Revelstoke council chooses DCC option for further exploration

For the second time this week, Revelstoke city council deliberations over the development cost charges bylaw update stretched well over two hours, and again, over a dozen representatives from the development, building and commerce communities sat in the meeting for the discussion.

Council made its first official move in updating the city’s development cost charge bylaw at their July 12 committee of the whole meeting. After nearly three hours of discussion at Thursday’s committee of the whole meeting, the majority of councillors voted in favour of selecting one of several options for dividing costs between taxpayers and new development. That option, including all its associated detailed information, is now to be drafted into a bylaw for consideration.

The option selected includes a Municipal Assist Factor of 1% for water and transportation, 50% for parks and 60% for sanitary sewer. It would phase in the full costs of DCCs over a period of five years as a way to lower the financial impact for new construction. The option was among seven presented by Elisa Becker of McElhanney consulting during Thursday’s meeting. (Click here to see the presentation).

Councillor Linda Nixon put forward the motion after Becker said it would be helpful to be able to frame the background report that will be included with the draft bylaw with knowing council’s intentions. Council struggled during the discussions over numbers presented in the report by McElhanney. Becker said the numbers in the report may differ from those in the actual bylaw.

Chief administrative officer Allan Chabot said providing exact numbers for project costs is difficult, since costs are likely to go up between now and project start dates. The estimated cost for projects included in the DCC report total $71 million. A list of projects presented to council can be found in this report.

“This is not a perfect tool, it’s got a level of imprecision to it,” said Chabot.

One of the difficulties in setting DCC rates is that grant money cannot be included in the overall estimate unless the grant has been approved. This means the costs associated with the Municipal Assist Factor cannot be offset with grant money.

“I think the real difficulty is you look at huge projects in the community, they’re all built with a certain level of grants and you cannot put grants into a DCC bylaw and you can’t rely on them because they’re unreliable,” said Mayor Mark McKee.

Councillor Aaron Orlando voted against the motion, citing concerns over a lack of factual information for stakeholders and the public.

Next steps include city staff and McElhanney consulting working on a background report and a first draft of the bylaw for council to consider prior to going out to the public for feedback. There was some discussion of further public engagement about the DCC bylaw at the meeting, but the format remains unclear. Many DCC-related documents are posted to the City of Revelstoke’s website.

Read the various DCC options presented at the July 12 City of Revelstoke Committee of the Whole meeting here.

McElhanney DCC Report to the city’s July 12 Committee of the Whole meeting by Revelstoke Mountaineer on Scribd