{"id":571728,"date":"2026-03-30T23:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T23:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/571728\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T23:41:08","slug":"city-councillors-fear-devil-in-the-details-in-federal-provincial-housing-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/571728\/","title":{"rendered":"City councillors fear ‘devil in the details’ in federal-provincial housing fund"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

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As the provincial and federal governments announced a new deal to cut home prices on Monday, Premier Doug Ford said he was dangling a carrot for municipalities.<\/p>\n

Ottawa city councillors say they need to know more before taking a bite.<\/p>\n

The federal and Ontario governments are offering a combined $8.8 billion over 10 years to fund municipal infrastructure, but with a catch. For the most part, the money will go to municipalities that agree to cut development charges by 30 to 50 per cent for three years.<\/p>\n

Development charges are fees on newly built homes that are meant to fund the cost of municipal water, sewer, road and transit infrastructure.<\/p>\n

In Ottawa, the fees run as high as $62,568 for a single-detached home outside the Greenbelt.<\/p>\n

Jason Burggraaf of the Greater Ottawa Home Builders\u2019 Association said those fees have doubled in the past decade and are driving up the price of construction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you’re cutting that in half, that’s another $30,000 or more for a typical house across Ottawa,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it’s a significant saving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JasonJason Burggraaf, the executive director of the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association, says the intended reduction of development charges would be substantial, and welcome. (Guy Quenneville\/CBC)<\/p>\n

But it isn\u2019t clear whether the infrastructure money on offer will be enough to make up for the revenue hit cities would take by cutting the fees.<\/p>\n

A background document from the Ontario government says the funding will offset \u201cmuch of\u201d the financial impact, but municipalities will also be expected to \u201csupport increased housing supply and affordability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stittsville Coun. Glen Gower, who chairs council\u2019s transit committee, said development charges are a crucial source of funding for the city. He said municipalities need to be sure they’ll be made whole for what they lose.<\/p>\n

“From a responsible financial planning [perspective], we just need to have confidence that there is an alternate source of revenue,\u201d he said. “So far those details are pretty vague, so I’ll be interested to see in the coming days what exactly they’re proposing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney, who chairs council\u2019s public works and infrastructure committee and is also first vice president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, said he wants to know whether municipalities might lose more than they gain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always devil in the details,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll wait. I\u2019ll listen and see what the detail actually is. But from the initial reports, there is a concern if there’s a reduction in development charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

City of Ottawa staff say they are still assessing the implications of the announcement.<\/p>\n

“Staff will be looking to understand how the proposed funding would work in practice, including how infrastructure needed to support growth would continue to be funded, as development charges are an important tool in supporting that growth,\u201d according to an emailed statement from Marcia Wallace, the city’s general manager of planning, development and building services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-571728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}