BUILDING DURHAM

On September 24, 2020 the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT) approved the development charges settlement brokered between DRHBA and the City of Oshawa.

In 2019, Oshawa City Council approved a new development charges by-law, which DRHBA immediately appealed.  DRHBA then presented the City with a settlement offer, which was accepted. 

The settlement included:

• ·         0% of the increase applied on July 1, 2019
• ·         50% of the increase applied on January 1, 2020
• ·         Final 50% of the increase applied on January 1, 2021
• ·         No indexing of development charges until January 1, 2021

Once the by-law was put in place, the City started charging development charges with the full increase amount included.  Now that the LPAT has approved the settlement, builders who paid the full charge between July 1, 2019 and September 24, 2020 will receive a refund of the increase amount.  The City of Oshawa has begun to process these refunds.  Going forward, the appropriate amount will be charged for development charges.

Prior to the settlement, DRHBA and its stakeholder group had reduced the increase by $2,604 per single detached home; kept the redevelopment credit at 10 years; and removed Type C Arterial roads from the development charge.

DHRBA's executive officer, Stacey Hawkins, has been elected chair of OHBA's Executive Officers Committee.

Stacey was certified by OHBA's governance committee, elected by her fellow EOs and confirmed by OHBA's Board of Directors and by members at the AMM.  She will serve as chair for two years.  As chair, she also becomes a non-voting member of the OHBA board of directors.

The Ontario Home Builders' Association has announced the finalists for their 2020 Awards of Distinction.

A full list of nominees can be found here.

Congratulations to our DRHBA members who are finalists, including:

• Accubuilt Construction
• Cassidy & Co. Architectural Technologists
• Colours & Concepts Inc.
• FarSight Homes
• Fourteen Estates
• Geranium
• Marshall Homes Corp.
• Minto Communities
• RN Design Ltd.
• Sorbara Group of Companies
• Trademark Homes
• Tribute Communities

Winners of the OHBA 2020 AoD will be announced November 10th via Live Broadcast with comedian and TV personality James Cunningham serving as host. This year’s Awards of Distinction co-presented by Federated Insurance and Rogers, will be conducted virtually in an interactive portal and includes everything from networking, live streams, tradeshow booths, games, and much more.

Registration to the awards is free to all and we look forward to celebrating and showing off Ontario’s best of the best when it comes to residential construction, design and marketing.

On Monday, September 28th, OHBA hosted their Annual Meeting of Members (AMM).

At the meeting, OHBA's seven draft resolutions were passed.  In addition, the 2020-2021 OHBA Board was approved.

The 2020-2021 OHBA Board of Directors includes:

Table Officers

Past President: Rick Martins, Brantford, Waterloo Region

President: Bob Schickedanz, Simcoe County, Durham, BILD

First Vice-President: Louie Zagordo, Sudbury

Second Vice-President: Dave Depencier, Chatham-Kent

Second Vice-President: Bob Ridley, Ottawa

Treasurer: Susan Cudahy, multi-local through Enbridge

Corporate Secretary: Christina Giannone, BILD

Four Largest Local HBA Designates:

BILD: Jason Sheldon

Greater Ottawa: Roy Nandram

London: Dave Stimac

West End HBA: Nick Carnicelli

7 Regional Groups

North Region: TBD, Sudbury, 2-year - end 2022

East Region: Gary Burtch, Haliburton, 2 year - end 2022

East Region: John-Ross Parks, Quinte, 1 year - end 2021

Central Region: Maria Kyveris, Waterloo Region, 2 year - end 2022

Central Region: Mike Memme, Niagara, 1 year - end 2021

Southwest Region: Heather Galloway, Stratford and Area, 2 year - end 2022

Southwest Region: Jon Rumble, Chatham-Kent, 1 year - end 2021

3 Voting Council Chairs

Chair Presidents' Council: Tom McLaughlin, GDHBA

Chair Builders'/Developers' Council: Doug Tarry, STEHBA

Chair Renovators' Council: Jamie Adam, WRHBA

2 Board Nominated and President Appointed Board member

Board Nominee: Steve Deveaux, BILD, DRHBA

Board Nominee: Pierre Dufresne, GOHBA

2 Board Non-voting Board Members

Executive Officers' Council: Stacey Hawkins, DRHBA

OHBA CEO: Joe Vaccaro

At the September 28th Whitby Council meeting, council voted unanimously to pass the revised Whitby Green Standards, with a revision.

Through DRHBA's extensive advocacy work, the Town conceded that they could not mandate building above code.  This memo was attached to the item at the council meeting, which essentially made the requirements to build beyond code preferred but not mandatory.  

The rest of the Whitby Green Standards passed as is. While Tier 1 becomes mandatory immediately, most of the requirements were already mandatory through other Whitby bylaws and standards.  However, Tiers 2 through 4 will require much more from builders and developers.  DRHBA will continue to work with the Town to create incentives for these additional tiers, and will continue to oppose mandating any requirements that go above and beyond the Ontario Building Code and the Planning Act.

