How Can We Help?

One of our most important customer groups include governments at all levels. We assist the federal, provincial. municipal governments and First Nations in many related property issues. Here are just some of the ways in which we assist government and their complex property needs.

Municipalities

Municipalities have to respond to the Regional Growth Strategy (RGS) and to housing demands by increasing density. This often requires rezoning from one use to a higher and better residential use – i.e. single family to low density housing or commercial to high density housing. Cities then have greater demands on their community amenities in light of the pending growth. To fund these amenities, the City negotiates with the developer to share in the lift in land value as a result in the increased density. Many times, this is a negotiated approach. BCS Real Estate works with the parties (sometimes for the developer and sometimes for both the developer and City) to agree on an appropriate CAC level. One of our senior associates has extensive experience in this area.

City’s sometimes own land and lease it on a long term basis. BCS Real Estate helps determine the value of the lessor’s interest and also the potential impact on the likely outcome when the lease is nearing the end of the term. Some leases are prepaid and some are renegotiated on a periodic basis. We help municipal governments determine fair lease rates, ensuring maximum value to taxpayers.

Valuation of Government Assets

Determining the value of government owned assets is another way in which BCS Real Estate can help. This includes such areas as evaluating Government Buildings for Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) (we have done that for Port Metro too), or buildings and properties for sale. School sites and the Jericho lands are two such examples of situations where BCS Real Estate helped public institutions.

BCS Real Estate also conducts lease/rental studies to determine what rent to pay for government space. This ensures government receives a fair rent when government owned buildings are rented to the public sector. We perform site assessment studies – identifying locations for their specific use and rating them on a specific scoring basis with key factors that provide hierarchy of priorities. These include proximity to transit, site configuration, ability to accommodate expansion space and ability to accommodate certain amount of space on one floor.

A recent request from the provincial government is to value the lands implicated /owned by Site C dam. To date, they received two separate appraisals, with valuations more than 10% apart. BCS Real Estate assists the appropriate government departments made sense of the information they have received and the value most in line with current market values.