The Musqueam band has lost a court bid to have reserve lands that are leased to the Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club assessed as residential lands.
The private club has leased the 162 acres of land since 1958 and has a 75-year lease. It began paying property taxes to the band in 1991, based on the assessed value of the property as a golf course.
In 2011, the band appealed its assessment in a complaint to the Musqueam Indian Band Board of Review, arguing that the assessed value of the property should be its value as residential land.
If the board had accepted that argument, it would have resulted in a higher assessed value and higher property taxes for the club.
The board decided to hold off on making a decision until the matter could be referred to the B.C. Supreme Court.
The issue before the court was whether the use as a golf course, for which the lease provides, could properly be considered in assessing the value of the property.
The band argued that the assessment should be calculated based on its “highest and best use” and that the use of the property as a golf course was a restriction imposed upon it by the federal government, which leased the land to the club.
But the court ruled the golf course restriction had been placed by the band and that the use as a golf course could be considered in the assessment. The band appealed to the B.C. Court of Appeal, which upheld the lower court ruling.
The band appealed again, but in a unanimous ruling released Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld that ruling and dismissed the band’s appeal.
In the ruling, Justice Russell Brown found that a bylaw passed by the Musqueam First Nation in 1996 permits the assessor to consider the golf use restriction in the lease in determining the assessed value of the lands.
“Here, the plain wording of (the bylaw), read in light of its purpose and context, grants the assessor the discretion to consider the use restriction in establishing the value of the leased lands for tax assessment purposes.”
The judge’s decision was agreed to by the six other judges of the court.
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Ernie Els of South Africa tees off at the 2011 Canadian Open at Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club.
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