Growth needs to be fully costed

Dear Editor: Any new growth contemplated in Penticton’s new Official Community Plan needs to be fully costed. It’s not that complicated. In new communities, developers pass costs for new water and sewer pipes, stop signs, sidewalks, etc. onto the purchasers of property. It’s the capital costs of infrastructure that’s necessary for residents to live there and recovered through new home sales. But more often than not, the pressure put on existing and even future community assets is not adequately accounted for.

When developers build something in existing areas (i.e. infill) they take advantage of previous investments and often contribute little toward the new pressures being put on existing infrastructure (intersections, roads, storm and sanitary sewer, electricity, etc).

Again, that usually only represents the capital costs. The money paid by developers only covers the requirements to have the infrastructure built, but not the long-term increases in operating costs.

As with established communities, new communities require services... fire, police, transit, snow clearing and ongoing parks maintenance. They’re paid for through operating costs that are usually partly covered by tax dollars. Further, operating costs go beyond infrastructure specific to any one part of a city. There’s other off-site costs for new waste facilities, recreation centres, upgrading roads, bridges, traffic control lights, parking lots, adding bicycle lanes, etc.

Over the long term (sometimes 20-30 years), growth usually does not pay for itself. It’s at the time of development when costs need to be captured. Otherwise, costs are hidden in future taxation, utility and user fees.

We’ve all heard city departments say when we pay for one service, we might not be able to afford another. That’s why you, as citizens, will sometimes see a city department tell City Council it can’t fully meet priorities. Here’s four examples of how the cost of growth is not fully captured:

• requests for transit service to a new subdivision.

• using payments in lieu of parking instead of providing parking in new developments and recent ideas to build a new city parking lot.

• requests from developers to waive installing sidewalks in established areas.

• increasing density in established areas and piecemeal development.

These things add up quickly. With the new OCP there will be some pretty terms like “compact city,” “vibrant nodes,” etc. We all need to remember, it is most important that new growth is fully capable of paying for itself. Wayne Llewellyn Penticton