Interesting 2012 NB Property Assessments

Published on 2012-03-12 by in Open Data, Propertize.ca

After the Saint John Transit Building and King Street Clock made news after the 2012 property tax bills came out in NB, it got me looking through the data on Propertize.ca for any other interesting assessments!

I’ll start with the ones listed above.  If you have come across anything else, let me know and I’ll add to the list!

1) Saint John Transit (aka Garage Mahal)

If you are a taxpayer in Saint John – this one just makes you want to slam your head into a wall (likely a stone wall covered in colourful artwork).  After building an over-the-top (and expensive) transit garage, property tax increases for the new building are now “driving” cuts to transit service.  Good thing there is plenty of room for new buses…

Assessment (Year, Amount, Levy)

2012 – $19,882,800.00 – $438,495.27
2011 – $17,155,500.00 – $378,347.40

Assessment increase of 15.90% = $60,147.87 in additional taxes.

2) Saint John – King Street Clock

It’s a nice clock – don’t get me wrong; but, it does seem a little silly that it’s being assessed at all.  Description says “VACANT LAND, CLOCK SITE”.

Assessment (Year, Amount, Levy)

2012 – $1,400.00 – $30.87
2011 – $100.00 – $2.21

Assessment increase of 1,300% = $28.66 in additional taxes.

3) Saint John – New Police Station

I’d love for someone to do some validation on this one!  Again, as a Saint John taxpayer, I really hope they factored all of this into the existing costs (unlike the Transit building above).  The last thing we need is another big empty building that brings service cuts to pay for it.  Description says “2 STORY POLICE STATION”.  

Assessment (Year, Amount, Levy)

2012 – $8,657,300.00 – $190,928.10
2011 – $1,269,400.00 – $27,995.34

Assessment increase of 582% = $162,932.76 in additional taxes.

4) Penobsquis - Highway 114 - Mine Complex

And you thought your tax bill was bad.  This seems to be the largest levy increase that I could find!  Description says “LAND & MINE COMPLEX (U/C”. 

Assessment (Year, Amount, Levy)

2012 – $104,131,300.00 – $2,594,535.47
2011 – $64,883,700.00 – $1,630,786.92

Assessment increase of 60.49% = $963,748.55 in additional taxes.

5) Dieppe – Operation Centre

Finally, a city besides Saint John had a big municipal tax class levy increases. Description says “OPERATION CENTRE”. 

Assessment (Year, Amount, Levy)

2012 – $6,131,100.00 – $135,215.28
2011 – $443,100.00 – $9,772.13

Assessment increase of 1,283.68% = $125,443.15 in additional taxes.

6) Fredericton Costco

Costco leads the way in Fredericton levy increases. Description says “COSTCO & LOT”. 

Assessment (Year, Amount, Levy)

2012 – $12,594,200.00 – $546,223.05
2011 – $2,397,800.00 – $103,994.98

Assessment increase of 425.24% = $442,228.07 in additional taxes.

7) Musquash - Highway 1  -  Garage / Salt & Sand Shed

This seems to be the largest percentage increase that I could find, crazy eh?  Description says “GARAGE & SALT& SAND SHED”. 

Assessment (Year, Amount, Levy)

2012 – $678,000.00 – $16,716.09
2011 – $300.00 – $4.96

Assessment increase of 225,900% = $16,711.13 in additional taxes.

8) St. Andrews – Land for Public Purposes

This is the largest municipal tax class percentage assessment increase that I could find.  Description says “LAND FOR PUBLIC PURPOSES”. 

Assessment (Year, Amount, Levy)

2012 – $11,000.00 – $162.43
2011 – $100.00 – $2.59

Assessment increase of 10,900% = $159.84 in additional taxes.

9) Roachville – Cemetery

This is the largest cemetery percentage assessment increase that I could find.  Description says “CEMETERY”.  I guess that makes sense.

Assessment (Year, Amount, Levy)

2012 – $4,200.00 – $108.52
2011 – $100.00 – $2.57

Assessment increase of 4,100% = $105.97 in additional taxes.

