Metro Vancouver approves 2025 budget with 10% increase in taxes, fees

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Metro Vancouver’s board of directors approved a 2025 budget with an almost 10 per cent increase in taxes and fees on Friday, although North Shore directors staged a last-minute attempt to pare some of that back.

The budget, which Metro estimates will increase taxes and fees to an annual $875 per household, on average, was crafted to address what the regional district characterized as necessary to catch up on deferred infrastructure expenses.

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City of North Vancouver Mayor Linda Buchanan tried to get the Metro board to reconsider the 9.9 per cent increase, arguing that the “hike is unsustainable for many households in our community.”

“Families are struggling with rising costs of living, increased housing expenses,” Buchanan said. Adding this budget’s increase to the burden “could push many families to their financial breaking point.”

Buchanan said approval of the 2025 budget follows Metro’s decision to dramatically increase development cost charges in a process that was criticized as not being transparent. In the same year North Shore taxpayers were hit with huge future fee increases by the massively over-budget North Shore wastewater treatment plant.

District of North Vancouver Coun. Lisa Muri echoed Buchanan’s sentiments that the region is “growing beyond our ability to absorb the needs of people coming into the region, and we need to pull way back.”

The Metro Vancouver board turned down motions that Buchanan and Muri made seeking to reduce the increase and asking staff to adopt “zero-based” budgeting as a measure to control spending.

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Burnaby Coun. Sav Dhaliwal framed the North Shore motions as “11th-hour and 59-minute” requests that were too late and impossible to deal with considering the budget involves projects already in progress.

Most of Metro’s budget is tied up in building major infrastructure, which Dhaliwal said contribute to making Metro “a livable region.” He added that tinkering with the 2025 budget at the last minute wouldn’t accomplish a lot.

“At the best, you’re going to save another couple of bucks a year, and we set (infrastructure development) back,” Dhaliwal said.

He added that it is unfair to compare Metro’s tax and fee increases against household inflation, which has been around three to four per cent in the past couple of years, because Metro’s budget is driven by the purchases of steel, concrete and labour costs that are “running way beyond in double digits.”

Directors did, however, agree to look at setting up a task force to examine spending and board governance as part of its 2026 budget process.

Dhaliwal said the board would be better off bringing forward Buchanan and Muri’s recommendations to the start of Metro’s 2026 budget process next spring.

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Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke agreed to the suggestion of two task forces, one on the budget with a view to controlling spending, one to examine Metro’s governance structure.

Board chair Mike Hurley said he “heard loud and clearly all week, and certainly over a few months, the concerns that people are not fully confident in how we’re doing our budgeting.”

“And that work will start immediately next year,” Hurley added.

Buchanan said she was disappointed her motions were defeated, but the meeting sends a message that other directors are keen to look at a “new financial framework.”

“I think it’s a step,” Buchanan said. “I’m feeling good, probably the most optimistic I’ve felt in quite a long time.”

depenner@postmedia.com

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