Mike Collins-Williams, the CEO of the West End Home Builders, recently delegated to the Burlington city council. Collins-Williams asked council to remove development charges completely for the next two years.
What are Development Charges?
Development Charges (DCs) are one-time fees collected by municipalities from developers to help pay for new infrastructure to serve new growth. You can think of this as “growth pays for growth,” ensuring that existing taxpayers aren’t burdened with the costs of building new roads, water mains, or community centres for new residents.
Burlington collects DCs and puts them into a reserve fund. You can read more about reserve funds here:
Collins-Williams stated:
- The development industry is a large employer, and it’s in trouble. Reducing development charges will encourage home building in Burlington, saving jobs.
- Housing prices are out of control; the development sector needs help reducing those prices.
- 30 to 33% of the cost of a new home is taxes.
- “Our housing market is broken, and we need housing prices to come down.”
- “If we do not reduce our prices. We don’t sell any units, people get laid off, and companies go bankrupt. The only way that this industry surveys the current crisis is if we can significantly, like around $100,000, reduce the cost of delivering housing to the end consumer.”
This is an approximate cost breakdown for a new, fictional, 700 sq. ft. condo. Costs will vary with every building.
| Description | 700 sq. ft. Condo | % of total |
| Hard construction costs -Structural concrete, glass window walls, mechanical/electrical systems, and interior finishes (flooring, cabinetry, appliances). | $210,000 | 32.3% |
| Land costs -Burlington has great services, community centres, … -There is a limited amount of green space available for development, land is expensive. | $119,000 | 18.3% |
| Development Charges Halton – $26,509 Burlington – $11,547 Education – $11,250 | $49,306 | 7.6% |
| Burlington Community Benefits Charge (CBC) | $4,800 | .7% |
| Soft Costs / Marketing Architecture and engineering fees, legal costs, zoning applications, construction financing interest, and sales commissions (typically 4–5% for the real estate brokerage) | $109,000 | 16.8% |
| Marketing and miscellaneous Presentation centre, advertising, and legal overhead. | $29,000 | 4.5% |
| Developer Profit Margin | $54,115 | 8.3% |
| HST (Federal 5% and Provincial 8%) Most builders include HST in the price. If you are purchasing the condo as your primary residence, you qualify for a $24,000 rebate, reducing the cost shown. | $74,779 (excluding the rebate) | 11.5% |
| Cost before Land Transfer Tax | $650,000 | 100% |
| Land Transfer Tax (Ontario) | $9,500 | |
| Total | $659,500 |
The developer of the sample condo above stands to earn nearly $11 million in profit from a 200-unit building.
If Burlington eliminates their portion of the DCs, the cost of our sample condo will be reduced by $11,547.
This raises two questions:
Will an $11,547 price reduction on a condo help attract buyers and save the industry?
Will developers really reduce the cost of a home or condo, or will they continue to charge what the market will tolerate? It’s easy to create an invoice with development charges at zero while increasing other costs to arrive at a market price. The condo market is soft, but townhouses and single-family homes are still in demand. In reality, there is no way to prove that the reduction in development charges will be passed on to the home buyer. Burlington prices will continue to be influenced by Milton, Oakville, Waterdown, and Hamilton, municipalities that have not reduced development charges to zero.
How much money are we talking about in total?
Our CFO, Craig Millar, presented these two slides on November 3rd, 2025
The first slide shows that over $15 million from development charges is being used to fund capital projects in 2026.
You can see in this slide that the 10-year capital plan is banking on over $94 million from development charges.
Staff estimates that eliminating all development charges for two years will cost between $16.7 and $41.3 million.
Bottom line: We’re talking about a lot of money. Development charges are a significant source of revenue for the city.
Our mayor appears to support eliminating development charges, and our elected representatives, the council, have spent hours debating the idea.
