Dear editor:
Re: editorial ‘How can we stop punishing hard work?’
I support the Eagle’s view 100 per cent, as I have been one of those people who has made exterior and interior improvements to my homes over many years and have been penalized for doing so.
My sister has been house hunting in Cochrane for about 12 years. She has a budget limit but wanted a sound house and yard to meet these limitations. I have gone with her on some of these hunting ventures throughout older neighbourhoods in Cochrane and was stunned at the number of homes that appeared to have zero maintenance done on their exteriors, yards, porches, etc. Inside, they look even worse.
This is more the norm than the exception. Most of the homes were built 20 - 30 years ago and the owners being lazy or cheap or both, did not plant any trees or shrubs, maintain the eaves troughs, roofs, or paint and stucco. In fact, for a fine town like Cochrane, there are some mighty sad looking decrepit homes.
Neither of us have a big budget, but a little love and planning goes a long way. So, in terms of going that extra mile to add significant improvements and then suffer tax increases is an illogical way to treat the good people who save their money to do these upgrades and apply their elbow grease to make it happen.
Cochrane is a great town. It also needs a good facelift or cleanup and the town needs to reconsider how they apply their tax hikes if they want to avoid parts of the town falling into great decrepitude.
Kudos, however, to those homeowners who do apply the physical and financial effort to beautify their homes in spite of the unjust antiquated tax system.
Wendy Procter
