Saskatoon forced to apply new levy as province dumps cost of school land purchases

An upcoming land levy for all new single-family home builds in Saskatoon sparked plenty of debate over government responsibilities, and raised affordability concerns at City Hall on Wednesday.

The new high school land levy is meant to help the city buy land for the construction of a new high school in Holmwood, a neighborhood being developed on the northeast and eastern edges of the city.

Housing developers oppose the new levy, which will charge $175.80 per front meter of housing beginning January 1.

"Based on this amount, the proposed levy would add roughly $2,000 to the cost of every single family lot at a time when we're in the midst of a housing crisis," Saskatoon and Region Homebuilders' Association CEO Nicole Burgess said during council's regular business meeting on Wednesday.

Establishing the levy will support the future purchase of 28 acres of land for new high school sites, but it will also cover the city's share of nine acres of land for the upcoming high school and leisure centre.

Discussion quickly turned to why the city is paying for the land at all , since education is a provincial responsibility.

"The reason we're having this conversation is this is a download by the provincial government onto municipalities across Saskatchewan — full stop," Ward 10 Coun. Zach Jeffries said.

For decades, the province would buy all necessary land before building and opening any school.

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But changes to the Planning and Development Act in 2018 passed the responsibility of providing sufficient land for schools on to municipalities.

This is the first time the city has had to plan for a new high school since the changes took effect, and councillors weren't too pleased.

"The impact of their decision is either a levy or a tax increase, and I'm not sure they understood that," Donauer said.

The city negotiated for months before the province agreed to pay half of the $7.5 million for the land, forcing councillors to come up with roughly $3.7 million to complete the purchase.

Donauer was quick to point out that larger cities like Regina and Saskatoon suffer the worst under this scheme, because an acre of land can cost upwards of $1 million.

"What we're being required to set aside might be the size of an entire town that has to provide land for their school," Donauer said.

"Municipalities just don't have that taxing authority to pay for education in schools or health care or any of the other things that are provincial and federal responsibility, so it's really unfortunate."

Administration was able to strike a deal with Dream Asset Management at a 15 per cent discount for a total of cost of $834,000 per acre.

The city left with few options after the province set a deadline to have the land purchased by the fall.

"The longer it takes to get the levy established, the more the interest is accruing on the cost of the land that we need to buy this fall," said Lynn Lacroix, general manager of community services.

With Saskatoon growing at a rate of roughly three per cent each year, councillors know it’s only a matter of time before another school is needed, and they plan on lobbying the province to amend the legislation to avoid additional tax hikes or levies.

"Let's come together as a province and say no provincial government, you can do better," Burgess said.

"This is not going to work for our communities."