Development Charges

UPDATE

The County released the draft background study on December 28, 2022. View the draft background study.

County Council will hold a public meeting pursuant to Section 12 of the Development Charges Act, 1997, as amended, to present and obtain public input on The County’s proposed development charges by-law and underlying background study.

The meeting will take place at 1 pm on Thursday, January 12, 2023 at the Wellington and District Community Centre (111 Belleville Street). All interested parties are invited to attend the public meeting of council and any person who attends the meeting may make deputations related to the proposed by-law and background study.

Development charges are fees imposed on land development and redevelopment projects. Those funds are used by the municipality to cover capital costs associated with residential and non-residential growth within the municipality. In essence, development charges help ensure that "growth pays for growth."

Provincial legislation empowers municipalities to impose these charges via by-law. The County of Prince Edward's current Development Charges by-law expires on March 5, 2023. In preparation of passing a new by-law with possible changes, the County is preparing a background study with the assistance of Watson & Associates Economists Ltd.

Municipalities are able to recover the growth-related capital costs from new development on a municipal-wide or area-specific bases.

Through the preparation of the background study, all eligible services areas will be considered for inclusion in the development charges by-law. The eligible services under the Development Charges Act include:

• Water supply services, including distribution and treatment services
• Wastewater services, including sewers and treatment services
• Storm water drainage and control services
• Services related to a highway
• Electrical power services
• Transit services other than the Toronto-York subway extension
• Waste diversion services
• Policing services
• Fire protection services
• Ambulance services
• Library Services
• Long-term care services
• Parks and recreation services (but not the acquisition of land for parks)
• Public health services
• Childcare and early years services
• Housing services
• Provincial Offences Act services
• Services related to emergency preparedness
• Additional services as prescribed

It is anticipated that the development charges background study and public consultation process will result in new by-laws to recover the growth-related costs as follows:

• Cost of County-wide services (for example, roads, parks and recreation) to be recovered from all development across the County.
• Cost of water and wastewater services within the Picton urban serviced area from development within Picton only
• Cost of water services outside of Picton and Wellington from development within those serviced areas only

Please note: water and wastewater services within the Wellington urban serviced area will not be considered as part of this study process as they are covered under an area-specific development charge by-law 90-2021 that was passed in 2021 and will not expire until 2024. In addition, Base-31 (Picton) will not be considered as part of this study process as it is in the early planning stage.

Public Consultation

Public consultation is an important part of the process of drafting the background study and updating the by-law. Over the next several months, the public will have the opportunity to learn more about development charges and offer feedback for consideration. Information will be shared on this page as well as through information sessions and statutory public meetings. Dates for those meetings will be announced once they are finalized.