Changes Coming for Vancouver’s DCL By-law
The City of Vancouver is updating its DCL by-law to include new rates, new by-law rate categories, updated DCL allocations, and select new uses for DCL relief following a comprehensive review of forecasted growth and DCL eligible growth costs.
The rationale for the changes is outlined in the City’s policy report:
“In July 2015, Council directed staff to review and update the City-wide DCL Bylaw. The City-wide DCL update is a based on a 10-year timeframe (2017-2026) and includes the following components:
- Updating population and job growth projections.
- Identifying capital costs for corresponding DCL eligible public amenities and infrastructure (including sewer, drainage, and water programs as new items)
- Determining DCL allocations and rates
- Establishing a new City-wide DCL by-law
As a result of the review, staff recommends that the City-wide DCL rates be adjusted to recover a share of the updated costs associated with the forecasted 10-year DCL capital program. The recommended DCL rates in this report are anticipated to generate approximately $1.0 billion that will help fund approximately 60% of the contemplated growth costs over the next 10 years (2017-2026), with the residual amount of approximately $0.8 billion across Engineering, Housing, Childcare and Parks to be addressed in the 2019-2022 Capital Plan.”
Recommendations include:
- Adjustment of City-wide DCL rates (see below)
- Addition of new DCL rate categories
- Hold industrial and commercial DCL at current rates
- Adjust DCL allocations
- Reducing DCL rates for social and community uses
- Replacement of Downtown South DCL with City-wide DCL ($17.36/SF)
The proposed rate changes and categories are outlined as follows:
The full policy report can be viewed here: http://council.vancouver.ca/20170726/documents/pspc4.pdf