New Development Cost Charges in Effect for Langley City

As I posted in April, Langley City was in the final steps of updating our Development Cost Charges. The City applies a Development Cost Charge to all significant new construction in our community.

The provincial government strictly regulates Development Cost Charges; municipalities can only use these charges for infrastructure directly related to accommodating a new construction project. This idea is sometimes called "growth should pay for growth." The Development Cost Charge is part of a suite of funding mechanisms to help pay for municipal infrastructure due to development (or redevelopment in Langley City's case.)

Langely City last updated our Development Cost Charge in 2012. Since then, our community has changed, and the cost of building infrastructure has increased.

The key is to ensure that we apply a fair rate that is enough to meaningfully contribute to paying for infrastructure to accommodate increased usage but not too high to prevent construction, including much-needed housing, from being built.

Municipalities must submit Development Cost Charge rates to the provincial government for approval as part of the process. Langley City submitted our request and received approval from the provincial government on June 10th. As such, on Monday, Langley City Council officially adopted our new rates as shown:

Building Type	Unit of Measure	New Rate	Former Rate
Detached Residential	Per Lot	$45,563.00	$18,409.00
Townhouse	Per Dwelling Unit	$32,683.00	$14,503.00
Apartment	Per Dwelling Unit	$21,246.00	$9,549.00
Commercial	Per gross floor area (in sq. ft.)	$14.46	$6.83
Industrial	Per gross floor area (in sq. ft.)	$5.81	$3.03
Institutional	Per gross floor area (in sq. ft.)	$14.46	N/A

As a note, even while the rate changes were significant, the new rates are average or below average compared to other municipalities in Metro Vancouver. To help reduce these jumps in the future, the City is committed to updating our rates more frequently.