$7K fee slapped on homes

WATCH LIVE: We'll be live streaming Canadian Home Builders Association, UDI and Chamber of Commerce reaction to the City of Kelowna development fee from their 10 a.m. press conference.

 

A plan by the City of Kelowna to raise more than $100 million over the next 10 years to develop parks could increase the cost of new homes.

The city's park development plan, unveiled to council Monday, would add a park development DCC (development cost charge) of $7,180 to the construction of each new unit. That's in addition to the $7,346 per unit already being charged developers for parkland acquisition.

As city staff went through the consultation phase of developing the plan, the Canadian Home Builders Association, UDI and Chamber of Commerce all came out against the idea.

All three have scheduled a news conference for Tuesday morning to voice their concerns.

Parks and building planning manager Robert Parlane defended the plan, saying the development plan is designed to match the current acquisition program...trying to match growth.

"We reviewed the risks to the community if we don't have a full development program, like loss of community benefits. But as the city grows rapidly, we are trying to avoid that runaway deficit we see examples of in other cities," said Parlane.

"When we have completed with the full program, that will provide $107 million for the development program over 10 years. That represents approximately 66 per cent of the P1 and P2 projects identified in our 10-year Capital Plan."

Parlane also doesn't believe the additional charge is out of line, saying current park DCCs are middle of the pack when compared with other larger B.C. communities.

"In terms of affordability, we've demonstrated that the DCC is fairly calculated for pace of growth. Through this program, existing taxpayers are not required to pay for a new playground in a new subdivision, or a new field for new sports teams.

"When considered as a whole with other communities, our charges are still very competitive."

He says the additional $107 million would allow for development of 17 neighbourhood parks across the city, completion of the final phase of Centennial Park, as well as DeHart, Gallagher's and Casorso parks, improvements at all four recreational parks, and bringing City Park and Pandosy parks forward, as well as funding improvements to Kerry Park.

Coun. Luke Stack said the city has always been good at acquiring parks, but not so good at building them out.

"How many times have we had people contacting us as councillors saying when is this park going to get built," said Stack.

"But really, we haven't had a mechanism to do it. We could use some taxation, but we have to have a consistent program, and up to this point, we haven't had a consistent program to put the money together to build these parks."

He said this is the time to make our city greener.

"If we don't take some proactive steps to keep our park program going, we're never going to get it done."

Coun. Mohini Singh, who along with Brad Sieben voted against the proposal, said she was hoping council could find a happy medium.

She says while she supports building parks, she is concerned this program will just add to the cost of new houses or townhouses.

"Can we redo the bylaw for the acquisition of parkland, then add on a little more for park development so it's not such a big hit," said Singh.

"My wish would be, in a perfect world, to see a little bit of the DCCs for acquisition rolled back, then the park development added on to that so it's not such a big hit to developers. Then that increase would not be so big for home buyers."

The plan must first get provincial approval before it can be implemented, likely in January of 2020.