Photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters

By Liam Verster

Addressing Rental Fee Misconceptions

Vernon provides further clarity on fees and charges, ensures increases are not significant

Jun 26, 2025 | 3:18 PM

The City of Vernon has reaffirmed its claim that it’s not drastically increasing fees and charges for renting city-owned property.

Mayor Victor Cumming, Chief Administrative Officer Peter Weeber, and Communications Manager Jessica Hewitt outlined the fees and charges policy at a special media briefing on June 2.

At that briefing, the city representatives dispelled some of the rumours that had been circulating around the fees and charges:

• The Farmers’ Market fees for all users per season was increased from $3,895 in 2022 ($0.90 user fee per stall per day), to $14,523 in 2025 ($3.40 per stall per day), noting the increases were done over a multi-year period
• The Okanagan Military Tattoo’s rental fee for Kal Tire Place fell from $14,051 in 2022 to $12,732 in 2024, but attendance also declined by 45 per cent over that period from 2,321 attendees to 1,289
• Creative Chaos’ rental fees rose from $14,123 in 2024 to $15,668 in 2025, though a city study in 2024 found the event could save $4,700 by moving to Kal Tire Place instead of hosting it in multiple buildings at the Vernon Recreation Centre, and noting the increases were done over a multi-year period
• Friends of the Library’s facility rental fees went up from $2,280 in 2024 to $3,192 in 2025, noting the group chose to relocate to the Schubert Centre for the most recent event
• The fee to rent Kal Tire Place for the Taekwon-Do Championships declined from $4,250 in 2023 to $2,740 in 2025, though would require an additional ice conversion cost of up to $2,100 as the event took place during hockey season, so the event was held in Kamloops instead
• The Chamber Spring Expo event’s rental fee declined from $2,805 to $2,189 between 2024 and 2025, though there was also an additional fee to remove the ice from the rink at Kal Tire Place for the event

The presentation noted the city provides subsidized rental fees for Parks and Recreation facility use of between 30 and 80 per cent, with the city and Tourism Vernon also providing an event coordinator and event marketing to support the organizers.

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The city also updated it’s rate categories in 2024, which were adopted in 2025. Those include a Community Rate for weddings, meetings, and non-revenue events; a Private-Sponsored Rates for fundraisers, ticketed events, and for non-profit revenue generating events; and a Commercial Rate for doing business out of a city-owned facility such as the Home Show.

These changes were the first made to the rental fees policy since 2014.

Vernon also plans to unroll a Community Event Grant Program in 2026 to help support local events, and it was also noted that once the Active Living Centre is operational, it could be used for events and may even suit organizers’ needs better than the existing facilities.

Speaking to media, Mayor Victor Cumming said the rates increasing by 32 per cent to 300 per cent were misconstrued.

“[The increases] are event by event, a broad number applied to all things may or may not make sense,” Cumming said Thursday.

“In some cases that was thrown around, primarily around the Farmers’ Market, and that was because historically it had a very very low rate, $0.90 a vendor per market. So it had to shift up, and it’s still less than what is classified as the lowest rate category.

“So yeah, on a percentage basis they did experience a significant percentage change, so this year it’s about $3.40 per market, per booth, per day. That is absolutely clear and that’s because the [previous] number was so low.

“Other events, no. Some events have experienced an actual decline in their total cost to operation. So it depends on which event, though I get why that one is being shone so brightly in front of the media.”

The Mayor noted all the aforementioned events were important to the city, and organizers may need to make some changes to where and how they host their events to drive more visitors or attendees, adding the city would be willing to help organizers review their options and make them more viable.

Cumming added these changes were known to the organizations ahead of time.

“We’ve been communicating with these organizations since 2023, they’re aware of this, these new rates came in 2025. People were asking for certainty, so we brought them certainty, but they’ve been involved in the process now for a couple of years,” he said.

“It isn’t news to them. Some of these organizations that we’ve referred to I’ve been meeting with regularly for a number of years. They’ve been expressing their views and we’ve been expressing the reality of our situation, so this is not like ‘I woke up yesterday and suddenly found out about this cost.'”

The Mayor acknowledged that some organizations are financially struggling and want lower rates to offset revenue loss or attendance declines and that the city would work to support those groups, but also said the changes to the rental fees were long overdue.