There is a growing and very vocal number of residents living in the south end of Guelph advocating for a new recreational centre to be built as soon as possible.
Currently, the City of Guelph has in it’s capital budget, construction of a new south end rec centre sometime in 2014. The projected cost of the rec centre is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $35 million.
This project can be funded by development charges (DC’s) up to 90% of the total cost.
DC’s are collected by the City on virtually all new construction projects. This includes new stores, factories, schools, distribution facilities and homes.
The split between residential and commercial/industrial growth in Guelph is currently 83.6%/16.4%.
The average new single family home generates approximately $12,087 in revenue for the City to build and maintain it’s infrastructure and services.
The breakdown for the distribution of this money is:
Water $1084
Sanitary $1814
Storm $121
Roads $3317
Fire $165
Library $327
Transit $448
Administration $42
Parks $1572
Parking $284
Police $241
Ambulance $9
Education $1071
Rec facility $1592
To date, despite all the growth the City has experienced recently, only $3M has been collected by DC’s for the new south end rec centre.
So what does all this mean?
Well, if DC’s can pay for 90% of $35M, that leaves $31.5M. We’ve collected $3M so far leaving $28.5M to collect.
At current rates, the residential component of growth is 83.65%, then $28.5M becomes $23.84M.
If each new home contributes $1,592 to the rec centre then it would take 14,975 additional new homes to be built to pay for the new rec centre.
If we build 1000 new homes each year, it could take another 15 years to collect the money needed from DC’s.
Options to consider to build a rec center earlier:
Raise the DC rate to cover more of the cost of infrastructure and services.
Build more homes and commercial/industrial sooner.
Move the split on growth to more industrial/commercial development and less residential.
Pay for a larger percentage of the rec centre out of general revenues.
Request for proposal for a private public partnership.
Thanks to Ryan in Finance for the information and his patience. Ian