Development charges up for review

Development charges up for review

News

By: Sandra Bolan

Bradford West Gwillimbury hired Watson and Associates to complete a study to support a new and comprehensive development charge bylaw.

The municipality currently has two bylaws under the Development Charges Act.
One bylaw, which was established in 2003, is for roads, sanitary sewers and the wastewater treatment plant.

The other bylaw, enacted in 2004, is for non-engineered services such as fire and police protection, parks and recreation, the library and administration.

Both bylaws have been amended since their initial adoptions in an effort to keep cost estimates and the resulting development charges in line with revised forecasts.

However, under the Development Charges Act, the bylaws still need to undergo extensive reviews every five years, which includes a background study to ensure charges in the new bylaws are appropriate.

The 2003 bylaw is the first of the two up for renewal.

“Given their different years of adoption and the number of times the town’s development charges have been amended, it’s easy to confuse the two,” Jay Currier, Bradford West Gwillimbury’s chief administrative officer wrote in his report to council. “In the process of adopting a new bylaw to replace bylaw 2003-84, staff propose that the two development charge bylaws be amalgamated into a single bylaw that will specify all of the town’s development charges.”

The background study is expected to cost $70,000, not including GST. Costs for development charge background studies are recoverable through development charges, so there will be no impact on the taxpayer.

All content contained in this or any other yorkregion.com website including but not limited to textual, audio, video and any graphics are copyright 2000-2008 Metroland Media Group Ltd. and can not be used in any part without expressed written permission, with the exception of content in the yorkregion.com Pen & Pixel section, which requires the written consent of the authors.