Deforest City Blues PT 2: City Hall waives development fees

Me bad. I ignored Google for my first rant of the day.

I wanted to know if City Hall (in London, Ontario) waives development fees for developers to encourage development.

I had a sense it did, making me wonder why new London Mayor Joe ’10,000 Jobs’ Fontana would ever propose a new tax (“special levy” sounds so much better, eh?) in order to, you know, encourage development.

A moment ago I Googled the following:

London waive development fee Renaissance Towers

And - surprise - up popped about 229,000 results in 0.16 seconds. (So, my day is planned!)

Here’s a little gem entitled ‘Subsidies In Spotlight’ by Norman De Bono, The London Free Press (August 17, 2010, 9:32am) and the opening line clearly suggests Mayor Fontana needs to rethink his plan, in my (always) humble opinion.


["The Blue Heron, outside the subsidized Renaissance Towers, London": photo GH]

“London taxpayers shell out more than $13.5 million a year in subsidies to businesses, with some politicians saying it’s time to reconsider such support.”

Now, doesn’t that raise just a few wee questions?

Like, why does our mayor need a special levy? $13.5 million a year wouldn’t be enough to encourage a bit of development? It ain’t chump change.

De Bono adds it up for us:

“The city waives development charges — levied to help pay for the cost of growth — for new and expanding industries. Those charges totalled $9.5 million in 2009. Instead, taxpayers picked up the tab.”

“Homeowners are also paying $4 million a year in higher water rates than recommended, so business can get a break.”

“Those two policies alone amount to $13.5 million a year.”

Holy Doodle. That’s amazing.

Maybe when Mayor Joe tells us there’s no money in this town for economic development, the common Joe, like you and me, should tell him exactly where to find it!

De Bono adds more good news.

“But a third factor pushes the tab even higher: Between 2000 and 2017, the city will have rebated more than $5.2 million in property taxes for new downtown residential development — again, paid by ratepayers.”

That’s a pretty big waive too!

My head is spinning and it’s not just because a squirrel just climbed across my clothesline - upright - to get to my new bird feeder.

In Thursday’s news Mayor Fontana bemoaned the fact that we’re not as enlightened as Kitchener. They started a $110 million war chest in 2004.

Let’s do the math, shall we. Take 14 million dollars and multiply by 7 years. What do you get?

98 million bucks.

Tack on another year or two and the subsidies or special levy (ya gotta love that phrase) is right up there with Kitchener’s war chest.

So, Mister Mayor. Tell me again why you want to float a new tax?

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Please read Deforest City Blues Pt 1 for more context.

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