10) South Branch - Vegetable Stand

This one just cracks me up.  It’s the largest “Vegetable Stand” percentage increase that I could find.  Not that I was really looking.  Description says “VEGETABLE STAND & LOT”.  

Assessment (Year, Amount, Levy)

2012 – $5,800.00 – $144.52
2011 – $2,500.00 – $62.84

Assessment increase of 132% = $51.68 in additional taxes.

 
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Propertize.ca – Updated with 2012 Property Tax Assessments

It wasn’t too long ago that I made some major updates to Propertize.ca to get ready for the 2012 property tax year in NB!

Looks like it was well worth it, as I now have both the 2011 and 2012 assessments available, which will help provide even more information for people looking to better understand their assessment and how it compares to other properties!

Propertize.ca

If you haven’t checked out Propertize.ca yet, what are you waiting for?

Don’t forget to share this site with your friends and family!

Send me your feedback!

As always – changes are driven by user feedback, suggestions, and even your angry rants – so be sure to tell me what you think!

Leave a comment below, or send me an email.

 
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Introducing Propertize.ca – Version 4.0!

After many months of work, typically late at night after my daughter falls asleep, Propertize.ca versions 4.0 is now live!

Click the image below to try it out:

As this is a new major release, I thought I would review the significant changes (for the curious folks out there).

1) Simple Searching – No More Taxing Authorities

The number one issue faced my every one living outside of Saint John, Fredericton, and Moncton is “what is my taxing authority?“.

It’s a great question, and the #1 reason why most people can not use the existing government website.  They just don’t know.  What they do know is the place that they live.

Luckily, I’ve found an open data locations file for every property in NB.  Using this file, I can now provide a very simple way for people to search for assessments – just type in the street name!

Tip: Be sure to ONLY enter your street name, such as King or Queen.  If you add the street type (drive, street, avenue) – it will not return any results.  Just remove it and try again.

How simple is this:

After you search, I can now look up matching streets for the entire province, and let you select the correct one:

2) Search Results – Ready for 2012

The search results page is generally the same; but, the columns have been tweaked to support adding the 2012 assessments when they are released in early March.

At that time, I will be able to show both the 2011 and 2012 assessment for every property in New Brunswick and be able to indicate the percentage of change (plus or minus).  I will be heavily promoting the site more once they are released.  In the meantime, you can continue to view the 2011 assessments.

Tip: Entering a civic number will cause your assessment to be highlighted in the list.  This can make it easier to spot your house in large lists!

3) Include Nearby Properties

This feature has been a little flaky in the past; but, now that I have full location data (and accurate co-ordinates), I can actually pull back all assessments within a radius of your property – up to 1km.

Tip: It’s best to specify your civic number for this (so that the search is centered on your location).  If you do not specify this, it will still work; but, the search will center on a random location on your street.

Want to try it out?  Just change the “Include Nearby Properties” dropdown to “Yes”:

Also, be sure to click the link to view the results in Google Maps, as it really shows how accurate the mapping is:

Tip: Entering your civic address will also cause your marker to be highlighted in a different color (making it easier to see in the map):

4) Search ANYTIME!

One frustrating “feature” of the government website is that it goes down for maintenance every night between midnight and 5am or so.

For all of you out there who simply must look up property tax assessments in the early hours – you will be glad to know you can do it on my site!

Going Forward

As I mentioned earlier, the 2012 assessment information will be my main focus once it’s released.

In addition to that, I’m looking to add more analytics –  perhaps some analysis on assessments by locations, county, etc.  There may be some fun trends to be discovered!

If you have ideas/suggestions, be sure to let me know.

Leave your feedback

As always – many of these changes are driven by user feedback, suggestions, and even your angry rants – so be sure to tell me what you think!

Leave a comment below, or send me an email.

 
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Citizens ask for access to public data

It’s seems one of my dreams has come true!