During the Committee of the Whole meeting held on February 10th, 2026, only 5 councillors were present. Surprisingly, 3 of the 5 councillors present voted in favour of a motion to eliminate development charges for the next two years. As noted by a councillor, this affects all homes to be constructed over the next two years, from affordable duplexes to multi-million-dollar homes.
| Councillor | Vote |
| Mayor Meed Ward | Voted FOR elimination. |
| Councillor Galbraith (Ward 1) | Voted FOR elimination |
| Councillor Kearns (Ward 2) | ABSENT |
| Councillor Nisan (Ward 3) | Voted AGAINST elimination. |
| Councillor Stolte (Ward 4) | Voted AGAINST elimination. |
| Councillor Sharman(Ward 5) | ABSENT |
| Councillor Bentivegna (Ward 6) | Voted FOR elimination. |
If the council eliminates development charges without compensation from another level of government, or if the industry collapses, Burlington may face a multi-million dollar shortfall. The Council voted for this motion without a solid plan for where the money will come from.
Without help from another level of government, there are only two choices: increase property taxes or increase debt. Increasing debt simply means we’ll pay more over time as interest charges are added to the balance.
Is there a solution?
In the past, federal and provincial governments have bailed out industries. Their tax revenue is based on income, while property taxes are not. We know landlords are passing property tax increases onto tenants. Raising property taxes in an attempt to save the development industry will cause real hardship for people on fixed incomes.
Here’s the breakdown of direct taxes by level of government from our sample condo above.
| Burlington Development Charges – $11,547 Community Benefit Charges – $4,800 | $16,347 |
| Halton (DCs) | $26,509 |
| Ontario Education ($11,250) Land Transfer ($9,500) Share of GST 8% ($46,018) | $66,768 |
| Federal (share of GST 5%) | $28,761 |
| Total | $138,385 |
If Ontario were to act, prices would drop across the province. If Burlington acts alone, market forces in the GTHA will create a windfall for developers in Burlington.
Council is going to vote on a by-law change on February 17th, 2026. The proposed by-law has not been shared with the public.
Before the meeting, email your councilor and let them know what you think.
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My position on this is that development charges should not and I repeat not be eliminated no matter what the time period the elimination would stand.
I have two reasons for taking this position.
The first reason being that if development charges are eliminated, the cost to install the services usually covered by development charges will fall upon the property tax payer – that’s you and me. Why should the property taxpayer bear these charges for which it gets no benefit. It’s easy for Council to vote to eliminate development charges for a period of 2 years because as council members it comes at no cost to them whatsoever.
My second reason I guess is more to do with my upset with developers as a whole.
Commercial businesses are there to make a profit at the customer’s expense. That is understood and accepted by everybody. If however a business is unable to make a profit it more than likely would go out of business. Sure, there are instances where a governmental body may step in to bail out a failing business because of the affect a failure would have on society and the rest of the economy at large. In such cases Provincial and Federal governments have funds available and the ability to bail out a corporation. Sure, those funds do come from taxpayers – again, that’s you and me. But the load is spread over a much larger tax paying base. Our municipal governments do not have any such resource available to them. Any elimination of development charges will fall directly and immediately upon the existing tax base. So in effect the existing tax base is subsidizing to some extent the purchaser of the new home that the developer is building. Why should that be? My feelings towards developers is not a kind one, I know. Why is that? Well in my view over the last 8 to 10 years, or maybe longer, developers have been raking in great profits on their development projects, whilst all the time totally ignoring the wishes of Burlington residents and their Council, as regards to zoning and height restrictions.
They have in affect shown Burlington the middle finger. Now they come crying and want our help. Our help to help them continue to ignore our wishes and build these high-rises.
Certainly we do need the developments built and new homes made available to the population. Hopefully the developments will include large numbers of affordable rental homes.
My solution is to allow property developers a deferral of the development charges for which they are responsible. I would suggest a deferral until such time as the development is completed and is 75% sold.
I agree.2 years can easily end up as 4 then 5 etc.