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When the City of Edmonton mailed out property tax notices last month, some residents saw bills jump much higher than expected.

City council passed a budget with a 2.8 per cent citywide increase — 3.3 per cent for individual homeowners when combined with the provincial education tax — but some residents were reporting tax increases of up to 30 per cent when they opened the bill. Now the deadline to pay is coming up June 30.

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Rod Risling, branch manager for taxation and assessment, said it comes down to the fact average property values across the city dropped this year.

Commercial property values dropped the most, but private homes and privately-owned condos went down by an average 2.8 per cent. That means if a home dropped in value by 2.8 per cent (the average drop), it would see the average tax increase of 3.3 per cent.

But in Central McDougall, for example, the average value went up by 12 per cent. That’s 14.8 percentage points more than the average.