TAXPAYER FUNDED SPRAWL?

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Nanaimo: Planned Growth Or Taxpayer-Funded Sprawl?

Benefitting Taxpayers Or Developers?

Nanaimo is often talked about as if it is one neatly planned city moving confidently into the future.

But from street level, Nanaimo looks more like a collection of separate communities stitched together by roads, pipes, traffic lights, sewer lines, water mains, and ever-growing public costs.

Woodgrove is almost a mini-city of its own. Downtown is another. Harewood, Chase River, Cinnabar, Departure Bay, Hammond Bay, Northfield and south Nanaimo all have their own identities, pressures, and infrastructure demands.

City Hall may call this planned growth. Taxpayers may be forgiven for wondering whether it is really just expensive sprawl wearing a planning badge.

At what point does growth stop improving Nanaimo and start consuming it?

Points To Ponder

• Growth is not automatically progress.
• A city can get bigger while becoming less affordable, less safe, and more expensive to service.
• If new development needs roads, sewer, water, drainage and utilities, who should pay to make that land developable?
• If taxpayers are asked to borrow money to unlock private land value, is that public infrastructure or a development subsidy?
• Does this kind of growth preserve the Nanaimo that attracted people here in the first place?
• Nanaimo does not need to become bigger at any cost. It needs to become better managed.

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Growth Is Not Free

The question is not whether Nanaimo should ever grow. Cities change. Families grow. Businesses expand. New housing is needed.

The real question is whether growth is making life better for the people who already live here — or whether existing taxpayers are being asked to finance the roads, sewer, water, drainage, traffic systems, and public works that make private development profitable.

That is the uncomfortable question behind Nanaimo’s latest sewer-capacity discussion.

Taxpayers are now being told the City should consider long-term borrowing for sewer trunk upgrades. The stated reasons include increased development, climate-related rainfall pressure, inflow and infiltration, and capacity constraints.

But one phrase should stop taxpayers cold:

“Growth-enabling infrastructure.”

That means the infrastructure is needed so more development can proceed.

If that is true, then the next question is obvious:

Why should existing taxpayers borrow money to make private development possible?

Business Risk Should Belong To Business

Developers buy land. Developers plan projects. Developers hope to make a profit. That is their business, and there is nothing wrong with that.

But business risk should belong to the business.

If a developer owns undeveloped land and wants to turn it into subdivided, serviced, profit-producing property, then the developer should carry the cost of making that land developable.

Roads, sewer, water, drainage and utilities are not decorative extras. They are the basic cost of turning raw land into marketable land.

Existing taxpayers should not become the silent financing partner for private development.

The DCC Question

This is where Development Cost Charges are supposed to matter.

DCCs are meant to help growth pay for growth. If new development requires expanded sewer capacity, larger roads, new water mains, drainage works, or other infrastructure, those costs should be recovered from development as much as possible.

But if the DCC funds are short, then taxpayers deserve a serious explanation.

Taxpayers should ask:

• Were the charges set too low?
• Were they not updated often enough?
• Were construction costs underestimated?
• Were growth projections wrong?
• Did Council choose to keep DCCs softer to protect development viability?
• If so, why should existing residents now be handed the bill?

This is not anti-development. It is pro-taxpayer common sense.

There is a major difference between maintaining infrastructure that serves existing residents and building new capacity so private development can proceed.

The first is a core municipal responsibility.

The second should be paid for by growth.

Midtown Gateway Should Be A Warning Light

Nanaimo has already seen this pattern before.

Midtown Gateway was promoted with public benefits: improved movement, trails, wetlands, park access, transportation connections and reclamation of difficult brownfield land. Some of those benefits are real.

But the larger economic function was also clear: unlocking development lands.

That project involved difficult land — marshy, historically industrial, and not easily developable without major public infrastructure work.

A trail is nice. A new road is nice. A wetland is nice.

But none of those answers the main taxpayer question:

Did the public pay too much to create private land value?

That raises the same question now hanging over sewer upgrades. When public money is used to make private development possible, how much of the value comes back to the public — and how much simply becomes a quiet subsidy?

Is Nanaimo Growing Better Or Just Spreading Wider?

Nanaimo needs to stop treating growth as if it is automatically progress.

A city can become bigger while becoming less affordable. It can add housing while adding debt. It can approve development while increasing traffic, servicing costs, policing pressure, fire costs, staff costs and infrastructure deficits.

More rooftops do not automatically mean a stronger city.

More permits do not automatically mean prosperity.

More population does not automatically mean better jobs, safer streets, lower taxes, or a healthier local economy.

At some point, responsible civic leadership has to ask whether Nanaimo is growing better — or merely spreading wider.

Does This Keep The Nanaimo That Attracted People Here?

There is another question that rarely gets asked at City Hall:

Does this kind of growth preserve the Nanaimo that attracted people here in the first place?

People did not come to Nanaimo because they wanted another overbuilt, overtaxed, congested, anonymous city. They came for the harbour, the neighbourhoods, the scale, the access to nature, the local character, and the feeling that Nanaimo was still a real community — not just another development opportunity waiting to be serviced.

If growth destroys the very qualities that made Nanaimo attractive, then what exactly are we gaining?

A city can add density and still lose community. It can add housing and still lose affordability. It can add projects and still lose livability. It can add tax base and still leave taxpayers poorer.

That is not progress. That is managed decline with ribbon cuttings.

Growth Should Serve The Community

The City should be focused first on the people already here: holding the line on taxes and fees, maintaining core infrastructure, supporting good local jobs, improving public safety, protecting neighbourhoods, and making sure municipal spending does not keep outrunning household affordability.

That does not mean slamming the door on all development. It means applying a simple standard:

New growth must clearly benefit the community, and it must pay its own way.

If a project cannot proceed unless taxpayers borrow money to provide the sewer capacity, road access, water systems or servicing needed to make it viable, then perhaps the project is not truly viable.

Perhaps it is publicly subsidized.

Council should stop asking only:

“How do we accommodate more growth?”

The better question is:

“Does this growth actually improve life for Nanaimo taxpayers?”

And after that:

“Who pays?”

If the answer is higher taxes, higher utility fees, more borrowing, more reserves drained, more infrastructure pressure, and more costs shifted onto existing residents, then taxpayers should be skeptical.

The Bottom Line

Nanaimo does not need to become bigger at any cost.

It needs to become better managed.

Growth should protect what made Nanaimo worth living in, not pave it over and send the servicing bill to the people who already live here.

A well-run city does not chase growth like a prize while asking taxpayers to pick up the infrastructure bill afterward. A well-run city protects existing residents first, demands honest accounting, and makes sure private development does not become a public liability.

Public infrastructure for public need is one thing.
Public borrowing to unlock private land value is another.

Nanaimo taxpayers should not be expected to finance sprawl and then be told to call it progress.