Downtown Eastside landlords notorious for owning troubled SRO hotels may be the next commercial land owners in Vancouver to get a whopping tax break by designating property as a community garden.
The Sahota family who own the Astoria Hotel on East Hastings Street through a company (Yang-Myung Holdings Ltd.) are benefiting from a program that allows commercial properties to be re-classified as a public park or garden. The so-called "Class 8" property classification permits owners of commercial property to pay one-fifth of their normal tax bill.
Tax breaks totaling in the millions of dollars have been given to developers and commercial property owners during a year where the City of Vancouver is facing a multi-million dollar budget shortfall. The Sahotas were approached about using their property by a community organization named Greening the Inner-City looking to create an "urban farm" to train up to a dozen area citizens as food gardeners.
Empty lots beside the Astoria Hotel (769 East Hastings) to Hawks Avenue have an assessed value of $8.3 million. The normal tax bill would be approximately $165,000. As a Class 8 property the tax bill could be reduced to as low as $33,000, providing an annual savings of $132,000.
The Astoria Hotel has been the centre of several complaints by tenants over the years.
The BCAA will announce their ruling on the Sahota property on Dec. 4.
