Fort Erie may join Development Charge Reduction Program
June 13, 2026 at 3:21 AM
There remains a lot of uncertainty, but Fort Erie staff and councillors say they’re confident the municipality will be in a strong position to benefit from the Development Charge Reduction Program (DCRP), should it ultimately make sense to enroll.
Council approved a set of staff recommendations related to the program at the June 8 council-in-committee meeting. Among the recommendations is delegating authority for CAO Chris McQueen to submit the application for the program, though any financial impact due to development charge (DC) reductions would be subject to a future council decision.
“We will be bringing back something here for council to review a terms of reference,” McQueen said, responding to a question from Mayor Wayne Redekop. He described the application as being a stake in the ground to express Fort Erie’s interest but doesn’t necessarily commit them.
In late March, the provincial and federal governments announced a joint program called the Canada-Ontario Partnership to Build, which includes the DCRP.
Though McQueen said specifics have still not been released, a staff report described the program as providing “municipalities with a unique opportunity to access federal and provincial infrastructure funding in exchange for committing to meaningful, sustained reductions in residential development charge rates for three years.”
Up to $8.8 million is being made available over 10 years through the program for “housing-enabling infrastructure projects.” The federal and provincial governments will cover up to 90 per cent of eligible project costs.
The catch for municipalities is that they will have to commit to reduce development charges on all types of residential development by at least 30 to 50 per cent and make it retroactive to March 30.
“The town would need to have a large enough project (i.e. total project value) to be able to provide this percentage of DC reduction to ensure financial viability of this arrangement,” the report said.
To that end, council directed staff to “identify and confirm shovel-ready projects from the town’s Development Charges Background Study and approved capital plan that align with all Development Charge Reduction Program eligibility criteria.”
McQueen said there remains uncertainty about whether the program will make sense from a municipal standpoint.
“It would need to be a fairly large financial commitment from the province for it to make sense, not just for Fort Erie but for any municipality in Ontario because of the gravity of the offset of the 30 to 50 per cent reduction (of DCs) would apply across all residential units,” he said.
“So it becomes a fairly significant sum of money very quickly.”
Redekop noted the tight timeline for applications. The province launched applications June 1 and has a June 19 deadline. Final details were expected to be sent out on June 10, just over a week before the deadline.
“So we will have nine very fruitful days of pulling together our submission and application,” McQueen said.
“I think the staff, myself and a number of other people in the organization have put together quite a bit of information as a precursor to this kind of funding so I believe we’ll be able to put forward a very solid application, hopefully setting ourselves up for success.”
Redekop thanked staff for the work they’ve done and will continue to do to make Fort Erie’s application as strong as possible.
“I don’t know how many municipalities in Ontario are going to be able to respond in such a short time frame. I’m very pleased that Fort Erie is one of them,” he said.
While he said he looked forward to seeing what comes of the program and application, Councillor Nick Dubanow cautioned staff to make sure any funding agreement is ironclad and not something the provincial or federal government can change course on in six months or a year.
“That’s always been my concern with this program is how the funding is going to come from those upper levels of government,” he said.
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About The Author
Luke Edwards
Luke Edwards is a longtime Niagara community journalist who has covered a variety of beats, including business, agriculture, the wine industry and politics. When not writing, there's a good chance he can be found at a baseball diamond or curling rink.
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