By Jason Luciw - Kelowna Capital News - May 21, 2008
Developers have weighed in on the fees Westside council wants to charge them to pay for future upgrades to the municipality’s arterial roads. And generally speaking, they don’t seem too happy with the proposed new rate structure. Westside council has held two meetings in the last month to get feedback from builders on road development cost charges, or DCCs as they are known. The rates Westside is now considering are double what the Central Okanagan Regional District charged when it governed Westside. Under the regional district, a road DCC was $5,000 for every single family house constructed. Westside council’s rates would be between $11,900 and $13,900. The regional district admitted its rates were too low. It initiated the current review and has since passed the process on to council. As part of the review, developer input is mandatory.
Dale Pilling, with D.E. Pilling and Associates, works with several builders in Westside. He told council some land owners have already made road contributions for their projects through the regional district. And, Westside must be careful not to charge twice. He also stated some areas of the municipality needed more road improvements than others. Council should consider adjusting DCCs up or down in an area based on its specific road needs. Pilling said that taxpayers should foot more of the bill for future road upgrades. Westside council is contemplating throwing in one cent for every dollar a developer puts in to the pot. But Kelowna, for example, gives 15 cents on the dollar.
Keith Funk, with New Town Planning Services, said Westside has inherited substandard roads. But today’s developers aren’t to blame for all of them. And in turn, they should not be responsible for fixing all the deficiencies. He also added that Westside may be too conservative on its growth projections, noting that greater growth rates mean more DCC revenue. Therefore, he argued, rates wouldn’t need to be as high as council is considering. He said something as simple as changing the growth projection from 2.5 per cent to three per cent could ease the burden on today’s developers. Another speaker said Westside should be insuring that Westbank First Nation is charging its builders similar cost charges for roads. The man, who didn’t give his name, asked council if there would be discussions with WFN because development on reserves would be generating lots of traffic too. “Sooner or later someone’s going to have to take the bull by the horns and say WFN, you’re generating all this tax base here and traffic, and when are you going to start to pay.” Developments on reserves are a cash cow for the band, he said. The WFN must pay for the infrastructure needed to support its own growth. By the way, the WFN does charge DCCs. But they would be about $5,000 less per single family home than those being currently being contemplated in Westside, according to reports from engineering firm Urban Systems.
Mayor Rosalind Neis thanked the speakers for their input. She agreed council had to be cautious when setting DCC rates. Ultimately, costs would be passed on to the end consumer making homes less and less affordable. Neis said council would balance developer feedback with the needs of the overall community to insure “fairness” and “equity” in the final equation. Council will soon need to pass a DCC bylaw so it can start to officially charge the rates. The provincial government must also sign off on the final amount. Until the DCCs are officially established, council is having developers sign a covenant as a condition of final approval on their projects. The builder must agree to pay the new DCC rates as established. The DCC program will pay for upgrades to 35 kilometres of Westside’s 65 kilometres of arterial roads over the next 20 years at a total cost of $130 million. Taxpayers will be responsible for up to $21.6 million. Provincial assistance is estimated at $1.4 million and developers would pay for the rest, according to Urban Systems.
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