Legion tax hike resolved

By Dan Hilborn
Published June 21, 2006


Officials at the North Burnaby Legion are breathing a sigh of relief this week after a "computer error" almost left the association paying a staggering $18,117 property tax increase this year.

Sam Castagner, secretary and manager of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 148, said the tax hike, which has since been whittled down to a more manageable $7,000, serves as a reminder why so many Legion halls have been forced to close across Canada in the past few years.

"If our taxes continue to go up the way they have this year, we're probably not going to be able to stay in business," Castagner said Monday morning. "Lots of Legions have gone down because of this."

The Legion, which has been located at 4356 Hastings St. for the past 69 years, is considering a plan to ask Burnaby city hall for a formal property tax exemption to allow them to keep their doors open for the future.

Castagner said this year's large tax increase was caused by several factors, the most notable being a wholesale reassessment of the legion's property class from what was largely recreational use to its new assessment as business use.

The North Burnaby facility, which went from being worth $1.698 million last year to more than $2.1 million this year, saw a huge change in its usage classification. Last year, Legion No. 148 was deemed to have $993,000 in business use property and $553,000 in recreational use. This year, those numbers changed to $1.911 million for business use and only $152,000 in recreational uses.

Those numbers are important because businesses pay a much higher tax rate than recreational properties - $12.96 per $1,000 of assessed value, compared to only $2.18 for recreational use, according to the 2006 Burnaby annual operating budget.

Other increases on the Legion's 2006 tax bill included an additional $1,250 in the Heights Business Improvement Area levy, plus a $591 increase for the new TransLink parking tax.

Castagner said the B.C. Assessment Authority quickly admitted it erred when it reclassified the Legion's property to a largely business use.

"It was a computer error, I was told," Castagner said, adding that the correction was made within one week of the original complaint being filed on May 29.

Now, the North Burnaby Legion is in the early stages of working with two other Royal Canadian Legion properties in Burnaby - Branch No. 48 on Grimmer Street and the TB Vets' facility on Graveley Street - to formally obtain an exemption from paying property taxes, Castagner said.

She noted that at least one Legion hall in the Fraser Valley already has tax exempt status, as does the Legion in York, Ont., where federal NDP member Jack Layton is a member.

In addition, property tax increases were the primary reason why Legion No. 48 at Kingsway and Joyce was forced to close in the past few years, she added.

The North Burnaby Legion currently has almost 800 members, Castagner said, and makes most of its money from its licensed lounge, which has one of the few Workers' Compensation Board- approved smoking rooms in the region.

Branch No. 148 also donates approximately $30,000 each year from its poppy drive to local charities, while their daily meat draws are used to fund scholarships and donations to the local hospital, Christmas Bureau and sports teams.

Castagner said the spirit of giving is one of the main reasons why the Royal Canadian Legion exists today.

"The Legion originally started as a service organization for veterans coming back from the First World War," Castagner said. "Back in those days, few wives had a bank account, and if something happened to the husband, the wife was penniless until they straightened things out at the bank.

"The Legion started out a benevolent fund for the widows, and then they decided to do more. Basically, to help families who are destitute and to provide services."

She noted that the Lower Mainland Legions helped start up the New Chelsea Housing Society which today runs seven different facilities in the region, including several in Burnaby.

Castagner also said she is averse to the suggestion that the Legion might have to move if its property taxes become too high in the Heights, and she points to the recent history of the New Westminster branch as an example of what can go wrong once a non- profit association starts speculating on real estate.

The New Westminster Legion, Branch No. 2, which was forced out of its original location to make way for the construction of the first SkyTrain line, has moved two times in the past two decades and only recently settled down in its current location on Sixth Street.

"If we were going to sell this, where would we go?" Castagner asked. "Our members all live in this community, and we've been established since 1937, so you can't just pull up your roots and move to Coquitlam."

One thing that would help the Legion stay put would be a substantial increase in membership, Castagner said.

"If we get the people, we'll get the money," she said. "We have live bands on Friday and Saturday, meat draws every day plus karaoke and darts and crib and air conditioning."