Quesnel City Council has directed staff to develop a Hotel Revitalization Tax Exemption Bylaw.
Amy Reid, the Manager of Economic Development & Tourism, made the suggestion at this week’s meeting.
“The proposed Hotel Revitalization Tax Exemption Bylaw would would incentivize new development by providing a 100 percent tax exemption on the assessed value of improvements on the municipal portion of property taxes for a period of 10 years.”
Reid said that applications will be considered for a period of five years following adoption of the bylaw, or when 250 million dollars of assessed value of improvements under the Revitalization Program have been achieved.
City Manager Byron Johnson noted that existing hotels could also benefit.
“It should be noted in this bylaw that existing hoteliers, if they do upgrades on their hotels, it will apply to them as well. It’s not aimed at only new hoteliers.”
. Mayor Ron Paull wanted to notify existing hotels about that option and to let them know about the bylaw, which Council agreed to do.
There hasn’t been a new hotel development in Quesnel since 1999.
Quesnel has approximately 450 rooms currently available as hotel accommodations, which according to research, limits the size of events that the city can host.
