The City of Calgary has negotiated a new deal with the development community that will see more of the economic burden shift from the City to the developers and home buyers. New Calgary Mayor, Naheed Nenshi believes that the City has been encouraging sprawl by not charging enough to developers who build in the suburbs. Part of the impetus to increase the fee comes from the fact that Calgary is below what other municipalities such as Edmonton or Ottawa charge. After months of negotiation the increase in fees moves the City of Calgary more in line with these other municipalities. There will be a gradual multi year increase to give business an opportunity to adjust to the increased fees.There has been a decided shift in the attitude of many Alderman on the council who no longer believe that development pays for development. As Mayor Nemshi points out, he is not interested in telling people where to live but he wants to fix a system that forces people to live in a certain area because its cheaper only because the City is subsidizing it.
In our own Growth Management Study there is a recommendation of increasing our woefully low development cost charges. Isn't it time to take a serious look at how much we are charging developers and bring us more in line with many other municipalities in BC. The taxpayer of Cranbrook shouldn't be subsidizing developers. We can no longer afford it.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Developers+bigger+share+suburban+services/4618637/story.html
Thank you for reporting on this. Cranbrook needs to adopt a similar strategy.
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