Rossland is no longer going to be subscribing to the development cost charge way of doing things, having abolished them in the last council meeting on May 28. The charges were a point of contention among new developments, because while they need to be paid - for the additional infrastructure - they also were a large upfront cost to developers, that would only really be recouped once the lots sold.
The Director of British Columbia Municipalities wrote back to Rossland with his blessing on pressing a new path and so that’s what Rossland council decided to do. Mayor Greg Granstrom said that there is no need to hurry to replace them either, because of the slow economy, there is “no development knocking at the door.”
Coun. Kathy Wallace said that there is need for a change.
“We need a new system,” Wallace said.
Coun. Jody Blomme noted that the signature of the Director of Municipalities gave her some reassurance behind the decision.
“We can’t have two things covering us at once,” she said.
Coun. Kathy Moore was not as enthusiastic about the replacement, Connection Cost Charges (CCCs) and so voted against it.
“Basically when I looked into the CCCS and didn’t get the answers I wanted to keep DCCs in place,” she said. “That would’ve been the easiest thing to do.”
Coun. Jill Spearn noted that the City still has the ability to recoup the cost of the infrastructure, the major differences is that rather than at the moment of development, it happens at each sale.
Granstrom went further by saying that the City will have even more flexibility in negotiating before the development starts and could ask the developer to “build ten more trails,” as a part of the deal.
Spearn said that in speaking with some of the local developers, they had been much more in favour of the connection charges as opposed to DCCs.