Trustees with Hamilton’s public school board are mulling the idea of lowering, or even dropping, development charges they receive on affordable housing projects across the city.
More discussions on the concept are expected in the coming weeks after the Hamilton is Home Alliance, a local affordable housing coalition, pitched it to the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) Monday during a review of education development charges or EDCs.
HWDSB chair Maria Felix Miller says after hearing from several delegations, trustees are now exploring what “wiggle room” they have since it’s not a common practice among Ontario boards.
Felix Miller says board staff will spend the next few weeks engaging the city and other stakeholders to examine the feasibility of altering EDCs, yet still collect enough to acquire lands for new schools.
But timing is everything since an updated bylaw on the charges would need to be in place by July 1, as per guidelines from the Ministry of Education.
“We’re hoping to get that information to really make a decision quite quickly in order to be in line with regulation,” she said.
“We don’t want that bylaw to expire because we are not able to collect charges in a window if it’s expired.”
The charges are drawn from standard residential development fees typically collected from builders to pay for municipal infrastructure, like roads, water and community centres.
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Current rates collected by the HWDSB are $1,873 per residential unit and are set to increase July 5 to $2,040 per unit.
The HWDSB expects the charges will bring in some $143 million over the next 15 years.
Graham Cubitt, chair of Hamilton is Home and director of projects with the non-profit Indwell, says the savings could lead to more affordable housing projects and potentially make a dent in a social housing waitlist that has some 6,000 applicants.
Cubitt says Hamilton is Home has been working with the city’s school boards over the last 10 years to create a “differentiated rate” instead of a uniform flat fee, currently no different for a small apartment build or large house development.
“Right now, all developments are charged the same per unit rate. We don’t believe that is equitable or as fair as it should be,” Cubitt explained.
“We think there’s a better way of doing a differentiated rate so that you can reflect the social value that comes from building where someone can move out of a shelter or move out of a tent and into housing.”
The board typically goes through the drawing up of a new bylaw every five years but can amend it annually.
Cubitt says the coalition has been unsuccessful in two previous discussions to bring EDCs to the table.
Felix Miller says changing the legislation will be “a balancing act” since the waived fees could leave the board with a major funding shortfall.
Additionally, the mandate would also need provincial approval and the chair is not sure it would be allowed.
“Even the conversations around differentiated rates can become tricky,” she says.
“Because as the legislation is right now, we’re not technically allowed to charge another developer more to cover the costs if we were to reduce the rate for someone else.”
The board hopes to have a report in front of trustees for more discussions during a June 17 meeting.
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