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(September 2006)
SGE Acres Limited, in association with Enid Slack Consulting Inc. and
Harry Kitchen, were retained by the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM)
to provide policy guidance on possible changes to municipal policy and
regulations concerning infrastructure charges.
Read this study in full and understand key findings  [1.85MB].
An infrastructure charge (also
known as a development charge) is a specific dollar value per lot or per
hectare or acre that a municipality imposes on a developer to finance the offsite
capital costs associated with new development. It is not a charge to
finance ongoing maintenance or operational costs.
The main purpose of infrastructure charges is to cover growth-related costs of new development.
If there is a housing affordability issue, it must be dealt with in different
ways.
The SGE Acres Team was instructed to make infrastructure charges policy
guidance recommendations on:
• Best practices; including changes to the Municipal Government Act
(MGA), policy, methodology and by-laws;
• Integration of a broader base of infrastructure charges into HRM’s
financial planning and revenue strategy; and
• Transitional issues.
A focus of the study is an assessment of the feasibility of expanding HRM’s
Capital Cost Contribution (CCC) Program and how these infrastructure
charges relate to the regulatory setting in other cities and housing
affordability in the local setting.
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