My point is that the principle of existing homeowners funding infrastructure for new homes is only tenable when

• developers are not creating huge externalities by creating ever larger suburbs with infrastructure funded by the core (take Ottawa as an example for that dynamic)
• when the base of established homeowners is large enough to support the rate of growth.

In the first case, development fees based on lot size for new sprawling burbs are a reasonable way to push the market towards density.

In the second case, with a high rate of growth in a specific market, other means of redistribution such as government subsidies may be a better way to redistribute.

But you’re not in agreement with charging the full economic cost of the sprawl to the homeowners who choose to live there?

We’re in Ottawa, so that may be an exception, but generally here it’s been extraordinarily expensive to develop the suburbs beyond the greenbelt, and until the development fees were increased in the late 90s, studies showed that new homeowners only bore about 1/5th of the cost.

Much of the development classification from farmland was effectively unplanned and forced through by suburban municipal councils before the amalgamation in the 1990s.

The costs of extending utilities across the National Capital Commission lands was extraordinary and no one inside the greenbelt benefited. A major bridge had to be built because the traffic impact was not considered etc.

There have been more recent improvements such as the retroactive construction of separate wastewater and storm water systems in the core that benefit everyone by keeping sewage out of the rivers.

The O-train construction unfortunately has been a burden on all without the benefits that should come with a modern rapid transit system.

We live in a society - yes.

But that’s the reason many of the development fees were put in back in the 1970s and 80s - there were significant equity issues where the exponentially growing new shiny suburbs were built on the property taxes of a much smaller base of urban homeowners who were left with old, inferior and unmaintained city infrastructure.

So, let’s seriously consider whether what the equity issues are now and whether those fees are reasonable cost recovery for infrastructure vs a tax cash grab - or if there’s enough of a base of established homeowners that they could carry the development costs for new homes through reasonable tax increases.

Actually, they did not get subsidized by prior generations of owners - unless you’re talking about people in their 90s.

That’s what the development fees and taxes were put in place for - especially in places where extending services out across greenbelts into suburbs was incredibly costly.

Having crumbling roads and community infrastructure in the core and polished, higher quality infrastructure in the burbs was an equity issue that was taken on in the 1970s, long before my generation was anywhere near buying homes.

I do think it’s fair to have lower development fees where there’s densification - that bringing more people to use and support existing infrastructure.

But subsidizing sprawl remains as problematic as it was in the 1960s.

Last thought, Intergenerational Inequity wa ma first recognized and discussed in the 1990s regarding GenX.

GenX remains the most ignored generation but the fact is that the generation suffered two very deep recessions in 1983 and 1987-1991 plus faced incredibly high (18%) interest rates and inflation in the 1980s. This meant that none of them were buying homes before their 40s without the help of parents. While Canadian GenX ducked the US mortgage-backed securities disaster in 2008, it’s really a false narrative to suggest they are or have been in the ‘I’m all right Jack, devil take the hindmost’ frame of mind. If anything, they know the social safety nets and equity provisions were the only thing that made things possible for them.

Explain to me please why existing owners should subsidize the building of city infrastructure in new developments.

I don’t live in Toronto but building new sewers, water systems, roads, community centres etc. shouldn’t be funded by existing taxpayers who still have above ground utility cables and no sidewalks.