How to grow

Developer’s forum lays out plan to kickstart new homebuilding

It has been 16 months since Mayor Robert Quaiff stood before a group of developers and builders gathered in Wellington and declared the County open for business. Last week, the product of many months of study and negotiation was presented to the County’s Community and Economic Development Commission (CEDC).

The Development Framework Report is long on goals and aspirations, yet short on specific actions that will change the poor view developers and builders have of working in Prince Edward County. This will require action. This report is, however, an important starting point.

The report is frank in its assessment of the challenges.

“Poor customer service, a centralized decision making structure, lack of municipal resources, high staff turnover, uncertainty about how long development approvals will take and the state of critical infrastructure has created a climate in Prince Edward County that the community is a both a frustrating and risky place to do development,” says the report.

The clearest message to emerge from forum was that fees are the single greatest concern and impediment to development. It isn’t just development charges and connection fees that are vastly more in Prince Edward County than neighbouring municipalities. The entire menu of fees related to building in the County is exorbitant compared to Quinte West and Belleville.

Water connection charges are three times more expensive than these neighbours. Development charges are a bit lower than Belleville, a bit higher than Quinte West—but when combined the County is vastly overpriced in comparison.

It comes down to a difference in the way each municipality sees its role in building and development. The County has taken a conservative, risk-averse approach. This means the developer is put on the hook for all real and potential costs. So much so that many of these costs are payable or secured upfront so as to avoid any loss due to bankruptcy or insolvency. In its processes, fees and approach, there is no upside accorded to development.

Other municipalities, including Quinte West and Belleville, take a more assertive role—willing to work with builders and developers as partners in the process. These municipalities weigh their risk against the reward of a growing tax base and new waterworks consumers.

This philosophical difference may be shifting as the County eyes strong new homebuilding on the other side of its bridges while subdivisions in Wellington and Picton remain dormant.

Peter Moyer heads development services for the County. He says the County’s approach to development is already changing.

“There was a lot of good discussion,” said Moyer. “A good environment to roll up our sleeves talk about the issues from both sides of the table. I hope it continues.”

But to make directional changes will require a clear signal from council that it considers this issue a priority and accords it the resources needed to put the recommendations into action.

THE PRESCRIPTION
The Development Framework Report makes recommendations ranging from improving customer service, delegating authority down the ranks to abbreviate timelines, greater process transparency, investing, infrastructure on the front end to retrieve it later on, and reviewing fees and the financial implications of a more competitive development environment in Prince Edward County.

To do this, however means more people and more resources. Some new positions were created in the 2017 budget. Others may come—but not before an assessment is made of current capacity, expected timelines and a realignment of priorities.

“We need to get the bodies in place, and then work with development services to set the targets and timeframes,” explained Neil Carbone, director of Community Development. Carbone heads the CEDC, the organization that formed and guided the Development Framework Forum.

The report also recommends that development decision-making move further down the chain. It seeks to promote a “corporate culture that encourages a proactive approach to development opportunities and empowers staff to confidently make decisions.”

This means delegating responsibility— from council to staff, and from managers to engineering and planning staff. The risk is that something could go wrong due to inexperience but, as the report observes, a slow and unpredictable approvals process has its own costs—usually measured in lost opportunity.

Moyer says his department is already successfully moving decision-making to the folks working day to day on the project and is seeing positive results.

He adds that his department is also making some headway in standardizing engineering requirements, but would like to see faster progress. The goal is to create a binder that lays out in comprehensive detail the County’s expectations for a residential subdivision or development. Pieces have been compiled, but it remains a cumbersome and costly back-and-forth arrangement between developers and engineers to discover what should be standard information.

“It is a time-consuming process,” said Moyer. “If we don’t manage to create it in-house, we may have to budget for it to be done outside. I want to be able to hand out a binder or electronic file—clearly spelling out our standards from beginning to end. That will save time and money.”

The report also points to greater transparency and visibility in the development process employing online tracking and performance tools— giving developers, planners, engineers and residents a current picture of the status of a project.

Carbone suggests such tools might be useful in other aspects of the County business.

The report points to an openness to investing in infrastructure in anticipation of, or to encourage development in a specific area. This is not a new concept. The County’s Age-in- Place strategy did just this—partly as a way to facilitate the prospect of a new hospital, but also to encourage new residential housing geared to an aging community. Front-ending infrastructure could become an additional tool to encourage and promote development.

The Forum also took a stab at finding ways to encourage the development of affordable housing, which—broadly defined—considers social housing as well as ensuring a stock of homes that are within reach of an average working family.

The report recommends a variety of tools, including discounting and deferring charges, enabling higher density development and offering surplus land to promote a better mix of housing.

The key according to Carbone is to equip planners and engineers with these tools and to use them with care.

“It has to be right for the community,” assured Carbone.

In terms of fees and charges, the report cites this issue “as the single greatest concern and impediment to development”. It says high fees compared to competing municipalities nearby is detracting from efforts to bring new residents to the County.

It recommends bringing fees and charges in line with neighbouring jurisdictions.

To do this, however, will require council’s buy-in. This is because every dollar that is removed from the developer’s tab will need to be found somewhere else. This will require a leap of faith that a new stream of taxes and fees from new home owners will offset—in the long term—the short term expense.

But it is increasingly clear in Prince Edward County, there is a significant cost to discouraging new homebuilding.