Greater Sudbury reduces development charges by 50%

The City of Greater Sudbury is hoping to encourage more economic development and growth in the city.

During Tuesday's city council meeting, council voted for substantial reductions to the development charge rates for the municipality.

Mayor Brian Bigger has been pushing for the lower rates since his re-election in 2018. He says he hopes the 50 per cent reduction will encourage more development and investment in the city.

"This is the time to encourage investment and growth in our community and so development charges are a strong signal to the investor community that, you know, we want to grow our city," he said.

Development charges are used to help fund municipal services, like roads and sewer infrastructure, but the fees also help fund general services like libraries, fire and police services and parks and recreation.

"I think there's a lot of promise in our community for that investment and for that growth that we're looking for and so, you know, working with developers, working with investors, working with individuals who want to build in our community, will create jobs and it will help us move forward over the next few decades," Bigger said.

He says the economy and the growth of the city is a top priority for the future.

"As a council we've taken more of an economic development view point of that to say that if we can spur industrial development it will create more jobs, it will create a higher demand for residential units in our community and that's the type of development that we want to drive because it has the biggest economic impact," said Councillor and Chair of the Finance and Administration Committee, Mike Jakubo.

Mayor Bigger also said he wants to see some changes made to the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation.

He tabled a motion on Tuesday that the City of Greater Sudbury should assume full responsibility for economic development activities and investment.

"Council is the one chosen by voters to guide the city. You count on us for all financial and investment decisions regarding economic development. I am proposing that we would still have our staff working hard to fulfil these goals," said Bigger in a statement about the motion.

"This new structure will allow us, a city to respond more quickly to emerging opportunities in the community. It would also be a move that would see a refreshed way of how our city grows and invests its citizen's tax dollars for the future."

Bigger's motion will be discussed at the city's next council meeting, on June 25th.