TransLink eyes $18M tax hike for Metro Vancouver residents

TransLink is facing an $18-million budget shortfall and residential property owners may be asked to pick up the tab for the transit authority.

The budget shortfall arose last November after the province cancelled a two-year-old TransLink tax on the parking spots of business and shops in the Metro Vancouver area.

TransLink will hold a public meeting Monday in Burnaby, to get the public's input on whether to tax businesses, residences or both.

But there is not much time for public input, since TransLink's board of directors must set tax rates by the end of March.

If TransLink decides to recover the lost revenue from residential property owners, the board estimates it would add about $13 to the tax bill of a home valued at $500,000.

But the chair of TransLink said taxpayers should not see the tax hike as a "new tax" because TransLink was already planning to spend the money long before the tax was considered.

"This is not a 'new tax.' It is revenue that TransLink has already factored into its long-term budgeting," said TransLink chair Dale Parker in a statement released on Friday.

While residents may not like the idea of paying more tax, TransLink said the idea has the support from the business community, which has been calling on TransLink to spread some of the tax burden to residential property owners ever since the controversial parking tax came into effect in 2006.

The public hearing will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. PT on Monday March 17 at the Firefighters' Hall, 6515 Bonsor Avenue in Burnaby, next to the Metrotown Shopping Centre.

TransLink, the regional transit authority, used to be run by a board made up of regional mayors and councillors. But in March 2007, B.C. Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon announced sweeping changes to TransLink.

The former board was replaced by a government-appointed board of professionals — accountants, lawyers and engineers who govern day-to-day operations — and by a council of 30 mayors to look at long-term planning.

One of the first moves of the new board was to hold a vote behind closed doors to give themselves pay raises without any public notice, raising their pay to more than six times what the previous board was paid.