Hamilton’s public school board considers lowering development charges for affordable housing

HWDSB trustees will look over the possibility of lowering development charges for non-profits building affordable housing across the city.

Trustees with Hamilton’s public school board are mulling the idea of lowering, or even dropping, development charges they receive on affordable housing projects across the city.

More discussions on the concept are expected in the coming weeks after the Hamilton is Home Alliance, a local affordable housing coalition, pitched it to the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) Monday during a review of education development charges or EDCs.

HWDSB chair Maria Felix Miller says after hearing from several delegations, trustees are now exploring what “wiggle room” they have since it’s not a common practice among Ontario boards.

Felix Miller says board staff will spend the next few weeks engaging the city and other stakeholders to examine the feasibility of altering EDCs, yet still collect enough to acquire lands for new schools.

But timing is everything since an updated bylaw on the charges would need to be in place by July 1, as per guidelines from the Ministry of Education.

“We’re hoping to get that information to really make a decision quite quickly in order to be in line with regulation,” she said.

“We don’t want that bylaw to expire because we are not able to collect charges in a window if it’s expired.”

The charges are drawn from standard residential development fees typically collected from builders to pay for municipal infrastructure, like roads, water and community centres.