The Sarnia-Lambton Association of Realtors has been granted more time to review the city's draft development charges bylaw.
Sarnia council decided at its meeting November 20, to extend the comment and review period to March 31, 2024.
President Rob Longo said the original public consultation period was only about three or four weeks long, so they felt the extension was needed.
"The city, and the consultants, and their planners, have been working on this for about a year now," said Longo. "So, we just didn't feel that was an adequate amount of time in order for a lot of the community stakeholders to fully review it and understand it and provide commentary."
Sarnia City Council is still scheduled to hold a public hearing on development charges on December 11.
"Anything new that's constructed in Sarnia over the next ten years is going to fall onto this schedule of charges. So, obviously, we want to make sure we are very balanced between recovering the costs that are associated with these new developments, but at the same time, ensuring that we are competitive with other surrounding municipalities in order to continue to grow Sarnia," he said.
Development charges help pay for growth-related capital expenditures from new development.
"What we are planning to do, is just to do a little bit more investigation in terms of what other surrounding municipalities are charging, and what similar size municipalities are charging for similar fees and similar construction," said Longo.
He doesn't want to see new development discouraged.
"Obviously, we've done a lot of work with the city over the past two years, on the official plan and the urban growth boundary, and this is really the next piece in that puzzle. We really want to make sure all of that effort we just put into planning Sarnia for the next ten or 20 years, isn't for not now, if the development charges that potential builders are going to have to pay are going to be offside or significantly higher than in other communities."
The current bylaw is set to expire in 2024, so a development charge study was initiated by the city in August 2022.
The development charge background study and proposed bylaw was reported to council October 16.
Staff said the document was posted to Speak Up Sarnia on October 4, 2023 and a stakeholder meeting was held on October 10, 2023, with the Sarnia-Lambton Home Builders Association.