Within the municipal world there is a delicate balance between time and money. Hiring professional planners to assist administration with planning-related topics isn’t free, so how does a municipality encourage planned development, but also keep that bottom line in mind?
Municipal administrators have a difficult job running a municipality, facilitating infrastructure maintenance, dealing with ratepayer concerns, balancing budgets and organizing councils. To be required to drop everything and review a subdivision or a development permit application within a timely fashion for the developer adds to the burden. The knowledge expected of administrators is also expanding, as they are expected to provide insight to council into engineering for roads and drainage, and understand the complete legislation of the Municipalities Act, and the Planning and Development Act. This is a tough job for the many one-person offices in rural Saskatchewan.
Fortunately, section 51 of the PDA allows a municipality to set permit rates for the expense of reviewing development to cover administration time and council time, if necessary. Currently the going rate for municipalities is to charge $100 for permitted uses and $200 for discretionary uses, but there is a value range throughout the area. The municipality should have a development permit application fee rationale that defends the permit rates, because the rates are not meant to be a revenue generator, but to cover the basic costs of reviewing the application.
When it comes to subdivision applications from Community Planning, section 172 of the PDA allows a municipality to request the developer sign a servicing agreement to cover some municipal expenses associated with the costs of reviewing the subdivision, among other costs, such as infrastructure construction and upgrades. The option of asking for a servicing agreement is always available, and is strongly encouraged by professional planners. It’s an effective tool that allows the municipality to participate in planned development, assist administration through this time, but solely on a need-only basis as the subdivisions arrive.
Some municipalities have taken this one step further, and adopted professional planning service policies to state what amount of costs will be paid by a ratepayer when accessing the services associated with the municipality. Some of this stems from the concern the subdivision may never be completed by the developer, at which point the municipality may not be able to bill those costs back to the ratepayer for the professional services through the requirement of a servicing agreement. For example, some policies state all costs associated with the professional services will be back to the ratepayer in a timely fashion (on a monthly basis). This option ensures the municipality, which may be on a thin budget, participates in planned development, but at the developer’s cost.
Alternatively, a municipality may assume payment up to a certain dollar amount in an attempt to encourage proper planning and development, but keep developers concise and on track with their dealings with the professional. This option recognizes contact between the developer and the planner will create a better submission to the municipality and reduce time and headaches at a later date as both parties pay for services.
Finally, some municipalities don’t charge planning costs to the developer because it is viewed as a cost-saving initiative. The planner is assisting by taking some of the pressure off administration so they can complete other tasks. This option shows the municipality is open for planned development, and the municipality will be “paid back” through taxation as subdivisions increase the number of properties that can be taxed, and hopefully the future improvements constructed upon the subdivision.
Any of these options are effective and assist municipalities in achieving planned development and take some of the workload off an already-taxed administrator in an affordable fashion.
— S. Yvonne Prusak, BASc, MA, MCIP, RPP, is a municipal planner with municipalities and communities in Northwest Saskatchewan. She specializes in land use planning and development.