Today, I was featured in a CBC story on Open Data in New Brunswick –  airing on CBC radio, web, and TV:

Read onward for the Web version (with video):

Citizens ask for access to public data

The New Brunswick government and its universities are coming under pressure from citizens to make more raw data available to the public.

Many governments in Canada and around the world have embraced the so-called open data agenda and have freed up raw data to citizens so they can arrange public information in useful ways and collaborate with others to better understand the numbers.

Now, New Brunswick citizens and companies are arguing the government and universities should stop holding back similar information.

Shawn Peterson built the website — propertize.ca — because he wanted to compare his property tax assessment with his neighbours.

It’s now online and contains easy to find data for the entire province.

“I’d like to take it forward and be able to expand it into other provinces,” he said.

He’s taken public information and made it easy to use. But Peterson has also taken something for nothing and turned a profit.

Those pushing for more access to data have other ideas of how information can be used.

City buses could be tracked through smartphones, potholes could be reported and a city could notify people when they were fixed and snowplows could be monitored so people don’t have to shovel twice.

Patrick Lacroix, the managing director for the Fredericton-based company T4G, said there are many ways that the open data agenda could actually make life easier for citizens and allow communities to become more democratic.

“We have technology today that enables for much easier citizen engagement, and citizen engagement in a much smarter way,” he said.

Peterson said the potential applications and business models are only limited by the amount of information governments are willing to make public.

Open data sites

While the New Brunswick government is being pressured to start freeing up data for its citizens, the federal government is already moving in that direction.

The federal government announced last month that it is easing restrictions on the use of the taxpayer-funded data it makes available to the public.

The federal government’s open data portal collates 260,000 data sets that span everything from immigration statistics to mapping co-ordinates.

When Treasury Board President Tony Clement made the announcement, he said he had not heard yet of anyone doing anything creative with the federal government data made available to date. But he said the federal government was “liberalizing” the approach to opening up data.

He said the new rules would “make it easier for innovation to occur.”

Open data sites are not simply the domain of the federal government. The British Columbia government also has an open data site.

That page lists recent health data, information about visitor attendance at provincial parks and salary information for civil servants who earn more than $75,000.

What do you think about Open Data? Let me know!

 
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Featured in 21ink’s Creativity Issue

The latest issue of 21inc‘s magazine 21ink was just released, and I was featured in it (talking about Propertize.ca)!

Click the image below to check out the article:

If you have any issues opening the link above, click here to download the PDF.

Also, be sure to check out Propertize.ca, and let me know what you think!

 
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From Data to Applications

A great article was featured in today’s Telegraph-Journal on the topic of Open Data – including mentions of the T4G hosted ‘Hackathon’ event in Fredericton this Saturday!

I also got a few quotes for Propertize.ca and the Canadian Fuel Consumption Guide Application that I am also working on.

Read on for more information:

The City of Fredericton has increased public access to government data by joining the open data movement that is sweeping the country.

Open data sites have been created in major centres across Canada and now Fredericton has recently launched its own open data site where users, such as software developers, can access information, collected by the municipality, to create interesting, new applications for the Web and smartphones.

“We’re trying to encourage local developers to develop new technologies, making it freely available without any restrictions,” said Rob Lunn, co-ordinator of Geographic Information Systems for the City of Fredericton. “It’s about being transparent and offering new services … the information we are putting out, the public has already paid for it.”

Shawn Peterson, a local IT consultant, started to develop open data applications after struggling to manoeuvre through a provincial tax information database.

“If you’ve been on the government site for tax assessment, you’ll probably find that it is really complicated,” Peterson said. “Using the data out there already, I built my own application that does a lot of the leg work for you.”

After his web-based application, propertize.ca, experienced some heavy traffic, Peterson said, Service New Brunswick started sending people to his site instead of recommending the government database.

He is currently working on an application that involves vehicle fuel consumption data.

Saturday is International Open Data Day and Fredericton is one of approximately 40 cities around the world that will participate in an event titled Hackathon, a forum that encourages entrepreneurs, government officials and academics to join forces and discuss new ways to use open data.

