Bucs struggling Junior B
hockey team trying to find a way to win. PAGE 26
www.nanaimobulletin.com
TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2015
VOL. 26, NO. 69
Assessments show stable property value Homes located in north end show slight increase over south BY KARL YU THE NEWS BULLETIN
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Air fare
Josie Dobrensky, who moved to Nanaimo recently from Ontario, discovers on Friday that sugar-dusted donuts are particularly popular with some of the locals that live around Maffeo Sutton Park.
Seniors’ facility grapples with respiratory illness outbreak BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
Influenza outbreak precautions have been lifted at Nanaimo’s Dufferin Place residential care facility after test results came back negative for the illness. Early precautions, including the limited transfers of residents, were being taken last week at Nanaimo’s Dufferin Place, as residents grappled with a respiratory or influenza-like illness. Those measures were lifted Friday when test results came back negative for influenza. The facility is still
on Island Health’s active outbreak list with five residents showing symptoms of respiratory syncytial virus, or Croup, but there are no visitor restrictions. Dufferin Place is one of 16 facilities on Vancouver Island to land on an active outbreak list in the last week. According to Dr. Charmaine Enns, medical health officer for Island Health, there’s been a sharp uptick in influenza-like illness and Island Health is seeing Influenza A H3N2 affect long-term care facilities – a strain not perfectly matched in this year’s flu vaccine.
Early outbreak precautions are taken as soon as two residents come down with symptoms. Despite a mismatch in this year’s vaccine, Enns said there is still some protection and encourages people to get immunized. “The mismatch is not a complete mismatch for H3N2 so there is still value in having the influenza vaccine,” she said. “We really want to encourage, especially our health care providers, to get the vaccine to limit the likelihood of being able to transmit to the people they care for.” news@nanaimobulletin.com
With 2015 assessment notices in the mail, homeowners in north Nanaimo can expect to see greater increase in property value than owners in the south. Bill Dawson, B.C. Assessment Vancouver Island deputy assessor, characterized this year’s assessment as modest. He said a majority of homeowners in Nanaimo and Lantzville will see the values of their homes change between minus-10 to plus-5 per cent compared to last year. “The north end of Nanaimo, especially that Dover/Dickinson area, is going to be receiving increases from let’s say, three to seven per cent typically for the median assessment change for those neighbourhoods,” said Dawson. He said the south end and downtown seem to be maintaining a stable rate, with a median assessment change between zero and a 2.5per cent increase. Unlike Nanaimo and Lantzville, Gabriola Island is seeing a decrease, with the average residential assessment dropping between three and five per cent in 2015, according to Dawson. “It’s a little bucking of the trend for the local market if you consider Gabriola as part of Nanaimo and Lantzville ... [It] seems to have a consistent slippage of the assessment values, between a zero and five-per cent range,” Dawson said. He said it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact reason one neighbourhood or region is increasing or decreasing at a different rate, as the factors affecting real estate value are numerous. See ‘TAXES’ /4
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