The Town of Cochrane has increased its offsite levy fees by 23 to 26 per cent. Council approved the increase at the regular meeting on May 24.
The Town of Cochrane has increased its offsite levy fees by 23 to 26 per cent.
Council approved the increase at the regular meeting on May 24.
“Obviously with the town's growth over the past few years, the Offsite Levy Bylaw is a critical tool for us … the bylaw allows the town to collect fees from the development of lands that are required to construct the necessary infrastructures for growth, ” said Drew Hyndman, senior manager of development services for the town.
The new fee structure will help fund $148 million in capital projects resulting from growth in Cochrane over the next 20 to 25 years - with $107 million of the costs being paid for by developers through offsite levies and $41 million being funded by the town and government grants. Levies can only be used for water, sanitary, storm sewer, or road construction.
Lynda Cooke, senior municipal engineer with Urban Systems, a professional consulting firm, said during the process of creating and passing the bylaw, development firms were consulted.
“We established a working group with development and they worked through the levy update with the town. As well, we engaged the development liaison group and provided information to them, ” Cooke said.
She said the update was necessary as the previous bylaw regarding offsite levies “had a very basic calculation. ”
“It was sufficient when the town was in a situation where your cash financed most of your works. Now when you come to a situation where you could be debt-financing some major offsite levy projects, it was important to develop a more robust model that considered the financing costs and the interest earned on positive balances in the levies, ” Cooke explained.
The new model also takes into account inflation of costs at the time of construction of the projects. Before passing the bylaw, council was briefed on how it compared to surrounding communities include Okotoks, Calgary, Airdrie, and more.
“Each municipality utilizes different methodologies and includes different types of infrastructure projects as eligible for the collection of off- site levies. For example, in Cochrane, most water reservoirs are not included in the levies but are the responsibility of the developer; whereas, in some municipalities water reservoirs are included in the levies, ” states the report presented to council.
According to Kent Hystad, president of LaVita Land Inc., a prominent developer within Cochrane, the company was part of the consultation process for this bylaw and it has a neutral position on the increase.
“These things take many months to do and we've been included in the process all the way through and, whether we get what we want or not, council makes the decision, ” Hystad said.
