This is a long post. This conversation about property taxation is nuanced. Short and snappy explanations would do the topic and readers a disservice.
Overview This post is going to talk about:
Budgeting principles and process,
How rates have changed and what they mean,
What makes a historic budget, and
My perspective on how and why we collect taxes.
The Budget It’s time to talk about money and budgets! It’s not ‘fun’ nor ‘glamorous,’ but it is a necessary conversation – one that is inevitable. Every year about this time, people receive their property tax bills, and questions arise. Port Moody uses zero-based budgeting, which means re-evaluating and justifying all costs to align with strategic goals and core functions. Departments are asked to provide the cost to provide “status quo” service, meaning nothing new. Any new programs or services need to be justified. It can mean cutting unnecessary spending, too. It does not mean a zero percent increase, because costs (wages, benefits, materials) generally keep rising, though it is possible.
Cities are struggling to figure out what to keep in the budget, what can be cut without impacting services, and how they are going to pay for it all. Some communities have access to revenue sources that we don’t have, like gaming revenue, but the majority rely on property taxation for their primary source of revenue. In Port Moody, about 57% of our land area is taxable (i.e., not parks). Of this 57%, a significant portion is either not taxable (schools, hospitals) or subject to tax rate restrictions (utilities, some port properties).
The number that gets the headlines is the average percent increase in residential taxes.
For Port Moody, the municipal residential tax increase for 2026 was 3.95% or $121 (4% or $128 with Drainage) for the average home. The average residential home means the average assessed value of all residential properties (condo, townhomes, single-family, etc.). In 2026, the average assessed value is $1,220,000.
36% of your total tax bill goes to other government agencies , including Translink, Metro Vancouver and the BC government. The city collects money on behalf of these organizations but does not input on the rates or dollar amounts.
64% of your tax bill is the municipal portion – this portion increased by 3.95% for the average home.
A quick note about percentages: percentages can sound dramatic in budget discussions — but they don’t always tell the full story. A small budget line that doubles might show a 100% increase, but that could mean going from $1,000 to $2,000. Meanwhile, a 1% increase in a $10 million budget adds $100,000 — a much bigger real impact.
Percentages show the rate of change not the scale. This is one of the many reasons why it is hard to compare budget increases between cities.
So the budget that gets all the attention is the operating budget . This is the amount of money a city needs to pay its employees’ salaries and benefits, contracts and fees, supplies and equipment, vehicles, debt payments, utilities and training (image from the 2026 Budget Breakdown ).
The operating budget impacts the tax rate.
2026 Budget Breakdown, City of Port Moody.
The capital budget and the projects proposed do not affect the amount of tax collected this year. A small amount is allocated annually to reserves. Each year, we add 1% for an asset levy because of the backlog of repairs and projects needed to make our city function, such as sewer and road projects. This year, 18% of revenues collected are earmarked for reserves to pay for future capital projects – this is our savings.
The projects in the 2026 Capital Plan are funded from reserves – savings accounts that the city uses to pay for projects. 2026 projects are not funded from the operating budget and are not responsible for any budget increase. The projects identified for 2026 are not affected by the current year’s budget allocation to reserves. The money for these projects has already been collected over prior years.
The city continually puts money into reserves so we can pay for projects in the future. This is like a household putting money into a savings account because a new roof will be needed in the next five years.
Tax rates So back to the tax rate…I’ve heard that we’ve had “historic” tax increases in the last few years, and I wanted to see if that was accurate. To compare, I looked at the year-over-year percent change (YoY %Δ) in my property taxes over the 20 years I have owned property here, YoY %Δ in my property’s assessed value, and the municipal residential tax increase (%) over the same time period.
I was also curious about how many times I paid less than the average municipal residential tax increase: 12 out of 20 tax years. There were also five instances where I paid less than the previous year: 2012, 2015, 2017, 2022 and 2026. (Side note: in 2020, when the municipal tax increase was the second lowest in 30 years, I paid 4% more than in 2019 ).
Here’s a chart of the annual municipal tax rate increase, the change in my home value (year-over-year change), and the change in the property taxes paid (year-over-year change):
And the table of data, for reference:
Table note: Red cells denote higher than median annual increase since 1996.
Since 2006, when I started paying taxes, the average increase for my property has been 6.8%. Over the same time period, my property has increased an average of 10% (of course, there are peaks and valleys which can be seen in the chart).
In the last four years, the average increase has been 4.2% per year for my home.
