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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Tax credits for flood victims
One-time grants aim to stabilize assessments
Steve Topping of Manitoba Water Stewardship (left) with Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Steve Ashton at Monday's announcement. (SARAH O. SWENSON / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store
Flood-ravaged municipalities will get a one-time, tax-credit grant this year to ease the financial burden on property owners from last year's widespread flooding.
Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Steve Ashton, the minister responsible for emergency measures, said Monday the credit is aimed at reducing the tax pressure on those property owners whose homes or cottages were not destroyed or severely damaged.
"When you have some properties within a municipality that have a reduction in assessment, the remaining properties that don't have reduction in assessment end up having a shift in taxes," Ashton said. "We're trying to neutralize tax shifts."
The eligible municipalities are Alonsa, Ochre River, Siglunes, St. Laurent, Grahamdale, Coldwell and Lawrence.
"Our goal here is to reconstruct," Ashton said. "That will have a benefit over time of getting the assessment values back."
The province will also now cover 90 per cent of the $1.7 million it cost for Brandon to prepare for flooding on the Assiniboine River. The province had originally agreed to pay $800,000.
Ashton also said the province has hired an additional eight appraisers from Quebec to inspect flood-damaged properties and 14 more people to process flood claims. More than 100 people are already working on flood claims.
To date, more than 30,000 flood claims have been filed, three times the number submitted after the 1997 flood, with more than $650 million in compensation paid out so far.
"By no means is that the final total," Ashton said. "We fully recognize that there are many outstanding claims. Our goal is to get as many of these cases processed as soon as possible."
The increase in staff comes after recent criticism from cottagers at Twin Lakes Beach and others who've complained the province is moving too slowly in compensating people for their losses.
At the same time, 2,440 people still remain out of their homes because of last year's flooding -- all but 11 are from flooded-out First Nations.
Ashton also said the Lake Manitoba Regulation Review Committee, examining what the operating levels of Lake Manitoba should be, will soon be asking for public input. The committee's report is due in several months.
The province has said in the interim those wanting to rebuild soon will have to raise their properties an average of five to six feet to meet the new flood levels, based on the peak of last year's flood on the lake. That means the ground floors of new structures are to be built to a height of 822.1 feet above sea level.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 8, 2012 B1
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