Richmond Hill mayor says Building Faster Fund grant ‘not a solution' to fix funding gaps

Report says Richmond Hill will lose $87.7M in development charges, $3.9M in community benefits charges and $238.2M in parkland dedication over 10 years

Yorkregion.com
Sept. 5, 2023
Melissa Wallace

The Building Faster Fund, a grant program recently announced by the province rewarding municipalities that achieve their housing targets, isn’t the solution to address funding gaps created by Bill 23, said Richmond Hill Mayor David West.

“Who will pay for the roads, sewers, parks and more, if development charges are not collected and the province doesn’t fund this gap?” he said. “It is not acceptable for property taxpayers to fund this growth.”

Collecting development charges allows municipalities to provide the necessary funds to support infrastructure such as roads, sewers, parks and community centres.

“Growth needs to pay for growth; that’s the principle behind collecting development charges,” explained West.

Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act, introduced in 2022, not only reduces the development fees municipalities collect from developers, but brings fundamental changes to planning responsibilities, authority and land-use approvals.

“Since Bill 23 was announced, I have taken an active role on this topic, meeting directly with Minister (Steve) Clark, then Associate Minister Parsa and

Ontario big-city mayors, expressing that Richmond Hill will not be able to fund growth infrastructure without a provincial funding supplement making up for the potential development charge losses due to province’s Bill 23,” said West. “We were assured by Premier Ford that municipalities would be ‘made whole.’

“So much of what is needed to build more homes faster is out of a municipality’s control, yet with Bill 23 and this most recent announcement, municipalities are being held responsible for the shortfalls.”

Richmond Hill is estimated to lose $87.7 million in development charges, $3.9 million in community benefits charges and $238.2 million in parkland dedication in 10 years, according to a staff report released earlier this year.

The Building Faster Fund is purposed to provide $400 million in new annual funding for three years to municipalities that are on target to meet provincial housing targets by 2031. But only municipalities that meet 80 per cent of their annual housing growth targets each year would become eligible for funding based on their share of the overall goal of 1.5 million homes. Municipalities that exceed their target would receive a bonus on top of their allocation.

As one of the 50 municipalities the province has assigned housing targets, Richmond Hill is required to have 27,000 new housing units, but much of what gets built is out of the city’s hands, said West.

“Municipalities don’t build the houses, developers do,” he said. “Municipalities don’t control market forces like interest rates, the Bank of Canada does. Municipalities don’t control labour shortages and supply, the industry does.”

After recently attending the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference, he said, “it is even more clear to me that mayors across Ontario including myself are committed to doing their part in meeting housing targets. However, any reduction in Richmond Hill’s ability to pay for growth in a predictable and consistent way to meet the needs and expectations of our community must be addressed beyond a grant program.”