In the penultimate meeting night of city council before the summer break, the horseshoe will tackle a complicated subject that’s progressively becoming more and more complicated. Development Charges is the topic of two back-to-back meetings; where they’ve been, where they are, and where they’re going next. Prepare to feel better informed about the subject!
NOTE #1: Delegates will be able to appear at this meeting in-person or via tele-presence but you do have to register with the clerks office before 10 am on Friday June 9. You can also submit written delegations and correspondences for agenda items.
NOTE #2: In addition to meeting in-person, this meeting will also be live-streamed on the City of Guelph’s website here.
NOTE #3: These meetings take place on the special day of Wednesday at 5 pm for the workshop and 7 pm for the special meeting.
Development Charges 101 Workshop Council Memo – First things first, council will talk about what Development Charges are, and what they do so that everyone is on the same page before the next meeting, which will look at what the new DC Bylaw will look like before it comes back to council for a statutory planning meeting this October. The current DC Bylaw expires in March, and a new one needs to be passed in order for the City to keep collecting.
General Manager of Finance and Treasurer Tara Baker and Senior Corporate Analyst Kevin Yaraskavitch will take council through the fundamentals, the growth forecast, historic service levels and funding, how rates are determined, the DC reserves, what exemptions are offered, and a strategic overview about the potential impacts from Bill 23.
SEE THE COMPLETE AGENDA ON THE CITY OF GUELPH WEBSITE HERE.
2023 Development Charge Background Study Update – This will be council’s chance to comment on the work done so far on the update to the Development Charges Bylaw, and to hear how the study’s been changed in the aftermath of seven different changes to the Development Charges Act since 2016. At stake is about $1.85 billion in capital costs over the next 10 years to accommodate growth.
Having said that, provincial changes to why and how DCs will be collected going forward means that “estimated DC collections from growth will be less than the DC eligible
costs over the by-law period.” Thanks to Bill 23, the City will collect an estimated $760 million over the bylaw period and hand out an estimated $227 million in new mandatory discounts. Adding further complications this moment is the fact that the regulations for affordable and attainable housing exemptions haven’t been received yet, so more changes will certainly be coming since we don’t yet know those impacts.
The statutory planning meeting for the new DC Bylaw will be in October, and the final version is expected to come back to city council for approval in January.
Guelph Politico 