Development Charges On The Low End

I just received a note from our Pubic Works director (who in turn received it from the General Manager of Aquatera):

CMHC has a recently released report looking at "Government Imposed Charges On New Housing". As the title suggests CMHC was looking to see how much of the cost of a new house was due to government charges. Things like the levies that we charge to developers who build a new subdivision or the charges Aquatera collects for hooking up to the water system.

Of the 32 municipalities surveyed in the report GP does very well, in fact we are 3rd lowest in the country after Yellowknife and Whitehorse. For example, if you bought a $300,000 house in GP about 7.5% (or $22,500) of the cost would have come from those government charges that the builder passed on in the price. On a $300,00 house in Prince George it would have been 10.7% ($32,100) or in Saskatoon 13.7% ($41,100).

Some caveats I noticed: there are only 3 AB cities (GP, Edm & Cgy) and I don't know why that is, also the numbers are from 2006 and I believe that some of the charges have probably increased. Having said that, I'm pretty sure they didn't increase enough to push us up to the level of T-Dot.

Here are two of the highlight charts (Click them to enlarge to a readable size) and a link to the full report.