Assessment increases on Saint John industrial properties retracted by Service New Brunswick

A series of 2022 property tax assessments by Service New Brunswick involving industrial sites in Saint John that went up and then back down following objections from owners is adding to concerns about how the agency values property in the city.

"I have watched this for the last five, six, seven, eight years. I definitely don't think we get a fair shake," said Saint John councillor Gerry Lowe.

"We're totally surrounded by heavy industry and we pay the highest taxes in this province and that's what's wrong."

Updated property assessments for Saint John at the end of May show adjustments made by Service New Brunswick since notices for 2022 were first mailed to property owners last October. These include nearly $2 million in reductions on a number of industry-linked properties that the agency originally had assigned higher taxable values.

At Irving Oil Ltd's Marine and Rail terminal on Courtney Bay in east Saint John, three adjacent properties covering 11.8 hectares, including the rail yard used to unload crude oil from trains, were initially issued assessments for 2022 totalling $6.27 million.

The amount was a $417,900 (seven per cent) increase from 2021 valuations, but records show that has since been reduced by $389,100.

Service New Brunswick also lowered the taxable value of various Irving Oil pipelines in Saint John by $140,000, and cut a $94,700 increase on the valuation of a property the company owns behind the refinery on Dedication Street down to a $5,000 increase.

Every $100,000 in assessed value for an industrial property in Saint John is worth $2,565 in tax revenue to the city.

Service New Brunswick and Irving Oil Ltd. didn't respond to requests for information about the 2022 assessment amounts and how they came to be reduced.

But Lowe is convinced it is part of a pattern of friendly treatment of industrial properties in the city that keeps their tax bills down which forces other property owners to pay more than they should

"We get the smoke and the gas and the tractor-trailers and the trains blowing whistles all night and people are moving to the suburbs because of that," said Lowe.

"Taxes are based on assessment and assessments are low."

Industrial property assessments and taxes are normally a sensitive issue in Saint John. But it is heightened this year with the cancellation in May of a long promised review of Service New Brunswick's valuation of Irving Oil's refinery.

In 2022, the main refinery property is assessed to be worth $104.4 million, an increase of  $7.6 million (eight per cent) over what it was 10 years ago.

That's less than one-third of the rate of inflation over the same period, even though Irving Oil has spent more than $500 million on fixes and improvements at the facility since 2014 in maintenance events called Operation Falcon, Operation Red Fox, Operation Sandpiper and Operation Wolf.

In cancelling the refinery's assessment review, something that Premier Blaine Higgs had been personally committed to three years ago, Service New Brunswick's Minister Mary Wilson told the Legislature the agency did not think the undertaking would reveal any hidden taxable value.

"Following ongoing discussions with the Service New Brunswick Property Assessment services team and a review of current information, government has been assured that the current assessment of the Irving Oil refinery falls within the acceptable range of value and that a review is not recommended at this time," said Wilson

Lowe called that a disappointment and he is more frustrated by news Service New Brunswick has been backtracking on some of its other industrial valuations

On Saint John's Chesley Drive, Ocean Steel had a $257,000 increase on its 2022 assessment cut down by 60 per cent. At the generating station at Coleson Cove, N.B. Power won a $371,800 reduction on a sea-floor property it uses as a source of coolant for the plant.

Service New Brunswick increased the assessed value of the six-square-kilometre underwater parcel in 2021 by $410,000 after a "re-inspection" of its value, but this year retracted most of it following a complaint by N.B. Power.

"We discussed our concerns with SNB (Service New Brunswick) on the substantial increase in the 2021 assessment for this water lot," wrote N.B. Power spokesperson Marc Belliveau in an email.

"After a series of meetings regarding their methodology as to how the value of the land was arrived at, and after explaining our own analysis of the value of the property, SNB lowered the assessed value for 2022."

J.D. Irving Ltd also had increased valuations on some of its properties lowered after 2022 assessments were first issued.

Three properties on the west side of Saint John near the company's Dever Road rail yard were initially issued assessments for 2022 totalling $6.57 million, $530,800 more than 2021. That increase has since been cut in half.

Service New Brunswick also increased the assessed value of the old Telegraph-Journal building on Crown Street in October by $116,200 to $1.25 million only to agree to a $331,800 reduction. The building is now valued and taxed at $920,000.

Anne McInerney, vice-president of communications for J.D. Irving Ltd, said in an email said the company challenges assessments it feels are too high "like any taxpayer."

She said this year most of the company's objections were unsuccessful and, in "the small number of cases" where reductions were won in Saint John, "Service New Brunswick determined the original assessments were too high and amended them accordingly."

McInerney also made the point that an increased assessment at the company's Reversing Falls pulp mill which increased by $9.64 million in 2022 as part of a $450 million multi-year modernization "more than offset" reductions in assessments it won elsewhere.