After halting development fees eight years ago and voting to extend the experiment in 2017, Leamington will start collecting them again.
A report by Watson and Associates released earlier this year suggested charging $9,823 for new single-detached homes, $3,366 for industrial development, and $20,909 for greenhouses.
Councillors at the time opted to stop charging the fees amid fears development would collapse. Heinz announced months before it would close its plant in Leamington, throwing 700 people out of work in a town with a population of just 28,000. The decision was an experiment to bolster new investment in a time of economic stress, and it paid off so well that councillors voted to extend it another five years in 2017.
Fees for almost all new development were paused, and the water development charge for the greenhouse sector was slashed by 46.6 per cent.
Leamington Mayor Hilda MacDonald shows off one of the new on-demand buses, May 2, 2022. Photo provided by Municipality of Leamington.
However, Mayor Hilda MacDonald believes the time has come to return to "business as usual."
"New roads, new infrastructure, if you don't use development charges to pay for that, then that has to go back on the taxpayer," she said. "We feel we no longer want to put that burden on the taxpayer."
Over the years, the municipality has had to dip into other budgets.
"You find ways to pay for it," explained MacDonald. "You do go into a roads budget where you'll have infrastructure money. We have used money that has been put aside over the years."
In the meantime, growth in Leamington boomed.
"The greenhouse sector has grown beyond expectations," said MacDonald. "We have subdivisions going up that we didn't see. We went from $40-million a year in building to over $200-million."
She admitted there are other concerns to consider. There's the question if the province will be less open to extending funding if the municipality isn't charging for new development.
"The province looks at it from this point of view, they give us the tool of development charges to pay for big projects, and when we don't use that, they sometimes frown on us coming to them for other funding," said MacDonald.
She pointed out that has not been the case so far, but there are fears it could become a problem in the future.