Downtown Moncton Centreville Inc has signed a contract with the City of Moncton formalizing their $3.75 million contribution to the Avenir Centre.
An early commitment from DMCI said they would pay $250,000 a year for 15 years, but the new deal is over a maximum of 30 years with no mandatory annual amount.
President Jim Dixon explains the payment schedule.
“In 2019, they’ll get $250,000,” says Dixon. “I believe in the next couple of years, our schedule will probably be like $75,000 per year, it depends on the magnitude of the new tax base.”
Dixon adds the contributions to the Avenir Centre costs will only come out of revenue from new developments within the Business Improvement Area – and will not come from existing revenue for their current programs.
Dixon says there was some confusion in the early stages.
“We were trying not to talk about it publicly, but numbers, people hear them out of context, and they jump to conclusions,” says Dixon. “There was significant, I guess, miscommunication [but] I don’t really care who miscommunicated because I can only go forwards, not backwards.”
Dixon was also asked to explain the timeline for the payments, which is officially a maximum of 30 years.
“The timeline is 15 to 20 years, then it got to what happens if it’s not done in 20 years,” says Dixon. “So we said okay let’s make it 30, and then in 30 years, we think there’s lot of room there that it’s gonna all get paid.”
City of Moncton Chief Financial Officer Jacques Doucet confirmed the new deal will cost Moncton taxpayers $335,000 to $700,000 more than planned depending on how quickly the contribution is made.
Meanwhile, this deal is not sitting well with at least one City Councillor – Ward 3 representative Brian Hicks.
Hicks says contrary to what DMCI has said, it was made clear early on the downtown centre would be an arena, and therefore tax exempt in New Brunswick.
“Downtown Moncton [Centreville] Inc knew in April of 2015 that the centre was not going to be taxed, it was a multi use functional area, it was going to have a rink, gonna have concerts, gonna have other things, but there was gonna be no tax paid on it,” says Hicks. “And there was another series of emails where they acknowledged that.”
Hicks says when the original letter came from DMCI two days before the final vote on what would become the Avenir Centre, they agreed to $250,000 per year, for 15 years.
“There were no terms or conditions, so for me, when I voted on the downtown centre, I just thought that was the contract,” says Hicks.
He says council had other options they could have used to satisfy the terms of the original deal 15 year deal.
“Council has the opportunity to pass their [DMCI’s] budgets, so there are still four cents left on that tax levy, they only use 16 cents of it, so if council wanted to, we could put whatever we wanted on their for 15 years, or we don’t pass the budget,” says Hicks.
Hicks says ultimately, what he wants is DMCI to fulfill the conditions of the first 15 year commitment.
