Milton opted out of Ontario's Development Charge Reduction Program, which required cutting residential DCs by at least 30 per cent

What Council decided

At a special meeting on June 15, 2026, Milton Council resolved that the Town "elects not to participate in the DCRP", the Province's new Development Charge Reduction Program, according to the meeting's minutes, which record the vote as carried unanimously. The meeting had been called in place of a scheduled Council workshop because the Province announced the program on June 1 with an application deadline of 10 a.m. on June 19.

Development charges, or DCs, are one-time fees the Town collects on new construction to pay for the growth-related share of roads, transit, parks, recreation centres, libraries and other infrastructure. Staff report ES-036-26 did not make a recommendation. It set out two options, applying with conditions or not applying, and asked Council to choose.

What the program would have required

According to the staff report, the program offered provincial and federal funding for up to five eligible municipal projects, covering up to 90 per cent of eligible costs, to municipalities that cut all residential development charges by at least 30 per cent from the rates in effect on March 30, 2026, and held the cut for three years. The municipality would pay at least 10 per cent of eligible project costs, plus ineligible costs and any overruns, and the Province had indicated that share should come from non-growth sources such as property taxes or reserves. Project tenders would have to be awarded by July 31, 2030, and the work completed by October 31, 2035.

Because Milton indexed its development charges on April 1 and has passed a new DC by-law with higher residential rates effective December 31, 2026, the report calculated that the cut needed to meet the program's ceiling would be 32 to 33 per cent for the rest of 2026 and 40 to 47 per cent after that, growing further with indexing in 2027 and 2028.

The option Council did not take

The application option staff outlined would have put forward the Town's next new community centre and library as Milton's project, with a requested provincial and federal share of about $158.7 million. The Town would have committed to funding about $24.3 million itself and to any cost overruns. Staff estimated the value of the required DC reductions at about $90.2 million over three years, based on a forecast of 8,530 new homes, but warned the figure could reach about $208 million if every home already in the approval process reached a building permit in that window.

The report also flagged a timing risk. The community centre and library are listed in the Town's DC background study for the Boyne area in 2028 to 2030, at $135.7 million and $22.1 million, and staff said several milestones before tender depend on factors outside the Town's control. If the project missed the program's deadlines, the Town could have carried the full cost of the DC reductions without reimbursement.

The context staff gave

The report noted that the Town's portion of residential development charges is 38 per cent below the average of comparator municipalities, that Milton exceeded its provincial housing target in each of the last three years, and that the 2,728 housing units given building permits in 2025 were the second-highest single-year total for Milton. It also noted that the Town already funds DC exemptions and reductions for affordable and rental housing, additional residential units, long-term care and non-profit housing, at an average cost to taxpayers of more than $6.5 million a year over the forecast period.