HUMBOLDT - The City of Humboldt has advertised a Request For Proposal to provide consultant services for a study to determine recommended development levies and servicing fees.
Humboldt City Manager Joe Day told SaskToday.ca that the bylaws the city uses for development fees and levies is from 2015 and should be reviewed and updated due to the inflationary pressures from recent years.
“The pipes in the ground, the concrete, green space areas and lift stations that would be required to proceed with development, all those costs should be considered. These new fees should be based on principle, that growth will pay for that growth.”
The RFP is to provide consultant services for a study to determine recommended development levies and servicing fees for the City of Humboldt.
Within the RFP, it stated the City of Humboldt has a population of 6,033 and is projected to grow rapidly over the next decade, especially due to growth of potash mining in the area. The City of Humboldt has a bylaw that set development levies and off-site fees in 2015 based upon studies done in 2014 and 2015.
“With the passing of about 10 years and a renewed interest in land development within the City of Humboldt, the City of Humboldt has determined that it should complete an up-to-date study to determine the capital costs of municipal servicing and recreational requirements,” said Day.
Due to the relatively small size of the city, it is common for land developers to only propose small subdivisions in areas where main services will eventually be shared by other land developments. This city hopes that the study will recommend options that will allow the city and developers to fund the cost to bring watermains, sewer mains, roads to new development areas without necessarily expecting the first developer to pay the full cost upfront of bringing services to a larger area that is expected to develop over time.
Day said that the City of Humboldt hopes to receive data on Humboldt’s population growth projections, areas of the city that are most likely to grow, both in residential and non-residential areas.
The city wants to identify the cost for each item, make it attributable to growth versus the portion of the cost attributable to the existing population.
