Location, location, location. When you’re in the market for a new home or condo, this golden rule of real estate is among your key determining factors.

Sure, what to buy, based on your budget, finances and needs. But where to buy, based on proximity to work, family, transportation and transit infrastructure, desired amenities and other considerations. And, of course, affordability here, too.

DCs out of control

Increasingly, though, that last point is being influenced by development charges and other fees – known as growth charges – which provide important funding for municipalities, for new roads, transit and libraries and other community needs. Other than property taxes or user fees, they are the main source of funding municipalities use to pay for growth-related infrastructure.

“The DC system in Ontario performs a vital function, both legally and in provision of housing supportive infrastructure,” says Dave Wilkes, president and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD).

Somewhere along the way over the last few decades, though, DCs have gotten wildly out of control.

“Given the relative scale of DCs in dollar terms, the current housing crisis, the need to reduce complexity and the opportunity to learn from best practices from other jurisdictions, an update of the DC Act is significantly overdue and must be completed with a sense of urgency.”

For example, as Wilkes writes in his column on page 34, one GTA municipality has “famously increased its DCs by more than 6,000 per cent over the last 30 years.” (Step forward, City of Toronto).

Influence on cost

Imagine paying $65 for a cup coffee, or $1.2 million for a car. That’s what such increases would mean if we applied the same rate to other purchases. “In other words, the stakes and the cost implications are much more profound today, and the need for cost controls have never been higher.”

Municipalities, therefore, have to pay attention. They must act.

Thankfully, some of them are.

In November 2024, the City of Vaughan adopted a plan to bring these costs down, and Mississauga more recently did the same (see page 10).

As our story on page 14 examines, development charges are a complicated subject, and likely not one you as a prospective homebuyer have thought much about. Until now, because they’re impossible to avoid as an influence on the cost of your home.

So, what can you do, as a prospective new-home buyer?

Well, first, pay closer attention to the subject as you go about your new home search. Second, it’s well within your right to contact your city councillor and question them on the issue. Tell them you want the city to keep municipal costs lower than comparable municipalities. And if they can’t…

Third, you may take your homebuying decision elsewhere.