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A discussion on DC’s

June 14, 2013   ·   0 Comments

Dear editor:

The following is the introduction to my submission to be presented at Public Meeting with respect to the Development Charges Bylaw to be held June 19 2013 at the Council Chambers in Alliston at 7 p.m. Should you like to read the whole submission please email me at dodgeboy52@me.com and I will send you a full copy as soon as possible.

I will suggest that if a more complex study was to be undertaken, and that if planning goals and objectives are entered into the study and a wider analysis of possible revenues is undertaken, we are more likely to see a more affluent community with lower tax increases over time, due to economies of scale, business growth and economics principles such multiplier effects and economies of scale.

Further if economic tools are used to analyze the likely effects on revenues, those revenues are more likely to be maximized and that costs per citizen are likely to decrease for such services as road or park maintenance.

I will show that Tottenham’s Development Charges should be lower because we have been designated a Secondary Commercial center in the Official Plan. Also that because we are not the primary Industrial center in the Town we should have a lower rate. While this may have made sense to the original writers of the Plan over 20 years ago, of which I was one, it is actually bad planning from Tottenham’s perspective and tools should be put in place to correct this unfairness. Tottenham’s citizens are not secondary, but fully equal members of the Town of New Tecumseth.

My basic premise will be that three things should happen with respect to DC’s in Tottenham. One, that the discounted rate now applied to the Urban Commercial Core zone should be applied to all Commercially zoned lands and to all Commercially designated lands in the municipality. And further that that discount should not be one discount but a series of discounts that reflect the goals of our municipality as expressed by our Strategic and Official Plans.

Secondly, that a uniform rate as proposed by Hemson, and that is in practice to date is not in the best interests of the former Village of Tottenham or the Municipality in general, in that we should not be bound to an increase that is more a function of growth in other communities and is likely to have negative effects if put in place here. We will see that some of the total costs are equally distributed and that some are more reasonably attributed to one development.

Thirdly I will show that there should be different goals with respect to different types of development and that different charges should be applied in different areas of the Town. What I am suggesting is that the idea of a uniform rate is likely bad for the Town in general and Tottenham in particular. I will also make the argument that a lower rate in Tottenham is not only a benefit to the Tottenham Developers, whose sales are likely to increase, or at least not decrease, but the people of the former Village of Tottenham and Town of New Tecumseth  in general, and hence sound public policy.

I will show that because The Town of New Tecumseth is a Multiple Nuclei model of development as opposed to a Concentric Circle model, that a catch up rate is appropriate. This rate will be a deduction from the uniform rate proposed by Hemson that will encourage development. It will be a rate that acknowledges that the sooner we grow to the size where another food store is viable, where franchises will look at us a viable opportunity, where local businesses will think the market is sufficiently large to open a second store, the more likely what I call spin off revenues are to ensue.

I will show that different kinds of development should have different revenue objectives, i.e. that redevelopment and new development because of different cost structures cannot be expected to generate the same revenue and further that they cannot be expected to pay the same costs. For our purposes here costs shall includes zoning bylaw changes, Planning department demanded studies, development charges building permit fees etc.

Further I will show that the current study is an exercise in arithmetic and should be an exercise in planning, economics and the business of development. It fails to take into account economic principles such as the difference between ad Valorum type tax and specific type tax. It fails to address multiplier effects. It fails not only to explain the incidence of tax, that is who of the three players is likely to bear the burden of the tax, it does not even discuss the issue. It fails to look at how economies of scale effect development and how these concepts are likely to effect how the former Village grows and eventually prospers.

And finally it fails to incorporate our Official Plan and Strategic Planning goals and objectives into the policies and hence makes charges simplistic. This could possibly have many negative features when minor changes could make them work not only for the development industry and the Towns coffers but for the benefit of all of the Towns businesses and residents.

Stuart Starbuck

Tottenham

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