About the Survey

Each year, Coquitlam creates a five-year financial plan and annual budget. The budget outlines City spending across key service areas such as public safety, parks, recreation, transportation, garbage and green waste collection, and more. The Community Charter requires the City's budget to be balanced — meaning the City cannot plan to spend more than it brings in each year.

The annual budget survey is your chance to share your opinion on City service levels and priorities. Property taxes and utility fees fund the majority of City services and many regional services. That's why your input is important to consider when balancing the levels of services you expect and the taxes and fees you're willing to pay.

How Your Feedback Will Be Used

Community input is one of several factors considered when creating the budget.

Your feedback will be shared with Council alongside staff recommendations, input from the City's cultural partners, and the results from Ipsos' statistically valid Community Satisfaction Survey to support their decision-making as part of the annual budget process.

What You Need to Know

Here is what an average single-family home in Coquitlam paid for City services last year:

  • Water, sewer and drainage — $1,325
  • Police (RCMP) — $737
  • Fire/rescue — $550
  • Recreation and culture — $490
  • Capital construction — $480
  • Solid waste — $379
  • Parks — $256
  • Roads and transportation — $238
  • Planning and development — $47
  • Total — $4,502

There are many factors the City considers when planning the budget. Some of these factors include:

Costs Shifted to Municipalities

Changes to provincial legislation have shifted more costs onto municipalities related to housing, childcare, climate resilience and transportation while limiting how the City pays for things like parks and recreation centres. This puts more pressure onto property taxes to pay for these services.

Growth and Development Pressure

As the community grows, the City must keep pace to deliver the essential services our residents rely on everyday. Population growth brings an increased demand for infrastructure, public safety, recreation opportunities and community services.

Costs of Replacing Infrastructure

Like many communities across the province, City costs are on the rise — but they are different from household costs. While households are watching grocery, gas and housing costs, the City must manage the rising costs of replacing the infrastructure needed to maintain our essential services.

What is infrastructure?

Infrastructure is the safe roads, reliable drinking water and sewer systems, functioning drainage, accessible community centres and well-maintained parks that are essential to residents’ daily lives.

Over time, these need to be repaired, renewed or replaced, and the cost of doing this work is going up. Labour, fuel and construction costs are rising while economic uncertainty makes it harder to predict what projects will cost in the future.

Funding infrastructure replacement

At the same time, there is a funding gap between the funding currently available, and the amount needed to replace or update the infrastructure.

The City has made good progress to address this challenge through updated funding strategies that prioritize infrastructure replacements that are most needed in the community.

Why this matters

Understanding this challenge is important for everyone in the community because replacing infrastructure is a long-term responsibility. The decisions made today affect the services, costs and quality of life that our community will have in the years ahead.


Learn More