Development costs passed onto buyer

Further to my previous letter regarding Niagara Region’s new development charges bylaw.

Our politicians believe developers and new development only should pay for new development infrastructure. Someone should wake them up and tell them to quit fooling the public.

Developers simply pass the added costs on to the purchaser to remain in business.

If there was so much money to be made in land development, why are municipalities not developing land like they used to years ago and selling serviced lots to builders? I would guess it’s because of the fear of risk, and fear of their own regulations which are much easier to enforce on someone else.

The new regional development charges will be $15,544 for new single family homes, increasing to $17,569 in 2019, with some home categories increasing as much as 450 per cent. This is total war, especially on our naive and unsuspecting youth whose dreams of ever owning a new home have vanished and who are now purchasing less than five per cent of new homes. They are being forced into their parents’ basements or buildings that are unfit to be lived in.

Yet our politicians keep insisting developers should be the ones to provide affordable housing, and keep enacting new regulations to that effect.

Keep it up, Regional Chairman Alan Caslin and entourage. You are doing an excellent job of enhancing homelessness, poverty and despair among our youth.

Frank Memme Wainfleet