Windsor council delays property tax payment until June 30

Windsor city councillors used a special meeting on Wednesday to unanimously approve a measure that will allow residents to defer their April property tax payment until June. 

Rather than paying by April 15, Windsor property owners — including both residential and business property owners — will be able to defer until June 30. 

Despite the deferral, council voted to allow pre-authorized payments for April, May and June to be withdrawn from residents' accounts unless otherwise cancelled by property owners. 

Any post dated cheques for the April 15 payment will be held until June 30, and will be cashed unless property owners make alternate arrangements within the deferral period. 

Additionally, charges for non-sufficient funds will be waived and there will be no late payment charges issued until June 30.

Windsor CAO Onorio Colucci said any money owed will be subject to normal penalties after June 30.

"It's not very easy to differentiate between the arrears that have been there before this initiative and those that arose out of this initiative," he said. "I just want to caution that there could be significant administrative effort required to do something that would differentiate between those two classes."

City administrators are expected to provide update reports to council sometime before June 30, in order to outline how late payments will be handled after the deferral period has ended. 

In addition to voting on deferring property tax payments, councillors said they supported a retail cannabis application brought forward by Sessions Windsor, hoping to establish a legal cannabis retail store at 650 Division Rd.