The main theme of this data is that if my property’s assessed value declined, I generally paid less property tax than the average. There are a few cases where the assessed value increased, but I still paid less – that is because my property value increase (% change) was lower than the average change in assessed value. BC Assessment has a helpful image (image and more information found here ).
BC Assessment: https://info.bcassessment.ca/services-and-products/Pages/Property-Assessments-and-Property-Taxes.aspx
There is also a helpful video explainer too: https://youtu.be/eiiAeh1SrC0
From 2000 to 2026:
Mean municipal tax rate increase: 4.64%
Median (average) municipal tax rate increase: 4.75%
All the tax rates since 1996 can be found here .
Is this “historic”? So, have the last four years been “historic”? To answer this question, we’d first need to define historic. I’m not sure what is meant by this, so I’m going to answer a slightly different question: what are the mean and median tax increases over the last 30 years, and how does that compare?
Compared to the mean and median since 2000, 14 and 15 of the last 21 years have been above the median and mean, respectively. More specifically, we did see the highest increase in 2023 (9.26%), which was largely a result of adding services and events back into the budget that were casualties of COVID-era budget cuts.
Whether that qualifies as historic depends on your definition, but the years 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 were higher than the average (mean). In 2026, we are under the average for the last 21 years, primarily a result of salary, wage and benefits increasing with offsets by non-market growth (new units) and higher revenues from non-tax revenue sources, such as pay parking and other user fees.
Data alone doesn’t tell us if an increase is “too high,” which I think is what “historic” is standing in for. That’s a judgment call, and will mean different things to different people.
Shifting now from analysis to opinion, here is my personal view: We’ve had historic global events in the six years – pandemic, high inflation rates, increasing downloading of responsibilities without associated funding, erratic global economic forces, multiple wars, etc. All things outside of the control of local governments. When I am thinking about and deliberating on the city’s budget, I understand the additional pressure that increasing property taxes can have on everyone. Affordability is on my mind and my colleagues’ minds.
I also think about what we are collecting this money for, and what the consequences of cuts would be. Just like households, things that the city buys are increasing in cost – wages, goods, services, etc. As Vancouver has seen, trying to hold to no increase for the municipal portion really means a decrease in service. And a decrease in service comes with an associated decrease in staff.
I’m unwilling to cut services as it would mean a corresponding decrease in the things we enjoy here. No pop-up parks, no car-free day, less financial support for community events, decreased hours at the rec centre and library, projects would take longer, and more.
And when we receive feedback from the budget consultation, we generally have fairly equal groups of people who want to pay more and those who would like to cut services. The feedback is important, but is not clear in any one direction, so we try to find a balance.
The money we pay in property taxes pays for the very things we use and the people who deliver these services (and sometimes take all this for granted) – fire and police services (hopefully you don’t ever need to call them, but they are always there), recreation services, parks, trails, roads, water and sewer services, library, community events, and the list goes on. Without these, I believe our life here in Port Moody would be different, and I’m not willing to be part of a race to the bottom through death by a thousand cuts. Judicious use of taxpayer money, yes, but not cuts based on “vibes”.
Addendum You may have heard that property taxes have increased 28% this Council term. That number refers to the cumulative increase in the operating budget (revenues that we need to collect to deliver the services), not the property tax rate. These are not the same thing.
And more recently, a letter to the editor claimed that the current council is responsible for the fact that the majority of housing stock is multi-family, although nothing that this council has approved has been built. Additionally, it characterizes the shift in tax burden as a choice – there is no mechanism for cities to do that. There is one tax class for residential. The province does not allow split classes at this time. It is also well established that single-family homes require more infrastructure per property. Numerous studies from Strong Towns, plus Canadian municipal studies, all show that density generates more tax revenue per area of serviced land.
Good decisions require accurate information. If you want to discuss or learn more, I am always happy to chat about the minutiae of municipal finance.
“A 2021 study commissioned by the City of Ottawa demonstrated that servicing low-density greenfield development costs the City $465 per person per year while high-density infill development provides the City with $606 per capita of revenue per year.”
FCM, Backgrounder: New research—Canada’s housing challenge is also an infrastructure challenge .
More reading:
Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Backgrounder: New research—Canada’s housing challenge is also an infrastructure challenge , published November 23, 2023, accessed June 10, 2026.
Pew, Building Homes Near Jobs, Stores, and Transit Saves Public Dollars , published May 27, 2026, accessed June 10, 2026.
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