Leaders of area farm organizations addressed council here on Nov. 8 on the topic of proposed development charges on agricultural buildings.
Mapleton’s current development charges bylaw includes a 100 per cent exemption for buildings constructed for “a bona fide farm use.” A proposal presented at a public meeting on Oct. 11 would see the exemption reduced to 75%.
That would mean someone building a new barn, for example, would pay 25% of the non-residential rate of $2.65 per square foot of gross floor area, which works out to 66 cents/ft2.
The proposal drew opposition from the Wellington Federation of Agriculture (WFA) and a number of area farmers at the Oct. 11 meeting.
On Nov. 8, WFA president Janet Harrop and Henry Stevens of the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (CFFO) addressed council, noting they were speaking on behalf of various commodity groups as well.
“We are here to speak as one strong, united voice representing the various farm organizations and commodity groups active in Mapleton and Wellington County in opposition to the proposed bylaw changes,” said Stevens.
“The potential ramifications on the agricultural sector are enormous.”
Stevens added, “Largely-rural municipalities such as Mapleton depend on a healthy agriculture sector for the municipality’s own health.”
While acknowledging a municipality’s needs to raise funds for infrastructure, Stevens said agricultural development charges are “not a legitimate method of raising those revenues.”
He stated, “Development charges were never intended to cover the ongoing costs of maintaining existing infrastructure. Existing hard infrastructure such as roads were to be maintained by the municipality using the existing assessment base.”
Stevens said the municipality will “automatically” receive additional funds through increased assessment as prices on farm land continue to rise.
Harrop said agricultural development charges are “an entire agricultural community issue.”
Implementing the charges “will affect all sectors, builders and suppliers,” Harrop told council. “Increased capital costs will affect our competitiveness as farmers when all farms around us don’t have these charges.”
Harrop stated cost of service studies conducted by farm organizations in the U.S. and by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) show that agriculture, through its general tax base, “is already paying significantly more in taxes than the cost of services that that agricultural land uses.
“General road and bridge improvements are used by all residents and tax classes of the municipality. Agriculture should not be the only tax class to pay for these improvements. It’s unmerited.”
Councillor Dennis Craven said he feels the agriculture community needs better information about the use of development charges.
“We need to do a better job of informing the public what these development charges can be used for,” said Craven.
“I’ve been contacted by several farmers and pretty much all of them are afraid the development charges that would be put on them would be to help to pay for our water and sewer in town.
“So that’s one misconception that does not happen with development charges that would be made on farmers. Most of the farmers are unaware of that.”
Harrop responded farm organizations would make an effort to “more clearly educate some of our producers that their development charges are for new capital projects, and water and wastewater are not an issue in the rural community.”
Councillor Michael Martin asked OFA researcher Ben Lefort, who conducted the association’s cost of services study in Elgin County in 2014, why higher taxes are more readily accepted by non-agricultural business.
“Most people find it acceptable that industrial- and commercial-type business pay more in taxes and that’ll offset the residential taxes … in case of the ag community, it’s less acceptable. Why do you think there’s a difference there?” Martin asked.
Lefort responded that part of the reason is owners of agricultural land are “not consuming some of those people services, like parks and skating rinks and such.”
Lefort stated, “I can’t say why really, but perhaps I could guess it would be something along the lines of it’s always been done that way.”
Lefort said part of the problem is rural areas have been losing commercial and industrial assessment.
“When that’s lost it puts a lot of pressure on what’s left, which is farm and residential,” he explained.
The Bayham study, using 2012 tax data, shows that for every dollar of municipal revenue generated in association with the farm/forest tax category, the municipality spent 50 cents providing services to that class.
Mayor Neil Driscoll explained the development charges proposal is an attempt by council to find funding for upgrades to rural roads and bridges, in the face of a provincial approach that sees rural municipalities absorb the cost of farm tax credits that were once spread province wide.
Driscoll said Mapleton representatives raised the issue with provincial officials at the Ontario Good Roads Association in February.
“Their reply to us was, ‘Your residents are taxable.’ Unfortunately that’s their stance,” said the mayor.
Noting the overflow crowd at the municipal office for the meeting, councillor Marlene Ottens commended the groups for engaging with council on the topic.
“It’s great that this many people are out here and I wish the governments at the upper levels, the provincial and federal governments, could see this passion that we have here, the struggles that we’re having and why we’re even having this discussion,” said Ottens.
“I wish they could see this, how engaged everyone here is and that somehow this kind of public engagement at this meeting and with this particular issue could end up at their doorstep …
“I hope everyone maintains this level of passion, however this ends up, whatever resolution this comes to, because we do need funding in rural Ontario and I love this level of engagement. Keep it up.”
Council is planning to host another public meeting on proposed changes to the township’s development charges bylaw, but no date has been set.
Although a few municipalities in Ontario do collect development charges on agricultural construction, none in Wellington County do so.
In 2009, Wellington North dropped a proposal to collect development charges on farm buildings as a result of pressure from local farmers and farm organizations.
A crowd estimated at between 250 and 300 people attended a public meeting on the proposal in Arthur on April 16 of that year.
