Residents who lost their homes are racing to submit their rebuild permits before increased off-site levies potentially come into effect, according to some Jasper municipal councillors.

But municipal administration clarified that the proposed changes will only affect net-new development.

Councillor Wendy Hall said she supported updating the proposed off-site levies bylaw, but had heard concerns from residents in rebuild mode that they’d be subjected to new fees.  

“It just feels a bit inequitable that those who were able to get through their insurance process or had capacity to get through the first year and a half after the fire are able to take advantage of the old rates,” she said.

Councillor Laurie Rodger said he had also heard about “the race to the deadline” and asked if other municipalities had a way of dealing with this.

Beth Sanders, director of Urban Design and Standards, clarified that off-site levies will only apply to new dwelling units, and not like-for-like rebuilds or an expansion of a unit’s size. Council also has the ability to decide when the new rates come into effect.

Coun. Hall suggested those were important points of clarification. 

Sanders boiled down the issue that council is facing as they consider the bylaw.

“The trade-off that you’ll need to wrestle with is if we’re not collecting those fees, then the cost of additional infrastructure is going to be on future taxpayers,” Sanders said.

Council gave first reading to the bylaw. A public hearing will first be held on March 24 before any further decisions are made. This was changed from March 17 to accommodate the mayor’s schedule.

Transit concerns on repeat

Amid concerns about municipal overspending, the Jasper Park Chamber of Commerce (JPCC) is requesting a meeting with council and more financial information on the municipal transit service.

JPCC president Troy Mills wrote in a letter to council that businesses were alarmed about rising municipal costs, which were leading to “unsustainable” tax increases.

“Connected with this concern are increasing apprehensions about financial reporting practices which obscure actual cost to the community of some municipal operating segments,” Mills wrote. 

Mills said a transit service update on Jan. 17 had heightened the JPCC’s apprehensions. During this update, Coun. Laurie Rodger had asserted that the true municipal contribution to transit was made unclear and that not including visitor paid parking revenue was “misleading.” Not all councillors agreed with this assertion.

In Mills’ letter, the JPCC board of directors are requesting a detailed income and expense statement for the municipal transit program for 2025—to compare with 2025 budget projections and planning documents. The board also wanted an opportunity for members to discuss their concerns with council.

On Tuesday (Feb. 17), CAO Bill Given told council that this financial information would be available once the regular third-party audit was completed, which he said will be later this spring.

Coun. Wendy Hall said that while she appreciated how the funding might not be transparent to some residents, she reiterated that it was clear to her; she noted council had made a policy choice to use paid parking revenue to fund transit.

“[Lack of] transparency should not be confused with potential disagreement over policy choices,” Hall said. “This was a policy decision that we made, to apply visitor paid parking money to transit.”

Mayor Richard Ireland said council could wait until the financial information was available before deciding on the Chamber’s requests. He will also write a letter to inform the Chamber about the forthcoming information, and to acknowledge receipt of its correspondence.

Last fall, Ireland responded to a different letter that Mills wrote on behalf of the JPCC. In that correspondence, Ireland took Mills to task for what he called “misguided and misinformed” assertions.

Peter Shokeir, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter // info@thejasperlocal.com