YORKTON, SASK. –
The City of Yorkton is looking to encourage residents to build more homes in the community with a new tax incentive.
The city will be offering a 100 per cent tax rebate over a five year period, granted to the owner of new one of two unit residential dwellings, according to David Balysky, a business liaison with the City of Yorkton.
“Home builders and contractors will be allowed to essentially build and, and market spec homes on city owned blocks with only a 10 per cent deposit on that lot, and the balance owing on the lot would be owed once the house is sold, or once a two year period has passed since the deposit was made, whichever comes sooner,” Balysky said.
The city said it is pushing this incentive due to a recent downturn in new builds.
“Quite a few years ago, things were booming in Yorkton. Houses were being built like crazy. We couldn’t even keep up,” Balysky said. “For the last six, seven years, things have kind of slowed down.
Balysky estimates there have only been two or three houses built in the city in recent years.
The incentive applies to any new build, or ready-to-move home. It also applies to rural municipalities, adjacent to the community.
Yorkton’s latest census numbers saw the population drop by less than 100 residents, now sitting at 16,280.
Tourism Yorkton said the decline of newly built homes isn’t exclusive to the community.
“The economy, the price of lumber, all those kinds of things [are contributing],” said Tourism Yorkton executive director Randy Goulden.
“We know that we have people moving in, but they’re moving into existing housing, moving into multi units, so we’re hoping that this incentive, we’ll see some new builds fill up some of our subdivisions, and just bring some new flavors to our city.”
The City of Yorkton said the issue isn’t just tied to newly built homes on existing city lots. Those looking to take advantage won’t have to deal with an application process either, as it honors the incentive through building permits submitted to the city.