Good afternoon. I am…

Good afternoon. I am writing these comments on behalf of the staff of Northumberland County in relation to Bill 185 Changes to the Development Charges Act, 1997 to Enhance Municipalities' Ability to Invest in Housing-Enabling Infrastructure.

We would like to express our support for some of the changes to the DC act that are proposed in Bill 185. We believe that repealing the mandatory five-year phase-in of new DC rates and the restoring of some studies as an eligible expense are good steps in restoring the ability of municipalities to fund growth related infrastructure.

However, in order for municipalities to keep pace with infrastructure needs and to help address the growing housing and homelessness crisis we would ask that consideration be given to reinstating social housing as an eligible DC expense.

Communities across the province are struggling with a lack of affordable and attainable housing stock. Our experience has been that private developers are not interested in creating this type of housing so leaving this to market forces is not an effective way to deal with the housing crisis. As a result, the responsibility to build affordable/attainable housing has fallen to municipalities in many parts of the province. Northumberland County had two social housing projects in development when Bill 23 came into effect. We estimate the loss in DC revenue (due to Bill 23) to be approximately $17.4M mainly because housing is no longer an eligible service. These changes have limited our ability to deal with the housing and homelessness crisis. With this reduction in DC revenue, we are not able to continue with the same level of investment in affordable/attainable housing or if we do, the shortfall in revenue will have to be covered by property taxes or other funding sources that are fairly limited.

We respectfully request that serious consideration be given to the reinstatement of housing as a service under the DC act.

Best regards,
Matthew Nitsch

Director of Finance/Treasurer
Northumberland County
(905) 372-3329 Ext 2246