Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 25/00) - After a two-year battle over property taxes, North Country Stables is on the trail to success.

The Corporate Services committee will recommend that council provide the owners of the stable a "one-time grant" in the amount of $6,909, equal to 75 per cent of the municipal taxes for 2000.

The property is currently zoned as industrial/commercial. However, the owners claim it should have been classified as agricultural, since the equestrian centre raises and feeds livestock.

In the past, the city did not have an agricultural zoning bylaw in effect, because of the lack of agricultural buildings in the city.

After an appeal was filed to the Yellowknife Board of Revision, it was recommended to council that it adopt an agricultural classification bylaw and "provide a grant ... to the extent possible to give retroactive effect to the Agricultural Classification bylaw."

"This (agricultural bylaw) is something that is done throughout Canada to ... provide a municipal tax subsidy of sorts to operations devoted primarily to the production of food," said Tim Mercer, the city's director of corporate services.

The city had planned to introduce the agricultural mill rate this year, said Mercer, but by the time it had reached third reading in Jan. 2000, the territorial government advised that it had to have been approved prior to Oct. 31, 1999.

"So we couldn't apply an agricultural mill rate to Mr. Pisz's property. We will this year coming up," he said.

However, council is still unsure whether or not North Country Stables actually is an agricultural property.

That decision will be made when council determines what an agricultural facility is, and what the mill rate will be.

"In the meantime, because it took us a year longer than we had planned to introduce an agricultural mill rate, council decided to give them a one-time grant," said Mercer.

Council could still decide the agricultural mill rate will be the same as the commercial mill rate, or rule that the operation is not an agricultural facility.

"The fact that council has given them the grant is not a decision on those areas," explained Mercer.

Joanne Pisz, co-owner of North Country Stables, said they now pay about $14,000 per year in property taxes.

"Our taxes are just skyrocketing ... we cannot survive with that.

"To be paying $14,000 a year, we have to produce more than $1,000 a month income just for the taxes, which we cannot produce with the amount of horses that we have," said Pisz.

She said if the taxes are not reduced, North Country Stables will be forced to close.

"They will have to change the standard and support us as a stable and a recreational facility and as a place that everyone can benefit," said Pisz.

"It's going to be a sad story if we close down because we have a lot of kids coming here and schools coming here to learn about the horses."