Tier 1 is mandatory immediately.  Here are the relevant documents on the Whitby Green Standards:

• Whitby Green Standard Brochure Final Draft
• Whitby Green Standard Draft Plan of Subdivision Checklist
• Whitby Green Standard Site Plan Checklist
• Whitby Green Standard Reference Guide
• Whitby Green Standard Training Guide

DRHBA worked extensively to ensure that the Town did not mandate anything above code, and the following details our advocacy efforts:

• Ongoing internal DRHBA meetings
• Attended virtual stakeholder session - April 29, 2020
• Letter sent to WGS Committee - May 11, 2020
• Letter sent to Council - May 11, 2020
• Letter sent to WGS Committee - May 29, 2020
• Legal opinion sent to Council and Committee - May 29, 2020
• Virtually met with Councillors Yamada and Leahy - June 8, 2020
• Met with OHBA/RESCON/BILD on WGS - June 11, 2020
• Attended virtual meeting with Town staff - June 23, 2020
• Attended virtual meeting with Town staff - July 29, 2020
• Virtual meeting with MP Ryan Turnbull - August 18, 2020
• Letter sent to Council - September 3, 2020
• Virtual meeting with MP Ryan Turnbull - September 15, 2020
• Three delegations (Johnathan, Tiago and Emidio) at Committee of the Whole - September 21, 2020

The school boards were considering passage of the new EDC bylaw later this month, however that meeting has now been delayed.  The new meeting has been rescheduled for October 27, 2020 and the new implementation date for the new charge/bylaw is scheduled for November 2, 2020.

The charts below outlines the new charge for each school board as well as what the phase-in rates will be for each year on the anniversary of the implementation date.

KPRDSB

Type	2015 EDC Rate	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4	Year 5	Max Rate
Residential	$1,028	$1,328	$1,628	$1,928	$2,143	$2,143	$2,143
Non-Res	$0.24	$0.34	$0.44	$0.54	$0.64	$0.74	$1.07

PVNCCDSB

Type	2015 EDC Rate	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4	Year 5	Max Rate
Residential	$710	$1,010	$1,202	$1,202	$1,202	$1,202	$1,202
Non-Res	$0.16	$0.26	$0.36	$0.46	$0.56	$0.60	$0.60

If you have any concerns or comments, please email Stacey.

On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Oshawa hosted a joint meeting of the Development Services and Community Services committees where IBI Group provided a presentation concerning the results of Phase 1 of the Oshawa Parking Study.

A copy of the presentation can be found here.

DRHBA will be participating in a BILT meeting in October that will include a discussion on this topic.  If you have any comments or questions you would like brought forward, please email them to s.hawkins@drhba.com.

On Monday, September 21, 2020, Whitby's Committee of the Whole vote unanimously to pass the Whitby Green Standards, with mandatory Tier One requirements to be implemented immediately.

The Durham Region Home Builders' Association strongly opposed the Whitby Green Standards and presented three delegations at the meeting.  Tiago Do Couto, first VP and chair of the GR committee spoke about the impacts of the Standards on land development; Johnathan Schickedanz, president, spoke about the building codes and the risk of rushing into mandating building beyond code; and Emidio DiPalo, immediate past president, spoke about issues surrounding affordability and the legality of the standards.

DRHBA has been very active on this file and spent a great deal of time and effort to provide comprehensive feedback to Town staff and to highlight our concerns with council.  Engagement included:

• Ongoing internal DRHBA meetings
• Attended virtual stakeholder session - April 29, 2020
• Letter sent to WGS Committee - May 11, 2020
• Letter sent to Council - May 11, 2020
• Letter sent to WGS Committee - May 29, 2020
• Legal opinion sent to Council and Committee - May 29, 2020
• Virtually met with Councillors Yamada and Leahy - June 8, 2020
• Met with OHBA/RESCON/BILD on WGS - June 11, 2020
• Attended virtual meeting with Town staff - June 23, 2020
• Attended virtual meeting with Town staff - July 29, 2020
• Virtual meeting with MP Ryan Turnbull - August 18, 2020
• Letter sent to Council - September 3, 2020
• Virtual meeting with MP Ryan Turnbull - September 15, 2020
• Three delegations at Committee of the Whole - September 21, 2020

Despite DRHBA's best efforts to inform Town staff and council of the real issues with the Standards, council opted to disregard our feedback and vote unanimously in favour of the Whitby Green Standards.

DRHBA will be continuing this discussion and would like to hear from interested members on this issue.  Please forward your questions, comments and concerns to s.hawkins@drhba.com.

Enbridge has released details on their new residential geothermal program.  This is a great option for builders attempting to build a Net Zero Development.

View/download brochure

The Town of Whitby has released an updated draft of the Whitby Green Standards.

The Standards include the following documents:

• Whitby Green Standard Brochure Final Draft
• Whitby Green Standard Draft Plan of Subdivision Checklist
• Whitby Green Standard Site Plan Checklist
• Whitby Green Standard Reference Guide
• Whitby Green Standard Training Guide

While at this time the committee is not accepting comments, the Durham Region Home Builders' Association still strongly opposes the Whitby Green Standards in its current form.  To that end, DRHBA submitted a letter to council on Thursday, September 4, 2020 and will be delegating when the Standards are brought to Whitby's Committee of the Whole on September 21.

If you have any comments or concerns about the Whitby Green Standards, please contact Stacey at s.hawkins@drhba.com.