Developers weigh in on DCC hikes at Council meeting

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This article was published 18/12/2024 (274 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Discussions centered around the City of Brandon’s proposed hikes in Development Cost Charges (DCCs) in the Wheat City continued on Monday evening with city council members and local developers deliberating on the contentious issue.

Representatives from Brandon’s construction and business sectors weighed in on the proposals for two bylaw amendments, which if approved, would result in unprecedented increases in the fees developers pay for building in the city.

Speaking before the City Council during the meeting, Shawn Wood, executive director of Construction Association of Rural Manitoba (CARM) said the industry is not against the DCC charges.

“We’ve worked with the city, we understand the need, we understand there’s a need for funding.”

“It’s not that we necessarily want the number to go down. We want to ensure the number is fair to developers and to the city,” Wood added.

The city administration had proposed the across-the-board cost increases in 2023, which would reflect in the projects being built in Brandon’s “emerging” and “established” areas.

Established areas are parts of Brandon that are located north of Richmond Avenue, west of 17th Street East, east of 34th Street and south of the Assiniboine River. Everything else is considered an emerging area. DCCs levied by the city in established areas are much lower than those imposed in the emerging areas.

The new DCC rates the city is proposing include charges in emerging areas of $21,193 per unit for low-density residential projects, up from $8,184 per unit.

For high-density projects, the city has proposed a rate of $15,660 per unit, increasing from $5,294 per unit.

The hikes proposed in established areas are currently pegged at $12,805 per unit for low-density residential projects, reflecting a sharp increase from $911 per unit.

High-density projects are set to see a similar steep appreciation from $589 per unit to $9,462 per unit. Per-square-foot rates for non-residential projects will also be raised from $0.53 per square foot to $5.21 per square foot.

Addressing the mayor and council on Monday evening, Evan Keller with Keller Developments said he supported the development charges, but would like to see more of a “balanced Brandon approach.”

Keller pointed out that the last several months had been frustrating. He and other developers met with city administration earlier this year to go over the city’s fee formula used to determine the proposed increases. Despite his background in commercial banking, Keller said he found the process a “very complex matter.”

“The six or eight hours we spent reviewing the spreadsheets with the administration, we could have spent 100,” Keller noted.

“I have felt that the meetings and the work we did with administration was largely ignored, in a sense. The final report that came out in October largely didn’t acknowledge or really agree, or there wasn’t any final debate.”

“We made suggestions, and not a lot of them got accepted, except for things that were obvious and sort of mistakes. So, it’s been a very frustrating process,” Keller reiterated.

Representing 600 members of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce, Lois Ruston, the organization’s president, said the group has “grave concerns about the increasing cost of doing business within the City of Brandon.”

She called for “transparency and accountability” when it comes to the fund that is being created for the collection of the development fees, “starting now.”

“The City of Brandon cannot, in good conscience, put this massive increase down to those who are literally working to build our community — in one lump sum,” said Ruston.

“We have been anticipating an increase, but it’s impossible to consider that as a result of a lack of accountability on the part of our municipal government, a doubling or tripling of fees will be expected in the new year,” she added.

The city has argued that additional funds generated from the development fees would help fund essential public infrastructure upgrades as the city grows. And if the two bylaws are passed, council can increase the levies.

But developers have argued that even though they will pay for the increased DCCs initially, the costs will eventually be passed on to the consumers who rent or buy these properties.

During a public hearing, only presenters who have previously signed up can have their say. According to rules of procedure, neither the mayor nor council members are permitted to speak.

When reached by phone on Monday, Coun. Bruce Luebke (Ward 6) said he had attended an earlier open house meeting hosted by CARM on Dec. 9. He had listened to the concerns shared by the developers and the Chamber of Commerce, and felt that further discussion is needed on the subject with other council members.

“There are lots of other factors, it’s not just black and white when paying for infrastructure,” Luebke said.

“I think there are lots of other considerations about how it might impact future development in Brandon, whether we would continue to be a community that people want to develop in. Those are all part of the discussion phase and having a better understanding of what that looks like.”

Under the bylaw process, both bylaws must go through a second and then third reading before they are passed, which is expected to happen in the new year.

Monday’s public hearing and council meeting was the final one for 2024. The next meeting is scheduled for Jan. 6.

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