Carleton Place completes fees and charges study as part of Housing Accelerator Plan

At a recent Committee of the Whole meeting, Carleton Place council received a presentation and report from Tina Chitsinde of Watson & Associates Economists Ltd. on the second and final phase of the Town’s Development Fees and Charges Study.

The study is one of seven initiatives tied to Carleton Place’s participation in the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF), according to a media release from the Town. Funding approval was conditional upon the completion of the seven projects designed to increase the supply of housing within the community, of which a fees and charges review was one of the identified initiatives.

The Fees and Charges Review was completed in two phases.

The first phase was meant to create a clearer administrative framework for development-related fees, simplify fee structures and propose incentives for priority housing types.

The results from Phase 1 were presented to council in late 2025 and were already incorporated into the Town’s 2026 budget and updated Community Improvement Plan.

The second phase primarily breaks down and calculates the full cost of delivering development services, assigning costs more accurately to each type of development application.

Within the final report, Watson & Associates Economists Ltd recommended several changes to the Town’s Fees and Charges By-law, including:

• Moving toward full cost recovery for development application services.
• Adjusting application fees to better reflect actual service costs.
• Creating a building department reserve fund with enough balance to cover about three years of direct operating costs during economic downturns.
• Conducting a comprehensive review of fees and charges every four to five years to keep rates aligned with costs and market conditions.

Town officials say the Fees and Charges Review will help Carleton Place to better track the true cost of growth-related infrastructure and make development fees more transparent and equitable.

The goal is to ensure that the costs of reviewing and approving development applications are fairly distributed and clearly understood by the development community, improving long-term financial planning and reducing unnecessary costs for both residents and developers.

The next regularly scheduled meetings of Council and Committee of the Whole will take place on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, at 6 p.m.

For that meeting, the usual order of meetings will be reversed, wherein the committee of the whole will meet first and council will meet afterward.

The Town says this change will allow all items to receive final Council approval before the summer recess.