Bunkhouse relief

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario farmers with bunkhouses assessed as residential will pay lower property taxes on those buildings starting next year because the province is changing their classification to farm.

After years of lobbying, farm groups have finally convinced the finance ministry to change the farm bunkhouse property tax classification to farm from residential. The change is effective Jan. 1, 2011 and it means farmers with residences that house temporary workers will pay the farm property tax rate on those buildings. The farm tax rate is 75 per cent lower than the residential rate.
 
The finance ministry estimates there are 2,000 bunkhouses on farms across Ontario used to house workers on a temporary or seasonal basis. Not all of them were assessed as residential.

Brian Gilroy, chair of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, says when somebody applied for a building permit to upgrade or rebuild a bunkhouse that’s when they were being assessed at the residential rate. But “a lot of existing bunkhouses were still at the farm rate.”

He calls the change “a welcome Christmas present.”

The change will save farmers a total of $1 million to $1.5 million annually in property taxes, Gilroy says.
 
It isn’t clear yet if the change is retroactive and if a refund is in the works for farmers with bunkhouses currently assessed as residential.

Adrian Huisman, manager of the Ontario Tender Fruit Producers’ Marketing Board, says he asked several local provincial members of parliament on Monday if the change is retroactive. “They said they never even thought of it.”

Huisman says they told him they’d be going back to Duncan and asking “him for clarification on that.”

Farmers want the change to be retroactive, he adds.

Finance ministry officials couldn’t respond by the deadline for this posting.

Bette Jean Crews, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, says the federation has asked the government to make the change for a number of years.

Last summer and this spring many farmers told federation leaders the residential classification on bunkhouses was affecting them, Crews says. “We renewed our lobby and the (finance) minister listened. We appreciate that.”

Crews says the change isn’t a tax break for farmers but a “justifiable tax rate.” If municipalities lose income because of the change then the provincial government should increase funding to municipalities, she adds. BF