{"id":36926,"date":"2025-10-02T14:43:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T18:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=36926"},"modified":"2025-10-02T14:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T18:43:13","slug":"changes-to-development-charges-laws-are-bringing-a-financial-hit-to-the-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/changes-to-development-charges-laws-are-bringing-a-financial-hit-to-the-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes to Development Charges laws are bringing a financial hit to the Town"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Provincial changes on how municipalities like Aurora can collect Development Charges (DCs) from incoming developers are resulting in a financial hit at the municipal level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council last week considered a year-end update from staff outlining where things stand on incoming DCs \u2013 that is, money paid by developers to municipalities to account for the stress of growth on municipal services and facilities \u2013 given the recent changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDCs are imposed by the Town of Aurora to recover growth-related capital costs from both residential and non-residential developments as determined under the Development Charges Act,\u201d reads the report. \u201cMore specifically, these growth-related costs relate to investments that are necessary for the Town to maintain its existing levels of service to a growing community. Any investments resulting in a level of service increase are ineligible for recovery through DCs. As required under the DC Act, all DCs are held in a separate reserve fund until spent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the report notes that Aurora\u2019s DC Reserves had a net balance of $19.03 million as of December 31, 2024, DCs reserved for Parks and Recreation uses are overdrawn and the DCs brought in over the course of the last year were well below average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Town collected a total of $6.29 million in new Development Charge revenues in 2024, well under the $16.9 million annual average projected by the Town\u2019s 2024 DC Study,\u201d the report continues. \u201cNumerous legislative changes and present economic conditions have negatively impacted the Town\u2019s actual Development Charge collections. As a result of DC fund availability, some planned growth infrastructure may need to be deferred or financed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one instance, the report notes that a loss of $0.4 million due to DC exemptions was replaced in coffers from the Town\u2019s Tax Rate Stabilization Reserve, a detail which raised questions from Council members and members of the public alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Town Treasurer Rachel Wainwright-van Kessel told lawmakers this was a temporary measure until there was more certainty from the Province over DC exemptions, but resident Shawn Deane delegated to Council concerned that \u201ctaxpayers are paying to give developers a break\u201d through use of the Tax Rate Stabilization Reserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI work hard for my money and I don\u2019t think you\u2019re disrespecting it or trying to waste it, but I get nothing out of private land development \u2013 nothing \u2013 and not even a residual benefit that, \u2018Oh, we\u2019re going to have extra homes\u2026to generate extra revenue,\u201d said Deane. \u201cMy recommendations would be to do a survey with Engage Aurora (the Town\u2019s online feedback platform) about this specific matter, write a new bylaw that protects taxpayers from paying for non-essential expenses, which taxpayers do not receive a benefit\u2026  I would think it\u2019s appropriate to voice our opposition to Premier Ford on this Development Charge Act. If developers are exempt, but taxpayers aren\u2019t, that\u2019s problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the delegation, Ward 5 Councillor John Gallo questioned how the decision was made to use the Tax Rate Stabilization in this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s, in my view, a delicate fund and I believe we at this table should be in control of it unless we\u2019ve given authority to staff to do it,\u201d said Gallo. \u201cIf this is a temporary concept, okay, but I would like to know more [in the next report] to better understand how we\u2019re dealing with it because this is not a one-off. I suspect it is going to just get worse. We have to figure out how to do this and we can\u2019t keep funding it from the Tax Rate Stabilization Fund.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Ward 4 Councillor Michael Thompson: \u201cI support the idea of coming back and having a broader conversation and, to Councillor Gallo\u2019s points, I do think that the issue will continue\u2026 as we continue to see some changes, perhaps there\u2019ll be additional legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing the Treasurer, he continued: \u201cI appreciate the information you shared with us today, which once again says that the Development Charges we\u2019ve collected are less than what we budgeted for. We\u2019re seeing an impact with that respect. I know you mentioned that we\u2019ll have some broader conversations at Budget time when it comes to our 10-Year Capital Plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that\u2026we have so very few mechanisms to collect revenue for the municipality that certainly all the changes that are happening with DCs will have a big impact on us. It warrants a bigger, broader conversation amongst staff and Council.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Provincial changes on how municipalities like Aurora can collect Development Charges (DCs) from incoming developers are resulting in a financial hit at the municipal level. Council last week considered a year-end update from staff outlining where things stand on incoming DCs \u2013 that is, money paid by developers to municipalities to account for the stress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9BA","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 21:11:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36927,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36926\/revisions\/36927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}