The city has become increasingly reliant on developer cash, and deals are secretly made. What’s this all added up to?
Rezoning approvals should be motivated by how a project serves a changing city, from population growth to new employment opportunities, and the collection of CACs is a response to accommodating that change. Rezonings should not be approved if a project is deemed inappropriate for a site.
But the city’s increasing dependence on cash contributions to fund capital projects has drawn criticism and become an election issue.
And throughout Vision’s tenure, the City of Vancouver’s capital plan has had an increasing dependence on development contributions from CACs and development cost levies, also known as DCLs (fixed rate charges collected from new developments mainly for essential infrastructure like sewer, water and roads).
In the 2012-2014 capital plan, development contributions totalled $87 million in a budget of $702 million, or about 12 per cent.
In the 2015-2018 capital plan, development contributions totalled $366 million in a budget of $1.085 billion, or about 33 per cent.
In the 2019-2022 capital plan, development contributions totalled $1.046 billion in a budget of $2.8 billion, or about 38 per cent.*
Read full article: https://thetyee.ca/News/2018/10/01/Vision-Vancouver-Rezoning-Addiction/