Bay of Quinte MPP Tyler Allsopp responded to criticism from some Belleville city councillors about Bill 17 on The Lorne Brooker Show on 800 CJBQ on Tuesday.
The Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act aims to make changes to the Development Charges Act, Planning Act, Building Code Act, and transit-related projects.
The bill received royal assent on June 5.
Staff with the City of Belleville put together a report on the bill noting the financial impact could be over $7.7 million in lost revenue within the next three to five years.
In particular, staff were concerned about the act exempting long-term care homes from development charges, which could cost the city almost $2.4 million in development charge revenue coming from just two retirement residences now under development.
At a meeting of council on Monday, Councillor Paul Carr said the municipality had not had a lot of time to review the bill and expressed skepticism on the bill’s goal to provide more housing infrastructure.
Councillor Kathryn Brown criticized Bay of Quinte MPP Tyler Allsopp when discussing the bill, saying the city was “not being well represented by our provincial representative.”
“Has he even reached out to try and understand what the implications of this is? No, the hand just went up and said, I support it,” Councillor Brown said.
Speaking on The Lorne Brooker Show on 800 CJBQ on Tuesday, MPP Allsopp responded to those criticisms saying that it was fair game of Councillor Brown to hold him accountable.
He says that Councillor Brown has his phone number from his time on Belleville council and that if there are any concerns with a certain bill or issue, that municipal members can reach out to him.
“From my perspective, I have about 34 councillors and three mayors throughout the riding. Does it make sense for me to cold call every single councillor and mayor on every single bill or issue to see if they have a perspective or don’t, or does it make sense for those members of council and those mayors who have my phone number, if they have an issue, to pick up the phone and call?” Allsopp said.
“I think that it’s incumbent upon them if they want to advocate on behalf of a bill or against a bill or share anything that they might think is a consideration from the city’s finances perspective, to reach out to me.”
Allsopp spoke similarly of Councillor Paul Carr, saying the councillor reached out to Allsopp six days before the bill was passed but did not discuss the topic of Bill 17.
“He wanted to talk to me about education. The local school board. Absolutely happy to do that. No conversation about Bill 17, right?” Allsopp said.
“So I’m happy to have conversations with absolutely anybody, any councillor, anywhere in the riding, but you have to reach out. You have my number. We know each other. Do the work.”
Giving his thoughts on the Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, specifically on the city’s concerns about exempting development charges for long-term care homes, Allsopp says that the government has to try and incentivize construction as best it can.
“From my perspective and the perspective of our government, the importance of having that high-quality care close to home when people are most vulnerable and need it the most outweighed some of the challenges that municipalities would have on development fees,” Allsopp explained on the radio program.
“But the problem is, municipalities do not have a standardization or a harmonization around development fees. So some municipalities absolutely weaponized development fees to prevent development in their cities.”
Allsopp noted that Belleville was “pretty responsible” on how it uses its development fees.
“They’ve done more consultation with people like the Quinte Home Builders Association than many other municipalities have. But at the end of the day, it is a barrier to developing something that we all agree that we need. Let’s remove that barrier. Let’s get more long-term care homes built,” Allsopp said.
You can listen to the full segment from The Lorne Brooker Show below:
Audio Player