Development Charges Season

Post by: Craig Robson

Many municipalities in Ontario are currently undergoing a review of their development charges bylaws for 2014 implementation.

Anyone who is involved in real estate development should be paying careful attention to these reviews.

It is not unusual for a developer to determine that provisions in a development charges bylaw are not as favourable to that developer as they could or ought to have been.  For example, a few missing words in a definition within the bylaw can defeat a right to claim certain exemptions or credits.

Now is the time to be reviewing any definitions in a proposed development charges bylaw which may affect your development and to try to have those definitions "tweaked" as necessary to accommodate the developments you may be undertaking during the life of the bylaw (usually five years).

If nothing else, you should be keeping an eye on the proposed amounts of the development charges so that if the charges are increasing you can attempt to take out any requisite building permits to fix the amount of the charges at the old rates prior to the implementation of the new rates.

In addition, if there are any capital works which your proposed development may need in order to proceed, such as for example, a road or trunk sewer, a careful review of the background study relevant to the proposed bylaw should be undertaken.

You should attempt to ensure that all necessary capital works, to the extent any of them could be considered to be "growth related", are:

• shown as included in the capital works to be completed within the background study relating to the new bylaw; and,
• that such capital works are scheduled to be completed within a timeframe which will accommodate your proposed development.

Otherwise, you could be faced with the prospect of having to either delay your development or, if the municipality will allow you to do so, pay the cost of the capital works without any guarantee of reimbursement.  Even if the municipality is inclined to reimburse you for the cost of any capital works that you undertake on its behalf, there may be difficulty in completing such arrangements if the proposed capital works are not contemplated by the background study that gives rise to the final development charge amounts in the bylaw.