School board development fees make it hard to build affordable housing, non-profit says | CBC News

The flat-rate fees school boards charge developers are making it harder for low-income families and unhoused people to put a roof over their heads, according to a local non-profit affordable housing developer.

Jeff Neven, executive director of Indwell, initially told CBC Hamilton about education development charges three years ago and says the situation has only gotten worse.

When someone builds in a municipality like Hamilton, they must pay school boards a fee.

The public school board’s website states, in 2020, the charge was $1,573 per residential unit and 43 cents per square foot of the gross floor area of non-residential development. It’s unclear if the rates have increased since then. The Catholic board’s fee is $1,701 and 55 cents per square foot of non-residential developments.

The millions of dollars the boards get per year from this can only be used to build or develop new schools.

Neven says the problem is the fee is a flat rate and doesn’t consider if someone is building affordable housing or housing that may not house many children.

“A 250 square foot apartment unit has the same charges as a five-bedroom house in Binbrook,” he said.

Neven said the rate should be variable to accommodate for affordable housing. 

“It is disproportionately burdensome on people in poverty,” he previously said.

Indwell was challenging the fees at the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal in 2020, but had to drop its case because it couldn’t find a lawyer who wasn’t attached to a municipality, school board or private developer.

Neven said the charity has spoken to the school boards and they’ve been “sympathetic” but don’t seem willing to change.

The Ministry of Education does allow for boards to implement variable rates but confirmed to CBC Hamilton that none have.

Homelessness has worsened since 2020

Since 2020, the development charges have gone up and Hamilton’s homelessness crisis has worsened.

City data shows 1,881 people were unhoused as of the end of August.

There are only 357 shelter beds and rooms in Hamilton, and the city has housed just 41 people through its programs.

Last year, there were 6,110 Hamilton families on the waitlist for public housing, but just 1,082 ended up housed.

Neven said Indwell has spent $260,000 on education development charges in Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Peel this year.

The total since 2021 has been roughly $752,000, he said.

“When trying to create deeply affordable housing, every dollar is absolutely critical,” he said.

School boards say fees are needed

Pat Daly, chair of Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board, said these fees are essentially the only money boards get to buy property to build schools on.

He noted the city’s population is expected to continue to grow and the cost of land is also on the rise.

Hamilton’s population grew from 536,917 in 2016 to 569,353 in 2021. That’s an increase of 32,436 people.

Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board declined an interview and pointed to its webpage about education development charges, but said trustees will discuss the charges this winter.

Daly said the Catholic board will review education development charges next year.

“I don’t want to speculate, but I don’t envision the circumstance where there would be need to adjust the rates downward or even at the same level, but we’ll see,” he said.