On May 16 Guelph City Council may light the fuse on a ticking fee-and-tax time bomb. This time bomb is embedded within the Clair-Maltby Secondary Plan, now coming up for final approval.
Forget libraries, rec centres and police station renovations. The biggest infrastructure costs we pay as citizens are the subsidies we give to our runaway growth. The trouble is that the sticker price is never as transparent as it is for something like the library, so it’s never subject to the same level of debate. Most citizens and even some councillors have difficulty grasping that growth doesn’t pay for itself. We collectively pick up the tab for the shortfall.
Ever since Mike Harris put through the Development Charges Act in 1997, growth in this province has been a Ponzi scheme. The promise of development charges and property tax revenues lures municipal politicians into approving low-density growth without understanding the full impact on taxes. It’s like that phishing text or email that you’ve won the lottery – the only catch is that you have to send money to release the funds.
For more than 25 years, tax dollars and water, wastewater and stormwater fees have been diverted to make up the shortfall not covered by the development charges (DCs) contributed by developers. It’s one reason Ontario municipalities, including Guelph, have racked up millions in infrastructure deficits. We’ve been spending money on growth that we should have been spending on…
