With an updated price tag of $270 million for Collingwood’s water treatment plant expansion, work is underway by town officials to come up with a plan to fund the project, so current taxpayers won’t be the ones faced with the bill.
During council’s regular meeting on April 8, the town held a public meeting concerning development charges, specifically pertaining to the portion developers will have to pay to cover the cost of the town’s expansion of the Raymond A. Barker water treatment plant. Three developers attended Monday’s meeting to provide comment on the matter.
Mark Eplett, owner of Bluerock Developments based out of Whitby, said he had been working as a developer for 20 years and noted costs to build new homes anywhere in Ontario going up across the board coming out of the pandemic.
“This is probably the first time I’ve run into a town running out of water,” said Eplett. “I get why it is. When other levels of government aren’t paying, it’s really one of the only handles you’ve got.”
“We’re accustomed to it...it just gets added on and the end users pay for it at the end of the day, unfortunately,” he said.
Development charges are one-time fees collected from developers at the time a building permit is pulled to help pay for the cost of infrastructure required to provide municipal services to new development, such as roads, transit, water and sewer infrastructure, community centres and fire and police facilities.
As of now, the entire cost of the Raymond A. Barker water treatment plant expansion project is expected in the $270 million range, with an estimated date of completion in 2031 and more water capacity available as of August 2029.
The town has endeavoured to do two studies in tandem with both studies spearheaded by Hemson Consulting: the first covers the development charges expected to pay specifically for the water treatment plant expansion, while the second is a town-wide development charges update.
To read our full story on the status of the town-wide development charges study and new bylaw, click here.
The two studies are being done separately so the town can hone in on the WTP costs and start charging them on top of the town’s existing development charges right away, whereas the town-wide development charges update is not expected to be completed and go into effect until this summer.
For the water treatment plant expansion costs specifically, the town’s treasurer Monica Quinlan explained to CollingwoodToday that the town’s current development charge rates include about $1,942 per unit that specifically goes toward the expansion.
Should the new WTP development charge bylaw pass (which is expected in late April), that $1,942 will be taken off, and new amounts will be added for every new project that pulls a building permit, per unit. Those amounts account for $9,563 for a single/semi-detached home, $7,114 for other multiples, $5,691 for two-or-more-bedroom apartments, $3,557 for apartments with one bedroom or fewer and $52.01 per square metre for any non-residential development.
All the funds collected from developers for the WTP expansion through development charges are funnelled into a town reserve fund for that purpose.
Based on current agreements, the Town of Collingwoodʼs share of the project represents 37 per cent of the capital costs with the other 63 per cent – or $170.1 million – to be funded by the Town of New Tecumseth.
Under the Development Charge Act, only a percentage of the water treatment plant costs are development-charge eligible. For Collingwood’s water treatment plant expansion, that amounts to $49.8 million of the project costs between 2024 and 2041, and another $41,622,372 post-2041.
As part of Monday’s public meeting, Jaclyn Hall of Hemson Consulting talked about the town working with the Georgian Triangle Development Institute (GTDI) on the changes to the development charge bylaws along the way. The development industry has also participated along the way in a task force struck to evaluate ways to fund the building of the new water treatment plant.
Ken Hale, vice president of the GTDI, spoke as part of the public meeting.
“This has helped us in the development industry to learn about the process the town was undertaking with respect to the water treatment plant,” said Hale.
To date, no provincial or federal funding has been confirmed for the Collingwood project.
Kory Chisholm of MHBC Planning asked if development charges would be adjusted should the water treatment plant expansion project receive provincial or federal funding in the future.
“If there was a substantial commitment made, this is another reason why we’ve pulled this project into its own separate bylaw,” Hall responded. “It may warrant us to re-examine the rate calculation and could bring forward an amending bylaw.”
“We don’t have a crystal ball so we’re not exactly sure what that will look like, but we’ve made sure to set it up so that if there is new information, we can make that determination and adjust the rates accordingly,” she said.
When it came time for comments from council, Deputy Mayor Tim Fryer noted the town is in a unique situation.
“I’ve dealt with development charges for my entire career and I’ve never known to be in this kind of a situation,” said Fryer.
“I don’t think anyone expected we wouldn’t have heard about funding by now.”
Following Monday’s public meeting, the study and bylaw for development charges as they relate to the water treatment plant expansion are expected to come to council for approval at the end of April.
To read through all the documents concerning the town-wide development charge study, as well as the water treatment plant expansion portion, click here.
UPDATE: Council unanimously approved the new development charge rates as they relate to the water treatment plant expansion at their meeting on April 22. Deputy Mayor Tim Fryer was absent from the meeting.
