Current provincial regulations guiding the eligibility for and use of Education Development Charges (EDCs) leave hundreds of millions of dollars in Developers’ pockets rather than being allowed to be invested in school repair, renewal, and additions. Since Fix Our Schools began in 2014, we’ve always believed that Developers ought to contribute financially to the public infrastructure in the neighbourhoods where they choose to build.
How about we make it the civic responsibility of developers to build schools in their buildings and communities? Just a thought. It seems so wrong that the flooding, schooling, community spaces are lacking and signs saying, too bad so sad, your kid will be transported elsewhere
— Not Ed Norton (@AccessibleOpr8r) March 22, 2019
As such, we have urged the provincial government to amend the Ontario Regulation 20/98 that guides the eligibility for and use of EDCs. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has also often urged the provincial government to make changes to this outdated regulation. The TDSB has also, in fact, challenged the Ontario government over the equity of its EDC regulation.
When the provincial government recently proposed regulation changes to EDCs, Fix Our Schools was originally excited that the proposed changes could unlock new funding sources for school repairs, renewal, and additions. However, no such luck. We have submitted the following comments to the Ministry of Education, with the hope that our feedback will be integrated into additional changes to provincial EDC regulations:
Re: Proposed Regulations re: Education Development Charges (EDCs) and Notice by School Boards Prior to Acquiring Land
Fix Our Schools is a non-partisan, parent-led, Ontario-wide campaign calling for every publicly funded school in Ontario to be a safe, healthy, well-maintained building that provides an environment conducive to learning and working.
As context for our comments, we’d like to highlight that provincial funding for school repairs was grossly inadequate for almost 20 years, in many years only one-tenth of what industry standards suggest as the bare minimum school boards required to conduct routine repairs and maintenance. Mike Harris’ PC government bequeathed $5.6-billion of school disrepair to the Liberal government in 2003. The Liberals subsequently allowed school disrepair to triple over 15 years to $15.9-billion as of October 2017, the last time the Ministry of Education updated and publicly released school disrepair data.
Given the shocking amount of disrepair plaguing Ontario’s schools, Fix Our Schools has, since our inception in 2014, urged the provincial government to consider all funding sources available to pay for repairs, renewal, and new school builds. In this solution-oriented spirit, Fix Our Schools has also urged the provincial government to consider revising the outdated provincial regulations that guide the eligibility for and use of Education Development Charges (EDCs).
We believe that in urban centres, Developers consider good local schools to be important to a new development’s profitability and that Developers intentionally select sites near good local schools in order to maximize profitability.
Toronto board wants to use developer levies to fix aging schools.
FOS believes that EDC's are a viable funding source for @TDSB 's $3.7 Million repair backlog. https://t.co/CEIdslJKnP @torontostar— Fix Our Schools (@Fix_Our_Schools) February 25, 2018
We have also heard from several sources that Developers presume they must pay Education Development Charges, not fully understanding that some school boards in some jurisdictions are not eligible to charge EDCs. Therefore, these Developers budget EDCs for all local school boards into their pricing models.
Given that Developers profit from good local schools and, suspecting that many Developers already include EDC costs into their pricing models, the provincial government must evolve its EDC regulations. New EDC regulations must ensure that Developers contribute financially, not only towards site acquisition for new schools, but also towards school repair, renewal, and additions where local schools aren’t able to accommodate new students.
In reviewing this current EDC proposal, we are disappointed to see that the provincial government continues to leave hundreds of millions of dollars in Developers’ pockets instead of using said money to improve the learning conditions of Ontario’s children. We urge the provincial government to make changes to Ontario Regulation 20/98 that would see Developers contribute in a meaningful financial way to ensuring that all Ontario children can attend a local school within a reasonable distance/travel time from their home and one that is safe, healthy and well-maintained. In fact, we were extremely disappointed to note that this proposed change actually decreases the amount of money that Developers contribute to critical public school infrastructure by putting a restriction of a 5% rate increase for EDCs.
Thank you for considering these comments. We look forward to next steps in regulation amendments.
Kind regards, Krista Wylie, Co-Founder of Fix Our Schools