Despite existing reports, city to hire $250-K consultant

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/05/2016 (3467 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The city administration appears to have already done much of the homework to make a case for Brian Bowman’s regulatory growth fees.

While Bowman said Wednesday he was unfamiliar with what work the city administration had done on the issue before he came into office, it appears the administration had done a great deal of research that it is now willing to pay a consultant $250,000 to do all over again.

In the fall of 2013, to support then-mayor Sam Katz’s call for development growth charges, the administration compiled a series of studies, research papers and reviews of best practises to justify what it called “growth development charges.”

Acting CAO Deepak Joshi had penned an Op-Ed piece for the Free Press on Nov. 12, 2013, explaining the rationale for the new fee.

The growth development charge, Joshi wrote, is “a one-time fee, which applies to people who build new homes. The purpose of the fee is to help pay for new infrastructure that is required as the city grows.”

Joshi argued that the new growth creates a demand on existing services, which need to be expanded to meet the new growth: expansion of new regional roads, expansion of public transit, new recreational facilities.

Echoing Bowman’s position that if new homeowners don’t pay more for the growth they have created, then everyone will have to pay more, Joshi said: “Those (growth) costs will either be partially funded by new homeowners now, or fully funded later by all homeowners’ and business owners’ property taxes.”

The city laid out its case on its website, titled Growth Development Charge, still available Wednesday, with four key points, similar to the argument Bowman is making:

1. Growth automatically increases the need for public infrastructure and services and this has a cost that needs to be funded.
2. These charges ensure developments include the full cost of their impact on public infrastructure when deciding whether to proceed.
3. They move the funding burden for growth infrastructure from property tax to new development.
4. They create opportunity to enhance the service levels of infrastructure for everyone.

 

Existing reports

Included in its evidence, the city provided links to the following documents:

Institute on Municipal Finance & Government – Papers on Municipal Finance and Governance

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp – Uses of Development Cost Charges 

CMHC – Housing Development Levies 

CMHC – Levies, Fees, Charges and Taxes on New Housing: 2002 

CMHC – The Effect of Development Charges on Urban Form – An Econometric Analysis 

 

Best practices

The administration package also included a section with links to best practices guidelines:

Government of B.C. – Development Cost Charges 

Halifax Regional Municipality – Infrastructure Charges, Best Practice Guide. 

 

Municipalities

The administration webpage included a survey of how other municipalities applied growth development fees:

Vancouver, 

Surrey, 

Toronto, 

Ottawa, 

and Mississauga.

 

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca