City councillors will be asked this week to exempt 180 Brock St. from municipal and school taxes.
The 8,500-square-foot office building is owned by the Anglican Incorporated Synod of The Diocese of Algoma, which is leasing the former social services building to Sault Ste. Marie Police Service for $80,000 per year on a 10-year lease agreement.
Police will use it as their new downtown division, housing the traffic and canine units, collision reporting centre, Sault Ste. Marie Crime Stoppers and Victim Services of Algoma.
"The subject property is presently assessable for tax," says Melanie Borowicz-Sibenik, assistant city solicitor and senior litigation counsel.
"The diocese and Sault Ste. Marie Police Service have requested that the city enter into a municipal capital facilities agreement with the diocese to provide relief from taxes for 180 Brock St. as permitted in the Municipal Act, 2001 and Ontario Reg. 603/06," Borowicz-Sibenik says in a report prepared for a city council meeting on Tuesday.
Municipalities are allowed to exempt from all, or part of the taxes levied for municipal and school purposes, any land or a portion of it when the land is owned or leased by a person who's entered an agreement to provide municipal capital facilities and the land is entirely occupied and used for a municipal service or function.
The request for tax relief comes as Ward 1 Coun. Sonny Spina is preparing to introduce a motion at the May 12 city council meeting asking Tom Vair, the city's chief administrative officer, to send a letter to Ontario’s solicitor general requesting pricing for switching to Ontario Provincial Police protection for the city.
As SooToday's Darren Taylor reported earlier this month, the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service is believed to have spent over its 2024 budget by approximately $2.5 million.
"Year over year, the cost of policing in the City of Sault Ste. Marie has risen at a rate higher than the rate of inflation," says a resolution drafted by Spina and Ward 4 Coun. Stephan Kinach for the May 12 meeting.
"The rising costs of police services must be paid by taxpayers. The rising cost of policing in the City of Sault Ste. Marie is not sustainable," the resolution says.
Spina is a former Sault Ste. Marie Police Service officer.
Here, according to Spina, is how local police spending has increased in Sault Ste. Marie over seven years:
- 2019 - $25,526,849
- 2020 - $27,539,145
- 2021 - $29,570,897
- 2022 - $32,001,282
- 2023 - $33,266,836
- 2024 - $37,129,723
- 2025 - $39,650,897
Councillors will also be asked this week to grant similar tax exemptions for Sault Ste. Marie Housing Corp. properties at 548 Albert St. East and 721 Wellington St. East.
This week's city council meeting will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
The Sault's council meetings are usually held on Mondays, but this week's meeting will be on Tuesday to allow council members, city staff and the public to vote in Monday's federal election.
- with files from James Hopkin