On Monday evening (July 15), Oak Bay councillors got a glimpse of the new plan for the district to create development cost charges and amenity cost charges to be tacked onto new construction permits to pay for infrastructure improvements.
This is linked to the provincial effort to smooth the process of densification in B.C. communities and encourage the building of small-scale multi-unit housing. The introduction of the new charges will help bring the district into line with these new provincial housing regulations.
These fees are already in place in many municipalities, and are aimed at helping over the cost of things like sewers, roads, sidewalks and parks as the population grows. The charges are added when a property is subdivided and when building permits are issued.
A municipality cannot use money from development cost charges to pay for fixing up current infrastructure — the money must be spent on things associated with population growth, like new sewers or new traffic lights.
Amenity cost charges are similar, but are more geared toward things like recreation centres, day cares, or libraries. These too cannot be things that simply serve the existing population, and they can't be things that are already covered by the development cost charges, such as sewer upgrades.
Because Oak Bay is a well-established community with very little open land, most development would be infill housing that increases the population density, so it would be a little more complicated where to spend the money compared to places that need brand new sewers and roads to link to new subdivisions.
The process of deciding how much the fees are actually going to be will start with creating a list of the projects to be funded. Whatever projects are chosen, the district will then set the amount of contribution from regular district funds – meaning tax dollars – then work out how much money will need to come from development or amenity cost charges.
There will be an extensive engagement effort before any actual bylaw is created, and council will have input at four different stages in that process. Whatever rates are decided on can also be revisited in the future as the population and demographics of Oak Bay changes.
Councillors had a chance to ask a variety of questions about the fees, and some raised a few concerns about who benefits. Coun. Lesley Watson asked how to make sure these fees are used to actually help the community they are collected from.
"Amenities are used across boundaries all the time," Watson said. "Growth in Victoria can actually flow into the surrounding communities."
She referenced Victoria's potential reconstruction of the Crystal Pool on Quadra Street as having implications for Oak Bay.
"The top-of-mind project issue these days is pools," Watson said. "Who's providing pools and who's using them."
Presenters said there is really no clear answer to this question.