T4G, a technology solutions organization with offices across North American, including Fredericton and Saint John, will host the event at its Fredericton office from noon until 4 p.m.

The purpose of Hackathon is to raise awareness about open data and explore how government officials can contribute and improve public services at the same time.

It can be “something as simple as garbage collection,” said Patrick Lacroix, T4G’s managing director of leadership and productivity improvement.

“If the City of Fredericton or the City of Saint John had a map for the garbage collection services and the schedule, then somebody could develop an app for your own computer or smartphone. You could get a warning the night before saying ‘Don’t forget to put out your garbage. It’s Thursday night.’”

While the goal of transparency and easy access to information is well-intentioned, some experts say open data may inadvertently reveal sensitive information.

“The dark side of this is … you didn’t intend to publish something that exposes a vulnerability, but you did. You can publish one set of data and another set of data in two different places, but when people cross-reference them, you get an insight that helps shut down the U.S. electrical grid (for example),” said Robert Austin, dean of business administration at the University of New Brunswick. Austin co-authored a case study called ‘data.gov’ which outlines the complexity of open data policies within the United States government.

“There are pretty profound philosophical differences that come up when you start talking about open data in government. A lot of it has to do with how much you trust the right thing to happen when the data comes to bear.”

Austin says he believes that ultimately open data is a good thing but freedom of information isn’t so cut and dry.

“If you’re going to do it the way the U.S. government has, you have to be OK with people taking your data, spinning it in a way that is convenient to them, and using it against you,” he said.

Lunn said that the city is cautious about what data is released and it would be unlikely any harm could come from it.

“There is always the negative side to these things. Our feeling is that there are going to be more benefits that are derived,” Lunn said.

“There is power in making your data available and people can grab it and come up with some very interesting uses.”

For anyone interesting in attending the T4G hosted event, below are links to data sets that I am interested in working with:

 
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Propertize.ca – Version 3.4 Released!

Propertize.ca has been updated to version 3.4, and it is rocking some new features:

  • Create an account or login using OpenID (will be used to support saving searches in the future).
  • Friendly Share/Print buttons are now available on most pages.
  • The ability to include nearby streets is now stable.
  • Additional “popup” help is now available on the landing page (by popular request).
  • The search results page now lists all of the streets included in the search (helpful when including nearby streets).
  • The Average Last Sale Price is included on the search results page.
  • Lots of tiny bug fixes.

As always, updates to Propertize.ca  are driven by your feedback – so let me know what you think!

 
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Propertize.ca – Version 3.2 Released!

Since Propertize.ca was listed on the front-page of the Telegraph-Journal earlier this year, there have been only minor updates to fix bugs.

That has changed with the release of version 3.2!

Finally, one highly requested feature is now included (although it’s still experimental) – the ability to include nearby streets!

 

Just select “Yes” from the “Include Nearby Streets?” drop-down on the search page to use this new feature.

I’m still working on improving the nearby street selections (unfortunately there is no easy way to do this); but, I want to put it out there now for everyone to try out – hopefully people will let me know if they run into any problems!

I’d also love to hear any other feedback on Propertize.cajust send me a note!

 
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3% My ASS….essment! – Property Tax Time

More cool news, Propertize.ca (and myself) were featured in Ben Schmidt’s latest YouTube video on NB Property Taxes!

Check out the video below:

You can find more great information on Ben’s website – http://www.benschmidt.tv

 
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Propertize.ca featured in more New Brunswick newspapers!

I did a quick search today, and I found a few more newspaper articles today where my website http://propertize.ca was featured!

Both the Times & Transcript and the Daily Gleaner featured the same article that appeared in the Telegraph-Journal on Friday.

It didn’t make the front page in these papers; but, it’s great to see it out there making news and getting people talking about the property tax assessment system in New Brunswick

I also made it into the news section on the PropelICT website.

I also love getting feedback from people using it – please keep sending it to me!

If you haven’t checked out Propertize.ca yet, what are you waiting for?

 
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