Today's mailing of property assessments means municipal tax bills aren't that far away.

Last week, town council accepted the 2020 assessment report that cleared the way for the assessments to be issued.

Now landowners have time to review them. 

The assessment is dated Jan. 28 and a 60-day review period is provided until Mar. 30.

Those with questions can contact the town's assessment office.  

If unsatisfied with your assessment after discussing it with an assessor, landowners can file a formal complaint with the assessment review board. March 30 is the last possible day you can file a complaint.

After that, property tax notices will be mailed on May 29. Owners will have until June 30 to pay them without penalty.

In 2019, the average single-family house assessed at $479,900 paid $2,251 in municipal taxes and a total of $1,232 in levies for education school and Rocky View Foundation. The foundation levy is minuscule.

There was no change in the levies charged in 2018. The $61 increase was purely in municipal taxes.

While the assessment says an average home in Cochrane is worth $470,100, what that means in the terms of tax dollars won't be clear until the tax rates are set.

What the assessment truly does is make your property is valued accordingly in comparison to similar homes in the community. That way, come tax time you are charged your fair share.

Some highlights of the assessment report:

  • The assessed value of residential properties dropped an average of 2.04 per cent
  • Duplexes/townhouses dropped an average of 6.05 per cent
  • Condominiums dropped 3.6 per cent

The change in assessed value did vary from area to area. Bucking the trend were single-family houses in both Cochrane Heights and Downtown. They both rose around 2.5 per cent, Gleneagles climbed 0.27 per cent and Headlands saw a 0.07 per cent increase.

  • The assessment report shows little change in the residential/commercial split. Including commercial buildings included in the Community Revitalization Levy (CRL) zone, Cochrane is made up of 86.38 per cent residential and13.623 per cent commercial. The year previous it was 86.83 per cent residential and 13.17 per cent nonresidential.
  • Taxes collected in the CRL commercial area, basically The Quarry, are applied to infrastructure improvements in that district at this time. The town also gets to keep education taxes collected for these properties and apply them to infrastructure improvements. Cochrane is the only community outside of Calgary and Edmonton to successfully apply for this levy.
  • $5.7 billion in properties make up Cochrane. Just over $5 billion of that is residential.
  • Overall parcel growth continues to slow. It increased by 1.82 per cent in 2019, down considerably from 2015 when it grew by 9.36 per cent. Last year it grew by 3.75 per cent.