Development charges are pretty complex, and in my experience, almost no councillor actually understands how they work.
My understanding (which could easily be wrong here) is that development charges are meant to ensure that new developments receive the same services that existing developments have. The process of setting the charges is quite complex and involves studying what services are currently offered and coming up with specific projects/things that would need to be done in order to offer that same level to the new developments. The costs of all of those projects are added up (in some cases only a portion gets to be applied to development charges) and is combined with growth projections to come up with the final charge amounts.
It doesn't make sense to me that the LRT should have any impact on Township development charges. The level of service for transit is non-existent in most places in the Townships now, so the cost of providing that service to new developments should be almost 0. I'm also not sure if existing (almost-completed in this case) projects can be included in the study for new charges.
So while there may be a special case here that I don't understand, I find it highly unlikely the Townships would be paying LRT fees in their development charges.
My understanding (which could easily be wrong here) is that development charges are meant to ensure that new developments receive the same services that existing developments have. The process of setting the charges is quite complex and involves studying what services are currently offered and coming up with specific projects/things that would need to be done in order to offer that same level to the new developments. The costs of all of those projects are added up (in some cases only a portion gets to be applied to development charges) and is combined with growth projections to come up with the final charge amounts.
It doesn't make sense to me that the LRT should have any impact on Township development charges. The level of service for transit is non-existent in most places in the Townships now, so the cost of providing that service to new developments should be almost 0. I'm also not sure if existing (almost-completed in this case) projects can be included in the study for new charges.
So while there may be a special case here that I don't understand, I find it highly unlikely the Townships would be paying LRT fees in their development charges.