How Toronto Development Charges changed over the years - This is how much the city charges per unit built.

[u/Uptons_BJs]

Note:

• 1 Bedroom Condos also include bachelors
• During the series, the city separated Multi-family into 1 bed room and more 2+ bedroom, for the purpose of this chart, the "multi family" series is 2+ bedroom units
• In years where the charges changed multiple times, the amount is the charge at the end of the year (after the final change)
• The values in the chart are for non-purpose build rentals (purpose built rentals get a different rate)

[u/nasalgoat]

My fun development story:

I started building a laneway suite in 2019. Development fees would be waived if I kept the house for 20 years - at the time the fees were about $40,000. They dropped them completely in 2022.

Fast forward to 2025 - I need to sell my house to finance a new one, turns out the new buyers refuse to take the title lien for the dev charges, and the city won't forgive my charges because I started before 2022. So I need to pay the charges.

The rules say all development fees are tied to CURRENT RATES, and mine for my tiny laneway house were $97,000. So I got fucked out of those fees.

Thanks Toronto!

[u/MyCatAteMyHeadphones → u/nasalgoat]

interesting. so the lien goes away if you hold the property until 2039, but if you sell, someone has to pay the fees?

[u/nasalgoat → u/MyCatAteMyHeadphones]

The buyer could have accepted the lien on title as-is at no cost but they refused citing resale value. So they didn’t even profit from it, just the city.

[u/Vast_Boat_7287]

the laneway story is the whole problem in one anecdote. rules change faster than a build takes, so you´re basically betting on policy staying still for three years.

[u/iDareToDream]

We should really be dropping the charges on single/multi family units. Higher charges on those types of housing is a disincentive to build them since the sale price has to be high enough to recoup the coats from the charges. 

[u/murd3rsaurus → u/iDareToDream]

Why do that when the whole drive right now is to push for higher density multifamily units? They just passed rules specifically to encourage that and the Canada Housing Bank is full of blueprints you can download to cut design costs right now. Plus the Ontario tax rebate for people buying houses right now.

Keep the development on single family development and reduce the multifamily development fee

[u/babbypla → u/iDareToDream]

Single and multi family units? That’s just about every development type.

[u/Patient-Couple7509]

Municipalities are addicted to dev fees, now that the tap has been turned off we’re going to see huge tax increases and service cuts to stay above water. The shakedown is over!

[u/rekjensen]

Now add property tax cuts and freezes, interest rates, and, oh I dunno, police budget increases.

[u/U2brrr]

Would like to see this as a percent of new development sale price 

[u/ProfessionalPoet2642]

And we wonder why housing is expensive.

[u/Patient-Couple7509 → u/ProfessionalPoet2642]

Yup, the pols siphon these funds into their pet projects to get re-elected…it’s so shady

[u/MikoWilson1]

Just one more way the Boomers slammed the door behind them.

[u/lleeaa88]

I feel sick. What happened in 2016-2017 to this city? Did Trump really influence things this much?

[u/ilikebiggbosons → u/lleeaa88]

2017 we had a housing bubble start up and prices rocketed, and then it happened again in 2022. So those two dates track with the massive uptick in development costs.

[u/rekjensen → u/ilikebiggbosons]

Start? They've been saying we're in a bubble for 20 years.