Making the Business Case for Using Development Cost Charges for Climate Mitigation

Budgetary constraints are one of the biggest obstacles to local government action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A climate change mitigation development cost charge (DCC) could greatly assist local governments in overcoming this barrier. Planning and legal scholars have outlined the broad contours of such a fee and discussed the policy and technical issues involved in implementation. However, academic work has fallen short of working through these issues practically, even though DCC programs require very careful analysis to be legally defensible and practically feasible. This research project addresses this gap in research by fully developing the concept of a climate mitigation DCC; creating a framework and methodology to put the concept in practice; and demonstrating its practical application by using the City Centre area in Surrey, British Columbia as a case study. The goal of this project is to inspire planners to creatively use DCCs for environmental protection.

Faculty Supervisor:

Tim McDaniels

Student:

Partner:

City of Surrey;BC Hydro (Vancouver, BC)

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Public administration

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program: