Bottleneck

County must bolster engineering ranks to facilitate growth

The working group came at the issue in a variety of ways. It was soon clear enough, however, that each of the challenges identified by the folks sitting on the Development Framework Subcommittee meeting last week, pointed to the same solution: the municipality needs more engineers. More inhouse capability to evaluate new housing projects, more capacity to answer early inquiries and more folks who can develop and expand the County’s inventory of building resources.

This is because the County needs more residential homes built. Infrastructure costs are rising faster than residents’ ability to pay. The municipality’s roads and bridges need more than a half-billion dollars in repair. We spend just two per cent of this amount a year to fix them. At this rate, we will never catch up. Roads deteriorate faster than we can tend to them. Meanwhile, waterworks rates have tripled since amalgamation. Yet this revenue is failing to keep up with soaring costs. More steep rate increases are planned.

Though not the cause, the financial squeeze gripping the municipality’s waterworks system would have been ameliorated had new homes been built at the same pace as Quinte West and Belleville.

It was only a decade ago that new home starts in the County outpaced these neighbouring jurisdictions. But just months before the world fell into recession in 2008, Shire Hall adopted eyewatering development charges and connection fees. It was terrible timing. The County came much too late to the opportunity to tack fees onto new home- building. Other jurisdictions had been doing so for years. When it did impose these fees, the County overshot by a wide margin.

It was okay, they were counselled, other municipalities would soon catch up. But they never did. In 2013, the County relented, cutting development charges in half for new homes in areas served by municipal waterworks but leaving connection fees in place. Even after the discount, the County still collected the highest fees for new homes in the region.

Further, the County’s demand that builders tie up vast amounts of capital for long periods of time, coupled with a planning process widely perceived as indifferent, actively discouraged building and development in the County.

While some prefer that new homebuilding occurs elsewhere—preserving land and pastoral views—rising waterworks and property taxes takes a disproportionate toll on lower- and fixed-income residents.

Late last year, Mayor Robert Quaiff decided he would try to root out the problem—looking to separate conjecture from fact. He asked developers and builders, along with County planning, works and finance staff to meet last fall in Wellington. He told the gathering that he was committed to addressing the challenges raised and putting the resources in place to signal the County is open to residential development.

To do this, he directed the County’s Economic and Community Development department to assemble a working group to take apart the issues one by one and develop a set of recommendations. The group consists of three experienced builders—Graham Shannon, Dave Cleave and Stewart O’Brien, architectural designer Jason Elbourne, three council members—Mayor Robert Quaiff, Dianne O’Brien and Gord Fox, and County staff.

The working group had met a couple of times before last week’s session at the Edward Building in Picton on Thursday.

While the group is surveying a vast territory, one theme emerges over and over again.

“I think we can all agree there is a staff shortage in engineering,” said Mayor Robert Quaiff, summing up nearly an hour of discussion.”

The discussion ranged from the need for a set of design and engineering guidelines to questions about the role NIMBYism plays in slowing and discouraging development in the County. Not much, according to the developers.

They said some resistance is both expected and healthy—particularly in a community with an older demographic.

“It is not a big impediment to the development process,” said Dave Cleave.

But Cleave says the engineering specifications he faces in the County are often archaic or gold-plated. He points to the requirement that County insists on copper k-grade underground pipes when the standard in most other municipalities is polybutylene.

“Why are we special?” asked Cleave rhetorically. “I would like to understand why. It has to be based on something.”

Part of the answer is volume. The question doesn’t come up much. The other issue is that the County often contracts out this kind of design and engineering work, where the motivation is solely that it works. Cost and appropriateness matter much less.

These builders suspect this insular view of the building sector has it roots in staffing and a culture inside Shire Hall that shuns risk.

“We just want a level playing field,” pleaded Graham Shannon of Sandbank Homes. “Your waterworks folks need to go out and learn what happens in other markets.”

He adds that developers need access to senior engineers— folks who can make a decision—often very early in the process. He says they are committing capital to land acquisitions and plans without a good understanding of what can be done and what can’t.

“You have to get good people, treat them well and let them make decisions,” said Shannon. “And when they make mistakes—because we all do—stand behind them and let them figure it out.”

Shannon said risk in development is a factor that must be managed rather than avoided.

“Currently, the risk tolerance is zero,” suggested Shannon. “But please understand from those of us who risk capital every day, that taking no risk also has a cost.”

By the end of the meeting, it was clear that high among the recommendations emerging from this working group is to bolster the County’s engineering capacity. It remains to be seen whether the remainder of council shares this priority.