New Westminster Record January 10 2019 by New West Record

OPINION 6

High marks for B.C. curriculum COMMUNITY 9

FOR THE BEST LOCAL

Deli saves family’s Christmas ENTERTAINMENT 13

COVERAGE

Arty year kicks off

THURSDAY JANUARY 10, 2019

LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS

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CHRISTMAS GOES UP IN FLAMES:

Christmas trees get torched on Saturday during an annual fundraiser hosted by the New Westminster Firefighters Charitable Society in the parking lot of the Canada Games Pool. Trees were mostly chipped, but firefighters also staged this fire demonstration. See www. newwestrecord.ca for more photos.

PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER

Queen’s Park still most valuable local area Theresa McManus tmcmanus@newwestrecord.ca

Queen’s Park and Queensborough are once again home to the most valuable residential properties in New Westminster. BC Assessment has begun sending out 2019 assessment notices to more than 500,000 properties throughout Greater Vancouver that reflect market value as of July 1, 2018. In New Westminster, the aver-

age change of assessed values of strata residential properties from 2018 to 2019 rose one per cent. “New West has definitely seen a difference between the single-family homes and the condominium and strata market,” Keith MacLean-Talbot, deputy assessor for the Greater Vancouver region, told the Record. “Specifically, as far as the single-family homes go, there’s a bit of a range of values. Depending on what neighbourhood you’re in, you’ll see a differ-

ence in your percentage change from last year’s assessment to this year.The average is about one per cent, but you’ll see a decrease of five per cent and all the way up to an increase of 10 per cent, depending on the specific pockets.” While New West has had some of the largest overall increases in assessments in the region in past years, that’s not the case in 2019. “This year we are looking at more stable changes. I’d say they’re more moderate chang-

es, whereas in the past there have been substantial increases for single-family homes,” MacLeanTalbot said. “As far as what we are looking at, we are just following the sales that are happening.Whether it is Queen’s Park or Sapperton, we just look at the sales that happen around the July 1, 2018 evaluation date.” In June 2018, New Westminster city council adopted a heritage conservation area in the Queen’s Park neighbourhood, a move

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some feared would negatively impact property values. “The Queen’s Park area, which is obviously at question given the changes in June 2018, hasn’t seen any significant changes from the 2017 assessments. A typical property in there – I’ve got one singled out here; it’s a 1910 building – is up about 5.8 per cent,” MacLeanTalbot said. “I think it might be too early to tell if there is anything that’s going to happen.”

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