Contemporary designs, golf and lake views attract visitors to the Okanagan’s largest resort development but it is huge tax savings due to an aboriginal link that may lead to back-to-back sellouts of the $440,000 villas.
“There is no GST and no property transfer tax,” said Curt Jansen, vice president sales and marketing at Skaha Hills. The average buyer can save about $50,000 in taxes, he estimated, compared to buying freehold property of the same value.
The tax savings flow from a unique long-term lease and profit-sharing agreement with the Penticton Indian Band (PIB) on whose land Greyback Construction is building 600 homes in the $250 million development at Penticton’s Skaha Lake.
The Skaha Hills Development Corporation (SHDC) is a partnership between Greyback and the Penticton Indian Band Development Corporation (PIBDC), a for-profit corporation owned by the 996-member PIB. 
Under the agreement, Greyback was awarded a 150-year lease on 550 acres, and 20% of the profits of the development flow back to the PIB. The agreement qualifies the homes for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. mortgage insurance and conventional high-ratio mortgage financing, Jansen said, as well as waiving of the federal goods and services tax and B.C.’s property transfer tax. “It’s bullet proof.”
The 47 homes in the first phase, which includes an 18-hole golf course, sold out in six months despite a sluggish Okanagan housing market. The designs eschew rustic in favour of modernist, energy-saving, open-concept plans that maximize lake views.
A second phase, just launched, will see average prices rise to $460,000 for 20 single-level villas of from 1,300 square feet to 3,500 square feet. Plans include a $5.2 million winery. Jansen said. SHDC is so confident of a second sell-out they are already planning phase three, which may include the first attached units. Most of those who have registered for second phase homes are from the Okanagan and the Lower Mainland.
The Association of Consulting Engineering Companies British Columbia ranks Skaha Hills in the top 10 largest construction projects underway in the province in its latest Major Projects Inventory.
