Union of B.C. Municipalities has endorsed a District of Lantzville request for change to the provincially-legislated use of development charges, so fire vehicles can be funded as fire protection facilities.
Whenever a new structure is built, municipalities and regional districts take a levy known as development cost charges. Municipalities can use this on infrastructure to service demands of the new development, such as sewer, water, drainage, parks, roads and even fire protection facilities, such as fire halls.
Earlier this year, Coun. Jonathan Lerner created a resolution to request "fire protection facilities" "to include the purchase and maintenance of all capital items related to fire protection, including, but not limited to, fire trucks, duty vehicles, hoses, breathing apparatuses, communications equipment and all other capital expenditures that may be required to equip and maintain fire protection services.”
"The reason it's important is because right now the way the legislation is worded for development cost charges, they can only be applied to facilities. Which as UBCM mentioned in its resolution book, primarily focuses on brick-and-mortar facilities," Lerner told the News Bulletin. "For a lot of smaller communities, like Lantzville, brick-and-mortar facilities are important, but we might only have one or two in our communities, which we replace every 40 or 50 years."
In order for a change like to this to occur, it needs to be accepted by council to go to the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities, then gain its endorsement to go to UBCM. Following this, it needs to gain the endorsement of the UBCM before going to the province, which is the step the resolution is at now. The province then considers the recommendations.
Lerner said that while he recognizes it's important to save up DCCs for those major capital expenses, there are additional capital expenses that have predictable life cycles that are associated with development.
"One of the big ones for those are fire trucks. A fire engine, depending on if it's a smaller engine or one with a ladder, can be $1 million, even $3 million. When you're looking at a small municipality, where an annual budget we might have for operations is $3 million, it's a very big thing for tax payers to replace those engines on the cycle they come due."
Lerner called it "an honour" to have the endorsement of UBCM's resolution committee, and is hopeful that it will be adopted into legislation by the province.
"Those sorts of big capital expenses, being able to allocate that will be huge for many small municipalities in B.C."
