The Municipality of Grey Highlands will be upping the fee it collects for parkland when new lots are created.
At its meeting on May 1, council voted 5-2 in favour of increasing the parkland dedication fee from $500 to $2,000. Councillors Dan Wickens and Nadia Dubyk voted against the change.
Coun. Paul Allen brought the issue to the council table through a notice of motion. Allen noted that Grey Highlands has been collecting a cash-in-lieu-of-parkland fee of $500 when a new lot is created since the early 2000s. He said since that time the price of land has skyrocketed, as well as the price of equipment and other amenities needed at parks.
A parkland dedication fee is money collected by a municipality in place of a donation of land for park purposes. In many situations where a lot is being created away from an urban area, the cash-in-lieu fee is more appropriate than a land donation. The money collected is held in reserve and used for parkland acquisition or upgrades.
“Everything has gone up. It’s past due for this to happen,” said Allen, who noted that a number of years the $500 fee was appropriate when a new lot was worth $15,000 - $30,000. He said now lots are going for $200,000 or more and the fee should be adjusted.
Allen noted that the Township of Southgate charges a flat rate of $3,500, while the Town of The Blue Mountains charges a percentage. Allen noted that his proposed fee of $2,000 represented two per cent of the value of a $100,000 lot.
“It’s still low in comparison,” he said.
The resolution from Allen triggered a significant debate at the council table.
Acting Manager of Planning Andrew Payne said in his experience most municipalities charge a percentage of the value of land (up to five per cent is allowed by the Planning Act). Payne said this is the first time he’s encountered a flat fee.
“I don’t know exactly where the figure of $500 comes from,” he said, adding that the municipality’s bylaw is due for a review and update.
Payne did note that charging a percentage for the parkland dedication fee required the landowner to get an appraisal of the property with multiple comparables.
“It is more complicated, but selling and buying land is complicated. Consents are complicated,” he said.
Members of council appeared leery of going down the percentage rabbit hole on the parkland dedication fee. On multiple occasions, they referred to a recent example in The Blue Mountains when a couple trying to sever their property into two pieces to sell their existing home and build a new home on the new vacant lot faced a parkland fee of $50,000.
“I do think about that Blue Mountains example. One landowner ended up with a massive fee and it did get reduced by council,” said Dubyk, who wondered if $2,000 was enough.
Mayor Paul McQueen also favoured the flat fee route.
“A flat fee makes it so much easier. For simplicity, it probably saves a lot of your time,” he said. “It has been working.”
Wickens said in a housing crisis climate, it wasn’t the time to be increasing fees related to building new homes.
“There is a shortage of homes in the province and country. By my thinking, raising this fee puts up a roadblock,” said Wickens. “Building a home is not a business. That’s somebody’s life. People are not made of money.”
