While Community Living Guelph Wellington wants local development charges waived, municipal councillors here have other ideas.
Finance director Sharon Marshall said previously councillors heard a request from the group for a development charges exemption.
The 5,000 square foot building will provide work, education, recreation, therapy and life skills opportunities for teens and adults with a developmental disability living in East Wellington. The building may also be made available to other community groups for events and other uses.
The request was for development charges be waived on the new ARC Industries building on Thompson Crescent in Erin.
Marshall said her report was a result of that request and background with options.
She said Community Living and council need to know council cannot waive the county development charges of $8,550. “We don’t have the authority to waive it.”
Marshall said the municipality would still have to collect that money and send it to Wellington County. Council could consider a new exemption its own bylaw.
Besides the statutory exemptions that includes schools, municipalities and industrial redevelopment under 50% of the space, there are only three types of exemptions – lands, buildings or structures used as places of worship.
She said the group’s suggestion that category encompasses its project – is flawed.
“Certainly, I could never support that they would be exempt from development charges as a place of worship. That definition is just not suitable here.” She said that is not why it is exempt from taxation.
Marshall said the organization is exempt under the Assessment Act under a separate clause – under the definitions of house of refuge – owned, used and occupied by a non-profit philanthropical corporation for the refuge, reformation of offenders, or care of children or similar purpose.
Marshall said Erin has two other properties in addition to the new ARC Industries property owned by Community Living. “They are homes, which would certainly qualify them under this section of the Assessment Act.”
Whether the ARC Industries building is totally or partially exempt has yet to be determined. “I think they are expecting to be exempt, but it is possible that parts of the building may not be exempt – especially if rooms are rented out for community use or other purposes.”
Marshall said development charges and assessment are controlled by two different provincial acts. “The exemptions are not necessarily transferred one way or the other.
Council could do a background study – which would require public notice.
While Marshall estimated the process would not take too long – a few months.
She advised council to carefully choose the words of the change. “If you exempt one institutional building, there could be cases made for large, privately operated schools or private nursing homes.”
The other option, she said, could be to offer an outright grant. She noted that council has given grants to other such operations. That amount could be for the whole $25,000 development charge, or a part.
Marshall said the group has applied for a building permit and has paid the development charges – because that is a condition of a permit being issued.
“Whatever we do now would be after-the-fact.”
Mayor Lou Maieron asked for clarification of the deferred payment option and if it could be staggered over 10 years.
Marshall said it could and that council could ask it be paid with installments.
Councillor John Brennan said he has difficulty revamping the development charges bylaw. He believes it was taking too much work to deal with what should be a ‘one-off’ issue. Further, he said there are other means to achieve the same result without changing the bylaw.
He said when a group becomes exempt from property tax, “to me this is not dissimilar to what happened with farms, managed forests and conservation lands in the sense that social services is an upper tier responsibility, but the cost is being pushed down onto the local property taxes.”
Brennan said “Whatever these groups [or property classes] are not paying, the rest of the community has to pick up the slack – and I don’t think that is fair.”
He asked if the county is waiving its development charges.
Marshall was unaware if the group made that request to the county. She said that Wellington’s development charges bylaw has the same three exemptions as Erin’s.
Maieron said, “If you waive the fees for one, you waive the fees for everyone in that [property] class.”
He said if council is to consider anything, he prefers deferring the issue for either a future date or payments via installments.
Marshall said she was not sure that was what the group was really looking for.
Maieron agreed revamping the development charges bylaw might be the safest option, but council would need to be careful on the wording.
He said the option of providing assistance in the form of a grant has its own issues.
Maieron noted the town’s current grants policy is to provide limited assistance. “This would be more than half of what we annually give out [in grants].”
He said if council provides a grant by rebating fees, the town could be attracting a lot of institutional projects that would pay neither taxes nor development charges. “If you waive it for one, someone else is going to come along and say ‘Please waive it for me.’ I find it a bit of a slippery slope.”
Marshall will bring a report to council next meeting. She intended to contact the group as well. She explained that it would not be worth doing a lot of work creating a deferral or installment agreement if it is not something the organization is interested in pursuing.
