At the August 23rd meeting of council there was finally a vote on this motion.
345-10 Motion – Councillor Roche / Councillor Byrne
RESOLVED THAT the $1000.00 levies for road improvement and the $400.00 levies for recreation be applied only to those residential projects approved effective January 1, 2010.
Question called. Motion failed as a 2/3‟s majority is required for a financial matter.
For motion: Mayor Codner, Councillor Byrne, Councillor Roche, and Councillor Whitty.
Against motion: Deputy Mayor Gallant, Councillor Smith, and Councillor Tapper.
This is a pretty sticky issue because it appears that it only effects one or two developers and is basically blindsiding them with extra cost that were not anticipated. There were arguments back and forth on the merits of the motion and in the end the tax happy councillors won out and they decided to make the cash grab. Their argument was that they had included these levies to balance the 2010 budget and used that as justification to gouge an extra $42,000. Which by the way the Mayor had to correct Councillor Smith on a point of order because she had stated that the amount was $98,000 dollars. So here we have a councillor supporting a cash grab from a respected developer to balance a budget in an amount that she was not even sure about.
I wonder were they trying to make up for the extra $70,000 or so they had to spend to do the work over on Torbay Beach cleaning the sewer pipe? Was that in the budget?
Makes me wonder what kind of people we have running our town when they will go out of their way to penalize a respected developer for a measly $42,000 on a budget over $7,000,000. I am sure this council and others before it have wasted way more money than that on useless projects and screw-ups. I hope this type of backstabbing of developers doesn't have negative consequences on future developments in Torbay but we can be rest assured that in the end it will be the home owner that gets screwed as usual because those extra charges will not likely come from the developers pocket.