Report to: General Committee Report
Date: May 21, 2010
SUBJECT: Revised
Development Charge Credit Policy
PREPARED BY: Kevin
Ross (Ext. 2126)
RECOMMENDATION:
1) That
the attached “Development
Charge Credit and Reimbursement Policy” be received and adopted by Council;
2)
And that staff
be authorized and directed to do all things necessary to give effect to this
resolution.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Not applicable
The purpose of this report is to seek Council’s approval
to the recommended changes to the Development Charge Credit Policy.
The current Development Charge Credit Agreement Policy has
been in place since June 2008 and allows developers who construct public works
on the Town’s behalf to receive development charge credits based on specified
criteria. Over the past two years,
various cases have come up which were not covered in the policy and staff
believe it is prudent to update the policy in order to make it more relevant to
the current environment.
The fundamentals of the policy remain intact where the
Town (1) receives a detailed application for development charge credits before
construction, (2) utilizes actual construction costs in determining
compensation and (3) receives security for the works until it meets the
required engineering standard.
The purposes of the changes to the policy are to (1)
expand its coverage to include reimbursements to developers, (2) provide
authority for the termination or amendment of existing Credit and Reimbursement
Agreements and (3) permit development charge credits from site plan
agreements. The policy changes are also intended to increase the
efficiency in the management of future requests for compensation from
developers. Based on the
recommended changes, the name of the policy is being revised to the Development
Charge Credit and Reimbursement Policy (Appendix A and B).
Reimbursements
Development charge (DC) credits are provided to developers
to offset their cost incurred when they construct public works on the Town’s
behalf. There are however instances
where developers are not able to recoup the full cost of the works that are
included in the Background Study through DC credits; these mainly occur when:
a)
The DC’s payable by the developer, provide
insufficient DC credits to cover the cost of the works.
b)
The developer constructs public works that are shared
between two or more by-laws, and the DC credits are limited to that portion of
the cost of the works included in the by-law under which their DC’s are
payable.
c)
The developer has already paid Area Specific DC’s
towards the constructed works and seeks a return of that proportion paid.
d)
The developer has constructed the works, with the
recommendation of staff, and has no DC credits available as there are no
current or future DC payments anticipated.
The current DC Credit Policy is designed mainly for
circumstances where the DC’s generated by a development covers the cost of the
works. It does not provide the authority to execute reimbursement agreements
with developers, where appropriate, in the event that the available DC credits
do not cover the cost of the works.
The proposed change to the policy will provide staff with
the authority to provide reimbursements to developers subject to compliance
with the other guidelines in the policy.
Termination/Amendment of Existing
Agreements
Executed credit agreements normally remain in force until
all of the approved DC credits have been provided to the developer(s); there
are generally no provisions for termination or amendments in these
agreements.
There are now
Credit Agreements in force where the Development Charge by-laws on which the
credits are based have been repealed and the developer(s) have agreed to forego
any further DC credits. The current
policy does not include provisions to terminate or amend existing credit
agreements and therefore these agreements are still in force.
The proposed
policy recommends that authority be granted to the Treasurer to approve the
termination of, or amendments to, existing Credit and/or Reimbursement Agreements
to be executed by the Mayor and Clerk in a form satisfactory to the
Commissioner, Corporate Services.
Site Plans
The current policy does not consider DC credits being
provided under a site plan agreement.
Town staff have been approached with requests
for DC credits for developments being done under site plans and the current
policy does provide the authority for staff to assess and provide DC credits,
if appropriate.
The proposed policy now provides the requisite authority
for staff to assess and enter into DC credit and/or reimbursement agreements
for developments being done under a site plan.
All other aspects of the proposed Development Charge
Credit and Reimbursement Policy remain consistent with the current policy.
The revision of the policy will enable the collection of
fees for the preparation, processing and administration of Reimbursement
agreements.
Not
applicable
Not
applicable
Not
applicable
Engineering
and Legal departments has reviewed this report and their comments have been
incorporated.
RECOMMENDED BY:
Appendix A:
Development Charge Credit and Reimbursement Policy (June 2010)
Appendix B:
Procedures (June 2010)
(Changes from the 2008 policy
and procedures are in bold)
Revised%20Development%20Charge.pdf