WCEL > Issues > Urban Growth and Development > Smart Bylaws Guide > Part 7 > Development Cost Charges > Conclusions

Smart Bylaws Guide – Development Cost Charges – Conclusions from Report, Do Development Cost Charges Encourage Smart Growth and High Performance Building Design? An Evaluation of Development Cost Charge Practices in British Columbia

1. Smart growth practices, particularly designing new communities to be more compact and complete than traditional suburban subdivisions and encouraging infill development in established urban areas, can clearly significantly reduce the costs of new community infrastructure per new housing unit.

2. High performance building design has the potential to reduce growth-related infrastructure costs in two ways: 

• Small reductions in the load on local services, such as water, sewer and storm drainage in new developing areas. 
• Potentially greater savings for municipalities associated with the broader community-wide servicing network, such as the avoidance or delay of upgrades to the water source/supply and sanitary treatment facilities.

3. The Local Government Act allows municipalities to vary DCCs by location, which is one of the most significant factors that influences the infrastructure cost associated with accommodating urban growth. Some municipalities in BC take advantage of the ability to vary rates based on the actual capital burden imposed by new development in different geographic areas, but many do not.

4. The Local Government Act allows municipalities to vary DCCs by density of use and the Best Practices Guide encourages them to use density as a significant factor in setting DCC rates. Very few municipalities distinguish between different densities of single family development or different densities of multifamily residential development.

5. One section of the Local Government Act mandates a built-in DCC subsidization of low density development. The Act's blanket exemption of any new residential building with fewer than four units tends to favour low density neighbourhoods over high density areas.

6. The most significant improvements that could be made to DCC regimes would be to: 

• Increase the use of development density (e.g., units per acre) as a factor in setting residential DCC rates for single family and multi-family projects. To fully reflect the difference in capital burdens imposed by different residential projects, DCC bylaws should consider both the number of units per acre and the total floorspace in a residential project when establishing the total DCC. Single family and multi-family residential charges should be categorized based on units per acre to reflect that higher density projects have a lower impact on municipal infrastructure. Within each density category, the DCC should be calculated based on the amount of floorspace in the project to reflect that larger units tend to have a greater impact on infrastructure than smaller units. 
• Increase the use of different DCC rates for different locations. The biggest location factor that municipalities should consider is whether older core areas should be distinguished from greenfield locations.

7. High performance design is not on the DCC radar in BC. None of the municipalities reviewed considers the potential for high performance building design to reduce infrastructure requirements. Local governments should explore the possibility of crediting projects that place lower demands on municipal infrastructure by incorporating high performance design principles.