Development Cost Charge Update

Development Cost Charges Adopted by Council

The City received approval of the Development Cost Charge (DCC) bylaw from the Inspector of Municipalities on June 16th 2025, and Council adopted the DCC bylaw on June 24, 2025. Council has provided a Grace Period between the adoption date and the effective date of the bylaw, and the effective date of the bylaw is August 1, 2025.

Applications received before the effective date of the bylaw are called in-stream applications and these in-stream applications may be eligible to pay the old DCC rates. The details are set out in this guide. The new Development Cost Charges are set out in detail in the following bylaw.

The new DCC bylaw charges DCCs based on different areas of the City:

• Primary City area (DCCs for transportation, water, sewer, and parks)
• Big Eddy area (DCCs for transportation, parks, and water specific to Big Eddy, no sewer DCCs)
• Westside Road / Kelly Flats / Dalles Area (DCCs for transportation and parks, no sewer or water DCCs)

The rates are set out in the bylaw and shown in the tables below. DCCs are calculated by taking the newly constructed floor area and multiplying by the DCC rate per sq. m. of floor area.

Development Cost Charges that apply within the Area A – Primary City Area are as follows:

Development Cost Charges that apply within the Area B – Big Eddy Area are as follows:

Development Cost Charges that apply within the Area C – Westside Road / Kelly Flats / Dalles Area are as follows:

What are Development Cost Charges?

Development Cost Charges (DCCs) are collected from builders by a municipality to compensate for some of the infrastructure expenditures required to service the needs of new development. New development often requires the expansion of existing infrastructure or the installation of new infrastructure systems to support increased demand for utilities and services – this poses high costs to the public sector.

When a developer builds a new subdivision, they pay for the roads, sewer systems, water systems and other services inside the subdivision. But the City needs to use other tools to pay for things like expansions to the sewage treatment plant, putting traffic signals at an intersection a kilometre away, increasing primary water supply line sizes, and providing park expansions for the whole community. That is where DCCs come into play. Developers who build houses and apartment buildings, business owners who pay to expand their buildings, and homeowners who build a secondary suite pay a Development Cost Charge to pay for the infrastructure needed to keep up with growth. DCCs are intended to assist local governments and facilitate development by providing a method to finance capital projects related to roads, sewers, water, and parkland.

DCCs can recover the cost of infrastructure including:

• Water
• Sanitary sewer
• Storm drainage
• Transportation
• Parkland and limited park development
• Solid waste and recycling facilities
• Fire halls and police stations
• Option in a Resort Region: DCCs for Employee housing to service the operation of resort activities.

The City of Revelstoke has adopted a new DCC bylaw that is based on the Official Community Plan and infrastructure master plans recently completed by the City. The links to these plans are set out in the sidebar.

DCC Background Report

The details of the growth projections and specific infrastructure projects and calculations of the Development Cost Charge rates are set out in the DCC Background Report. Some of the discussions and background to the options considered in updating the DCCs are set out in the material below on Community Meetings and Shift in Approach

Community Meetings

City staff and consultants met with the community on the Draft Development Cost Charges on Thursday, January 23, at the Revelstoke Community Centre:

• 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.: Public session with display boards - consultants and staff onsite to answer questions.
• 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.: Information session for Developers and Builders.
• 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.: Information session for the community; presentation at 6:30 p.m.

The results of the engagement are set out in this memo and a recording of the public session can be found here.

Some key directions that can be taken from the engagement are as follows:

• The community recognizes that the City needs to build infrastructure to serve growth, and some feel we have fallen behind in keeping up with the needs of growth.
• The development and builder community is definitely concerned with the magnitude of the increase in DCCs, and the community in general is concerned about the impact higher DCCs will have on the cost of housing.
• Most of the survey respondents are not in favour of seeing their property taxes or water and sewer rates go up in order to reduce the DCCs paid by developers / builders and the final buyers.
• Members of the development/builder community and the general public suggested that the DCCs could be more closely aligned to have charges based on the floor area of dwellings. There were also some suggestions that the very large homes should pay significantly more to account for their impact on infrastructure.

Shift in Approach

As a result of the community feedback and discussions with staff we examined a shift in the approach to charging Residential DCCs that is based more on the floor area of the dwelling. We created ranges of floor areas for dwellings, and homes in the higher ranges would pay more. The proposed ranges were as follows:

• Below 29 m2 (312 ft2) is exempt from paying DCCs by provincial legislation;
• 29 m2 to 50 m2 (312 ft2 to 540 ft2);
• 50 m2 to 120 m2 (540ft2 to 1290 ft2);
• 120 m2 to 300 m2 (1290 ft2 to 3230 ft2);
• 300 m2 to 500m2 (3230 ft2 to 5380 ft2);
• 500 m2 (5380 ft2) and above.

We also proposed to charge a DCC at a subdivision equivalent to a modest home up to 120 m2 (1290 ft2).

We calculated the results of using this approach in this memo and presented this information to:

• Public Infrastructure Committee – February 27, 2025 meeting
• Finance Committee – March 5, 2025 meeting

Based on the committee discussions and additional discussions with staff and consultants, we further revised the approach to eliminate the floor area ranges for residential dwellings and simplify the charge to a straight charge per square metre of floor area charged at building permit. The rationale and results of this revision are set out in this memo and the information was presented to:

• Public Infrastructure Committee – March 27, 2025 meeting