Region development charges under fire
Niagara CAO Carmen D’Angelo calls it “unprecedented.”
To his knowledge, no other lowertier municipality has launched an Ontario Municipal Board appeal of an upper- tier municipality’s development charges bylaw — until now.
The City of Welland is now in the process of appealing Niagara Region’s development charges bylaw for the second time since August.
“I’ve checked with my other regional partners. We’re not aware of any local municipality appealing an upper- tier municipal DC bylaw,” D’Angelo said.
The Region’s lawyers, too, have never heard of a lower- tier municipality taking the actions that Welland has — now for the second time, added the Region’s acting corporate services commissioner Jason Burgess.
But Welland Mayor Frank Campion said he isn’t concerned about breaking new ground, especially when he’s convinced the actions the city has taken are in the best interest of the city, its residents and developers.
“We’re doing what we think is right,” Campion said. “We’re doing it for what we believe are the right reasons, to ensure that development continues, that we get the development we need and that our developers in Niagara and certainly in Welland are treated fairly.”
Welland initially launched an OMB appeal of Niagara’s development charges bylaw last August, concerned about the impact increased costs would have on development in the region, while also alleging the Region failed to provide a required notification period.
Within months of approving that bylaw, regional council voted in November to rescind it and replace it with a revised development charges bylaw.
Welland’s appeal of the original bylaw, however, has not been rescinded. The appeal remains active with the OMB.
Meanwhile, Welland launched an appeal of the Region’s revised bylaw earlier this year — despite changes to that bylaw that were intended to address some of the concerns raised by Welland.
For instance, while the initial bylaw would have seen rates increase by as much as 400 per cent for four- plus bedroom multi- residential units, the revised bylaw eliminated that category and instead increased charges for two- plus bedroom units by 132 per cent, from $ 4,651 per unit to $ 10,789.
Burgess said the increases were calculated to cover the cost of future infrastructure requirements across Niagara to facilitate that growth.
“There are x- number of hundreds of millions of dollars in projects that are growth- related. To recoup that over 30 years, you really need to charge x amount,” he said.
If those costs are not recouped through development charges, they will instead need to be added to tax bills, Burgess added. D’Angelo said the development community itself understands the need for the charges, and some developers have told him Niagara’s charges compare favourably to other jurisdictions.
The new revised bylaw also resulted in increases to all categories with the exception of industrial, with increases of 110 per cent for special- care dwellings, 48 per cent for single and semidetached homes, 30 per cent for onebedroom apartments, 78 per cent for townhouses, 34 per cent for institutional, and a new $ 7,005 charge was added for wind turbines.
Commercial and industrial charges dropped by 12 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively.
Despite the changes, Welland remains concerned about the impact those charges may have on future development within the city.
“We want to make sure that whatever happens is fair for developers in our area,” Campion said.
Although he said he provided outdated information when he reported a 400 per cent increase in development charges in a recent news story about the appeal, he said it doesn’t lessen concerns within the city.
“Nothing has changed on the City of Welland’s position on that. We still feel it will stifle multi- residential development that we really need badly, and not just in Welland but in Niagara as a whole,” he said. “There are other areas in the region where growth is going to happen, virtually no matter what, and they won’t have as big a complaint about it as we do.”
“For us, we need the incentive to get mutli- residential here. We need more alternative housing. Not everybody wants to live in a single detached home … and it’s just not there, or it’s very limited,” he said.
D’Angelo, however, said “incentive programs are working.”
“We don’t share Welland’s view that it has impacted growth. In fact, we haven’t seen a decline because of the DCs,” he said.
D’Angelo said a report will be presented at an upcoming regional council meeting to help developers who are struggling with the transition from the previous development charges to the new fees.
Campion said he couldn’t provide details about why the city has not withdrawn its appeal of the nowrescinded bylaw, because it is considered litigation and is being dealt with as an in- camera issue.
However, he said the city has reasons for not withdrawing it, while also appealing the bylaw that replaced it.
“The second appeal deals with some different issues. There are two different appeals that we have in there, and they deal with different aspects of the bylaw,” Campion said.
Regional representatives, too, said they could not discuss the previous bylaw due to the pending litigation.
Former Welland chief administrative officer Travers Fitzpatrick, who retired in 2006 and returned to the job briefly in 2015, said he has been paying close attention to the issue. He said the Region “clearly botched” the process of adopting that bylaw.
As a result, he said the repealed bylaw “was never properly in force,” and any development charges collected during the 77 days until it was repealed “have been improperly collected and should be refunded to the payees, with interest.”
Although the Region said “transition measures” were worked out to deal with the issue, “there are no provisions whatsoever in the Development Charges Act nor regulations which would permit any transition measures,” he added.
“The Region flat out missed required legislative requirements.”
Despite ongoing disagreements, Campion said he remains hopeful concerns can be resolved without the need for a full OMB hearing on the issue.