Burlington wrestling with huge revenue loss
New legislation was supposed to be ‘revenue neutral,’ but it’s not
Burlington council held its first virtual meeting last week — mindnumbing, lasting over seven hours, including lunch. There were some excellent presentations, but time management was lacking. The format was a teleconference, which will be the norm for the foreseeable future. Only Mayor Marianne Meed Ward was at city hall.
A good discussion occurred about Bill 108, the More Homes, More Choices Act. It was supposed to be revenue-neutral for municipalities, it isn’t. (Was there ever any doubt?) A staff check of nine recent developments, on which the city had received $8.3 million, showed that the new act would generate $5.3 million — $3 million less. Again, city taxpayers will subsidize development.
You’ll recall that Premier Doug Ford consulted development insiders prior to these changes, but not municipalities.
Developers don’t even make a pretense of complying with official plans, because they know LPAT (Local Planning Appeal Tribunal) will override elected councils anyway. Why even bother electing councils, when their most important decisions for citizens will be deemed meaningless?
A perfect example is a pending settlement north of Tyandaga, west of Brant. National Homes bought 11.1 ha. (of which 5.04 are developable) zoned for singles and semis. They applied for 233 townhouses in late 2017. The previous council agreed to 212, but the current one disagreed.
Caught between an earlier LPAT submission and awful decisions of the previous council, they had little room to manoeuvre, and are now supporting 210 units, plus a 0.76 acre park — way more than acceptable. As a neighbour, wouldn’t you be steamed? They’re totally frustrated, and I sympathize, having attended earlier LPAT sessions on it.
An excellent report laid out increased costs, lost revenues and projected savings caused by COVID-19 and arrived at a guesstimate — a $200,000 shortfall. Tax payments are deferred until June 30 to help citizens over the hump, reducing the city’s cash flow. Parking is free for now, as is transit. Riders must enter the back door, as fare boxes are at the front, an increased risk for both drivers and passengers during the pandemic.
Facilities are closed, so there are no program revenues, but buildings still must be maintained, with stepped up security. If high numbers of staff were laid off, there’s a risk of not being able to get good ones back. No summer students have been hired, so things like median planters and park maintenance fall prey to the virus, too.
Burlington is digging into reserves — $2.2 million to help bridge the gap — but that’s OK. Reserves are rainy day funds, and will be replenished later. Every year at budget time I railed about former councillor Jack Dennison trying to slash contributions to reserves. Fortunately, colleagues didn’t succumb. Burlington has long invested surpluses to top them up. We’d be in a big mess today without healthy reserves.
This virus keeps changing the dynamics for many families, ours included. Happily, my lovely stepgranddaughter, whose baby was due just before my last column, had a healthy boy by scheduled C-section in Toronto without mishap. (He had been breech.)
My daughter, still at a bank, works ever shorter hours. Her husband, expecting job-sharing as orders dried up, has been laid off. My son, who shopped for me, started back to work, but my laid-off son-in-law took over. The university student granddaughter, so distraught by the loss of her summer job (tuition money) managed to find another. We’ve been very fortunate.
One grandson tried for three weeks to phone employment insurance, as instructed, because of a question they raised. Logging about 300 calls, he got through twice, only to have the calls dropped. Giving up, he applied for CERB (the COVID grant) and money was in his account within three days. A reader reported a similar experience.
On a lighter note, several new catchphrases have been coined during this outbreak. Self explanatory, they include Locktail Hour, Quarantini, and Covidiot. We’re not over the COVID strangulation yet, but it looks like there’s light shining through.