After an almost marathon regional council meeting last week, Halton Region Council voted to increase the development charges for the next few years. As you will read in this article, the DC bylaw is updated every 5 years to have development pay for the much needed services the region provides including among other things infrastructure, water etc.
As soon as the link to the meeting is up on the Region of Halton website (www.halton.ca) I will post a link so you can watch the debate.
From Christina Commisso, Milton Canadian Champion
DC hike for retail development
Retail development will soon cost more after regional council approved a hike in development charges (DCs) Wednesday.
Beginning September, developers building spaces for clothing stores, restaurants or grocers will pay $24.98 per square-foot for Greenfield development and $22.01 per square-foot with Halton’s built boundary in DCs, which represents a 52 and 76 per cent increase over current charges, respectively.
During the DC update process, which began last September, retail developers have spoken against the increase. A Lowe’s that’s been underway in Burlington since 2007 is looking at about another $2 million in DCs, for a total of $3.85 million, without any changes in the scope of the development as a result of the increase. After speaking to council about the issue on several occasions, regional staff said the home improvement warehouse could potentially pay their DCs before the increase is implemented in September.
Non-retail development, such as office and industrial spaces will see a 25 per cent decrease in DCs while charges for homes will see a slight increase. Developers will pay more than $36, 000 in DCs for a single family home built in a Greenfield field area, which is about 13 per cent higher than what’s currently paid while the fee for houses in the built boundary will increase slightly by three per cent to about $27,000.
Changes in Halton’s DC bylaw, which is updated every five years, include a non-retail to retail conversion fee for any space that’s more than 3,000 square-feet. Also, the new bylaw states high-density development requires a minimum of 130 units per net hectare — up from the current 100-unit minimum — or a four or more storey building.