# Assessment Data

## Extra School Tax

Impacts of the Extra School Tax in City of Vancouver

The new BC provincial budget had lots of interesting changes. One of them is the additional school tax on residential properties, charged at a rate of 2 basis points (0.002) of the assessed value above $3M and an additional 2 basis points of the assessed value above$4M. After some initial confusion the province clarified that this tax will not to apply to purpose built rental buildings, each of which is typically one single taxable property, which can easily breach the \$3M threshold for multi-unit buildings.

## Taxable Dwelling Density

When density maps mostly just show population density.

Vancouver pushed out a heatmap of dwelling units that have so far failed to declare their empty homes tax status. With everyone eagerly awaiting data on the empty homes tax declaration we wonder what can be learned from the map. Turns out not much, the city did not normalize by the number of dwelling units subject to the tax. So to first order, this is just a heatmap of where people live, which xkcd coined pet peeve #208.

## Zoned for Who?

What income do you need to buy a single family home in Vancouver?

The night before the council hearing discussing the character home zoning review and changes to duplex zoning we decided to spend some time understanding for who we keep 67% of residential land zoned as “single family” (RS), and another 2% as quasi single family in First Shaugnessey (FSD) and 9% as “duplex” (RT). Keeping things simple, let’s just look at RS. Who Can Afford To Buy? That’s a pretty easy question to answer.

## The Vienna Model

Comparing Vancouver and Vienna Land Use