Delta shelled out more than $300,000 to process Century Group's development application for the Southlands.
The list of costs submitted to civic politicians Monday night includes $131,348 for three consultant reports, $98,844 for the five-day public hearing, more than $25,000 for two public information meetings and $58,000 in legal costs.
The grand total comes in at $345,525. Century Group paid $43,381 in application fees to Delta.
Jeff Day, director of community planning and development, said fees are based on a schedule in Delta's bylaws.
"The fee schedule considers the costs of staff time to process applications but it does not require applicants to pay the actual costs incurred by Delta in relation to individual development applications," stated a report from Day to Delta council.
Coun. Sylvia Bishop expressed concerns over the discrepancy between the actual cost of processing the application and how much Century Group paid in fees.
"It seems to me that for the municipality, for our citizens, to bear $300,000 for an application when the applicant has paid $43,381 seems to be a little lopsided," she said.
Bishop put forward a motion asking municipal staff to look into the possibility of creating a sliding scale of development application fees.
CAO George Harvie said it was important, based upon the history of the Southlands, that the process was as transparent as possible. He said the municipality would normally have asked an applicant to share the costs of any consultant reports required.
"But again, because of transparency and independence, we asked council that we would want to pay the costs ourselves... again we wanted to have as much independence that we could get good information to the public and to council. Again, that was one of the reasons council supported us moving ahead independently."
"When it comes to these kinds of reports, independence is something that is very important to us," said Coun. Robert Campbell,
adding that sharing the cost of hiring a consultant with an applicant could undermine that independence and hinder the municipality's ability to use a report at a later date.
"You look at the cost and it comes to mind that it's simply the cost of democracy," said Coun. Ian Paton. "It's very expensive, but it comes with democracy."
Century Group is proposing to build 950 housing units on 20 per cent of the 214-hectare (537-acre) Tsawwassen property. The remaining 80 per cent would be given to Delta, much of it for farming.
Delta council gave the application conditional approval in November following a five-day public hearing. Metro Vancouver must still approve the application.
