidance. Unlike other jurisdictions


hit hard by wildfires this year, such as states in the US, a single assessor values properties in BC. This increases the chances that property owners will receive equitable treatment across the province. California landowners, by contrast, are assessed at the county level, increasing the chance of variations in how properties are treated following disasters such as wildfires.


Water access for range cattle by TOM WALKER


KAMLOOPS – Two years of consultation regarding livestock watering regulations are set to pay off, the Kamloops Stockmen’s Association heard at their fall general meeting in November.


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Forage on licensed rangeland is of no value if cows can’t access water to go along with it, but Kevin Boon of the BC Cattlemen’s Association said that’s about to change. “It looks like we are going to come to a reasonably good regulation out of it,” he said. “The big thing to understand on this is that we will retain the right to have full access to those water streams. It will be legal, and remain legal, for cattle to go into a stream to water.”


Some things in the


regulations will require extra work in terms of consultation, Boon said, but there’s a net benefit. “One of the things we


argued for was the ability to divert water from a licensed source without a second


license,” he explained. “In the past, any time you diverted water out of a stream or water works for something like an off stream waterer, you had to take a license out to do the environmentally responsible thing. That seems counter- intuitive and the government agreed.” Ranchers will now be able


to divert water out of a stream. “You will have to go


through our range officers to make sure its done in the right way,” Boon said. “And it will become part of your range plan.” Diverting water on private land will require an application to the Ministry of Environment and likely a check by a habitat officer. “We are quite happy with


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