Development fees to rise 37% to pay for more social amenities; Downtown South area grew faster than anyone had expected
Vancouver Sun
May 17, 2007
By: Derrick Penner
EXCERPT

VANCOUVER - Vancouver city council has approved a 37-per-cent hike in development fees to raise $58 million for public amenities in the downtown south neighbourhood, which has transformed more rapidly than expected.

Some 15,000 people now live in an area that city planners thought would only be home to 11,000 by 2016, with a lot more children than expected.

And with further development expected to increase that population another 10,000 by 2021, the city has revised its official public amenities strategy to provide more childcare spaces, more social housing and some of the park spaces it wanted carved out of downtown's concrete jungle when it first laid out the plan in 1992.

To pay for the plan, the city is increasing development cost levies on downtown residential development almost 37 per cent, to $13 per square foot from $9.50....

Under the new plan, the amenities will include:

...323 childcare spaces. Some 74 spaces of the 189 that the 1992 plan called for have either been secured or funded. However, with census data showing that five per cent of downtown residents are children, more are needed. Cost to the city is $9.84 million....