City hikes fees for developers, closes loophole

The City of Ottawa is significantly hiking the fees it collects from new construction topay for roads, transit and other projects, and is closinga loopholesome builders were using to pay lowerfees on new student apartment buildings.

Under the new structure, the development fee on a detached house within the Greenbelt will rise by 23 per centto $30,977, while a row house will cost the builder an extra28 per cent, or$24,748.

The fees on a single or semi-detached house outside the Greenbelt will rise less dramatically to $36,338.

The bulk of therevenue will gotoward roads and transit, but the steep increase in urban areas is specifically meant to cover newparks planned at such locations as WestgateShopping Centre, Scott Street and Heron Gate.

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The city has $7.5 billion in projects planned for the coming decade, of which one-third could be covered by development charges. The money pays for most of the arterial roads and water mains innew suburbs and other growing areas.

When fees have fallen short in the past,projects on the city'sto-do list have been pushed back, such as the widening of the Airport Parkway or realignment ofGreenbank Road in Barrhaven.

Student apartments treated as nursing homes

Thenew fee structure also closes a loophole that had been bothering Rideau-VanierCoun.Mathieu Fleury.

According to Fleury, the builder ofa student apartment building on Rideau Streetpaid development fees at a rateintended for retirement homes, thenbuilt a tower where units haveno kitchens.

"This is a small niche group that just doesn't want to pay what they should be paying in development charges, and in the end we have less desirable units," Fleury said.

The city collected $4.4 million for that student apartment tower, but would have earned nearly $1 million more under a new category created for rooming units.

Extra fees for roads inBarrhaven, Stittsville

Residents in Barrhavenhave been waiting forGreenbank Road tobe realigned to the west and widened, but the city has no money for it and pushed it off until 2030, while it widens Strandherd Drive instead.

Coun. Jan Harder acknowledged some 35,000 people live in homes that were built on the premise thatGreenbank would be fixed, and are frustrated by having to use an old bridge and by a lack of bike paths.

She proposed staff look at a special charge on new developments in Barrhavento speed up the Greenbankproject.

Coun. Glen Gowermade a similar pitch to collect extra fees to extend Robert Grant Boulevard to serve new neighbourhoods in Stittsville, a project that's not on the books until after 2031.

Provincial changes put fees in flux

The newfee structurewould typically last five years,and the rush is on to implement them before the existing structure expires June 11. But thecity isn't expecting the new fees to stay in place through to2024.

Last Thursday, the Ontario government threw municipalities for a loopwhen it announced cities would no longer be allowed to charge development charges for "soft services."

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So the fees being approved now are simply a stand-in until the city can come up with anentirely new system for collecting fees for parks, libraries and other amenities communities need.

The city also plans to update the fees for infrastructure such as roads, transit and pipes once it comes up with a new priority list for the transportation links it wants to build.