Keep development charges down: Welland
ALLAN BENNER
POSTMEDIA NETWORK
Proposed increasing to Niagara Region’s development charges are intended to help accommodate future growth, without hitting up taxpayers.
But the City of Welland has sided with developers in asking for changes in the way the new charges as strutured, concerned that increases could hinder future growth in communities still recovering from industrial losses over the past decade.
As part of a five-year review of the Niagara Region’s development charges bylaw, Regional chairman Alan Caslin said Niagara planning staff have recommended “the necessary changes so we can accommodate the growth in the infrastructure that will take place over the next period of time.”
The cost of that growth needs to be divvied up between developers and the residents, so that Niagara continues to be “attractive as a community to do business in, but yet can still pay for what we need to expand without having to put too much of it on the tax levy.”
“We need to be mindful of the balance between how much we increase taxes to pay for regional infrastructure, especially new infrastructure, and how much we use the development charges to provide services,” Caslin said.
The Region held a statutory public hearing as part of Thursday’s council meeting to give the public an opportunity to discuss proposed changes to the bylaw, which will mean significant increases after the past several years of keeping development charges as low as possible.
During that time, Caslin said Niagara has “seen a lot of increase in activity” in new development “which is great news.”
“But what’s happening is we are experiencing growth and we’re having to build infrastructure to accommodate that growth,” he said. “And that’s where we need to make sure that we have enough funding available to build that infrastructure.”
But representatives of several development companies, as well as Welland’s chief administrative officer Gary Long attended the meeting concerned that significantly increasing development charges could endanger Niagara’s resurgence.
In some cases, he said development charges are poised to nearly double if the recommendations within the draft bylaw are approved.
The bylaw, however, does provide ways in which developers can obtain rebates for some of the increases they may be asked to pay.
“I think our biggest concern is the potential impact these increases could have on our ability to attract jobs, attract people, attract investment, and really affect our competitiveness as well . ... This is a highlycompetitive global economy and I think we have to be very careful before we start jacking up development charges and reducing grants and incentives” Long said.
“It was these programs in their current form that brought General Electric to Niagara. It’s these programs and incentives that are working and we just don’t feel that now is the time to celebrate and get our calculator out to see how much money we should be making from everybody that’s moving here and the businesses that are moving here. It’s too early to celebrate. We need to give these program incentives time to work.”
Long said he attended the regional meeting after Welland council approved a motion opposing development charge increases.
“Council and Welland staff have taken a real strong position publicly against the proposed changes and increases in the draft development charges bylaw,” he said.
Despite concerns that reducing development charges will mean increasedtaxes,WellandMayorFrank Campion said that’s misleading.
“That’s not the case in most instances that we’re dealing with,” Campion said.
“When they say the taxpayers will have to pay for the cost of development, it’s not in every case.”
For instance, he said there are plenty of brownfield properties availablethroughouttheregion.Andthose sites are already services, minimizing any public costs associated with the redevelopment of those sites.
And although intersection upgrades were needed on Highway 140 to accommodate the new General Electric plant, Campion said the land there was already serviced too, minimizing the need for additional infrastructure investments.
But Campion said the proposed changes will undermine the work of economic development officers as they try to bring new industries to Niagara.
He said Welland’s motion opposing development charge increases was forwarded to all other municipalities for support. Since then, several municipal councils have joined Welland in supporting the motion, while others have yet to consider it.
“We’re trying to generate as much support as we can and it looks like we’re gaining some traction.”
The revised development charges bylaw is to be considered at the regional committee level in two weeks, and could be up for final consideration by regional council at the June 29 meeting.