- BY JENNIFER ARGUE, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
February 23rd, 2022
The RM of McKillop has a trailer problem, so much so that they’ve decided to set a precedent by taking one property owner to court to enforce their trailer permit bylaw. The action could cost taxpayers up to ten thousand dollars.
McKillop is on the East side of Last Mountain Lake. In 2021 the RM decided to enact a permit bylaw. Reeve Bob Schmidt said the permit bylaw wasn’t put in place because of complaints. “We were enticing people to try out and put their trailer there for five years to see if they liked it and that they would take a development permit out and build. And everybody said ‘perfect, that’s exactly what we’d like to do, but now people are saying they don’t want to spend money.” Councillor Don Whitrow added that people would put a trailer on the property and build a garage, but the RM wouldn’t get any tax money for the trailer. “The only way we are going to make this bylaw work is by taking somebody to court once and proving a point.”
When the topic has been discussed at council meetings, the RM has said that SAMA no longer assesses trailers.
LMT spoke with Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA) which is responsible for property assessment in Saskatchewan. In fact, in some instances, trailers can be assessed, and SAMA says they have over 400 assessed trailers in the province. However, they say it’s up to the municipality whether they do it. There are also considerations municipalities need to be mindful if they travel down that road.
Kevin Groat is the Assistant Managing Director for Assessment Services. He said, “Over ten years ago the province changed the legislation concerning assessment of travel trailers. A series of tests were introduced to determine if a trailer was assessable. In addition they gave the municipality the ability to license or permit the trailers which removes the need to assess them.”
After the legislation changed, SAMA said they worked with the municipalities to determine which trailers would remain on assessment and removed the rest. SAMA only completes the valuation. “Determining what is assessable is ultimately the role of the Assessor who in most cases is the Administrator for the municipality.”
Groat explained how the 2 part test determines if a trailer can be assessed works. “...the first two have to be met before proceeding onto the final group of four. If one of the group of four is not met, then it becomes assessable.”
First Part
To become assessable, a travel trailer has to be:
- In the municipality for greater than 30 days
- Not in storage
Second Part
Fails to meet all of the following. If it meets all the following, then it falls under the definition of a travel trailer that is not assessable.
- Equipped to travel on the road (still has wheels and a hitch)
- Intended to provide accommodation for vacation or recreational use (essentially all travel trailers were built for this)
- Not physically attached to an improvement (for example, an addition)
- Is not connected to a public utility service
Frances Simonson is SAMA’s Regina Regional Manager. She said, “the municipality is responsible for using the Municipality Act (MA) to make decisions.” She said the municipality’s decisions need to be in line with the legislation and regulations. While SAMA may have an opinion as to what they would do if they were the Municipality, it’s not SAMA’s responsibility to make those decisions.
Simonson cautioned, “If someone gets their travel trailer assessed and they were to appeal it there would be language in the act that might support that person in having the assessment actually deleted.”
She pointed to Section 306 (3) of the Act that speaks to permit fees for trailers. It essentially says if permit fees are levied “in lieu of” assessing and taxing the trailer as an improvement, the RM “may” exceed the cost to the municipality for the administration and regulation of, and be in the nature of a tax. Basically, fees usually have to be tied to actual administrative and regulation costs, but this part of the legislation allows the RM to charge what they want. Simonson said about the section, “It looks to me that it actually gives [the municipality] the opportunity to do that in lieu of an assessment, and yet, at the same time I would say that the Act discourages the assessment of trailers.” She said the changes in 2010 appear to have made it easier for a municipality to decide that they are not going to assess them at all. Simonson gave an example, “Maybe we don’t want to assess people on vacation, and their trailer is there for more than 30 days. So, suddenly SAMA has to go out and assess 160 trailers out at Rowan’s Ravine. Well they are only there for four months, well they are there for more than 30 days so actually they would have become assessable, maybe.”
She said the MA doesn’t set out specific situations, “In the end, a Municipality has to make a decision that whatevers best for them. And they also have to also make a decision they feel is supportable. So if the MA and the language in it seems to discourage the assessment of travel trailers, which I would argue it sort of does, they may not want to take that risk because someone could appeal it, maybe they would win the appeal based on the language in the act. So they can do whatever they want, but there’s always consequences.”
Simonson also said, “there would be absolutely no way that a property owner could know whether having an assessment would be less money than having it subject to a permit fee. Those things are so flexible.” She gave an example of a base tax or a base tax plus an assessment. “So the value of a trailer could be almost nothing and you would still pay a base tax which could be more than a permit fee. Or the permit fee could be higher than the base tax, or the assessment could be higher…so there wouldn’t be a way to know whether one way would benefit the property owner or the municipality necessarily.”
