So, if I'm reading this right, cities like my home of Halifax get nothing for having reasonable development charges for years (10x lower than Vancouver's), while BC cities get billions of federal dollars as a reward for having ridiculously high development charges, and they even get to keep them over 5x higher than Halifax's... does the federal government really not have good enough sticks to fix this or is it just afraid to use them?
John when Halifax is as full of ex Vancouver residents as Vancouver is full of ex Maritimers I will listen to your rant about fairness in pork barrel politics. Housing costs in Vancouver mean a 800 sq foot two bedroom requires an income of 200 k per annum to support. That’s the reality changes are required .
There's $12B allocated to the Build Communities Strong fund over 10 years. Looking at the totals in the Ontario and BC agreements, it appears the federal government is providing infrastructure funding based on each province's population. Each province's agreement will reflect what it's asking for.
In terms of sticks, I think it's really the provincial governments that have the ability to put pressure on municipalities. The biggest stick the federal government has is conditional funding. Sean Fraser was able to use it to negotiate Housing Accelerator Fund agreements, but the fight with Metro Vancouver over DCC increases demonstrates its limitations: municipal governments are reluctant to give up a stream of future revenue for what's basically a one-time payment. Only the provincial government can actually force them to do so.
So, if I'm reading this right, cities like my home of Halifax get nothing for having reasonable development charges for years (10x lower than Vancouver's), while BC cities get billions of federal dollars as a reward for having ridiculously high development charges, and they even get to keep them over 5x higher than Halifax's... does the federal government really not have good enough sticks to fix this or is it just afraid to use them?
John when Halifax is as full of ex Vancouver residents as Vancouver is full of ex Maritimers I will listen to your rant about fairness in pork barrel politics. Housing costs in Vancouver mean a 800 sq foot two bedroom requires an income of 200 k per annum to support. That’s the reality changes are required .
There's $12B allocated to the Build Communities Strong fund over 10 years. Looking at the totals in the Ontario and BC agreements, it appears the federal government is providing infrastructure funding based on each province's population. Each province's agreement will reflect what it's asking for.
In terms of sticks, I think it's really the provincial governments that have the ability to put pressure on municipalities. The biggest stick the federal government has is conditional funding. Sean Fraser was able to use it to negotiate Housing Accelerator Fund agreements, but the fight with Metro Vancouver over DCC increases demonstrates its limitations: municipal governments are reluctant to give up a stream of future revenue for what's basically a one-time payment. Only the provincial government can actually force them to do so.