Residential property tax hikes dropped to 2.4% and the number of cops will rise thanks to city council approvals on Tuesday.

Edmonton city police Chief Rod Knecht says crime rates are up and -- as a result of council approval on Tuesday -- the number of cops to deal with it will rise by 49 officers, with the costs largely offset by increased provincial traffic fines.

And, Mayor Don Iveson explained, provincial decisions to cut education taxes to landowners gave council the leeway to either decrease the tax rate, increase it to more than 7% or find somewhere in between.

A typical residential homeowner will now see property taxes rise 2.4%, compared to the previously approved 5.7%. That means the average home worth $401,000 wil be paying about $3,100 in 2015 - $2,200 in municipal taxes and $900 in provincial education taxes.

Non-residential property owners, on the other hand, will be looking at a close to 7.6% increase. A blended rate of 3.3% will be official when the mill rate is set later this spring.

In past years, council has used that room to fix roads, but with less pressing infrastructure needs, they opted not to this year, particularly with non-residential property in Edmonton seeing an assessment increase of around 16%.

"We understand with other orders of government raising taxes on citizens and with some disruptions in the economy for some families and for some businesses, times are tough and we didn't want to take a dime more than what we needed in a year like this," said Iveson.

"Cancel whatever you've got planned for after dinner because we're going to be here 'til (audible sigh)," @doniveson on cop ask. #yegcc#eps — Dave Lazzarino (@SUNDaveLazz) April 14, 2015

Knecht earlier made his pitch to council for 49 new officers -- 40 for the downtown area and nine to work on Edmonton transit -- to deal with what he says is an overall crime rate increase of 22 per cent.

"There's an immediacy issue here," said Knecht, adding if the nearly $7.8-million annual operating request was approved, police work may still have to be shifted from other areas to compensate with increasing demands.

But the costs -- in addition to another $1.5 million in one-time costs -- will be offset by increased traffic fines brought in by the provincial government, added police commission board chair Shami Sandhu.

A "heat" map Knecht and Sandhu pointed to showed a concentration in downtown crime centering around the new arena district, an area that police say has already seen a 13 per cent increase in demand on cops this year.

Reasons for the increase, said Knecht, are varied from the economy to the weather but can also be attributed to downtown growth.

"We're still going to look at where we can scrape, where we can save money and where we can reinvest in other areas. But the pressure's off to a certain degree," said Knecht, after council approved the additional officers. "This is great. This helps us tremendously. But we still have gaps."

He pointed to cyber crime, counter-terrorism and domestic violence containing those gaps.

The 40 downtown officers may be moved around to other areas, with the nine LRT cops used in a similar way.

"Finding a way to do this without going back to taxpayers was important to council," said Iveson. "We wouldn't want to see their resources get so thin that they can't do traffic stops and can't catch bad guys."

Council also decided to use $2.1 million in unexpected revenue increases to fund six new transit police officers and $358,000 in Edmonton library cost increases.

david.lazzarino@sunmedia.ca